by Cliona Foley

He has been part of one famous giant-killing team before and Michael Quinlivan is hoping to do it again in the AIB Munster SFC final in Mallow on Sunday.

Four years ago Quinlivan was one of the star forwards when Tipperary's minors famously beat Dublin to win the All-Ireland title. Since then football has brought him further highs and lows.

He has reached and lost two Munster U21 finals but won a Sigerson when he went to UCC for a year's business studies after graduating with a teaching degree from Mary Immaculate College in Limerick.

Now he's a young accountancy trainee with Price Waterhouse Cooper in Dublin and part of the Clonmel Commercials team looking to take one of the biggest scalps in club football this weekend; the mighty Nemo Rangers.

"It is a massive opportunity on Sunday but obviously it's against a very good team," he says of the legendary Cork champions who are chasing a record 16th Munster title.

Clonmel got this far 21 years ago but lost to Castlehaven.

No Tipperary team has ever won Munster and Fethard were the last ones to even contest a final in 2001 so can Quinlivan, once again, be part of a team of history-makers?

"They have some very very good players and some big stars so we'll see how that goes," he says. "Hopefully we can impose ourselves on the game and take it from there."

After beating Moyle Rovers in a thrilling county final and knocking out the Limerick and Clare champions Clonmel are definitely daring to dream and would love to plough a furrow for others in the county.

"If we could turn over Nemo it would pave the way for other Tipperary teams to do the same because there are some very good teams in Tipp and we had to beat some good teams to get here," Quinlivan says.

He believes Clonmel certainly won't be cowed by their opponent's vaunted reputation.

"I think a lot of our  problems are when we're playing against teams we're expected to beat. We never have problem playing against bigger teams or what people consider bigger teams.

"I don't think the mental battle is going to come into it. A lot of us have been playing in teams that have beaten Cork so I don't think that's an issue," he stresses.

Clonmel's comeback victory over Newcastle West  - they were four down with five minutes to go - was definitely one to savour and has given the Tipperary champions real confidence ahead of the final hurdle.

"They brought an intensity to that game that we really hadn't seen in the championship and to be honest they were definitely the toughest opponents we played all year.

"Their defending was super for 55 minutes but we always felt we had enough, we were never going to give up. It's been a trait of us all this year.

"We always feel that we have legs coming off the bench. We're a very young team and if we can get a run we'll always kick on from that.

"I think it was nine years since we had won a game in Munster which isn't acceptable for a team coming out of Tipperary. It definitely gave us huge confidence going into our semi-final, to not let the same start happen two weeks ago, to make sure that we wouldn't have to pull it out of the fire again."

With Tipperary reaching an All-Ireland U21 final this year there is no denying that the county has huge football talent.

"I think we've garnered enough respect with what's happened with the football over the last few years, people are starting to consider us a serious dual county," Quinlivan says.

"Obviously we'll still have a few stumbling blocks over the next few years to get to the level we want to but it's nothing we feel we can't get past.

"The main thing for football in Tipperary is getting the backing of the people. We are culturally a hurling  county, always have been always will be, so if we can garner even half the support that'd be great for us."

Beating Nemo would be another huge step on that journey.

*For exclusive content throughout the AIB club championships follow @AIB_GAA and facebook/com/AIBGAA and use #TheToughest

(Tipperary champions Clonmel Commercials play Cork champions Nemo Rangers in the AIB Munster Club SFC final on Sunday (Nov 29) in Mallow at 2pm).

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