Colm Bonnar is focused only on Limerick with Tipp now long shots to qualify from Munster
Colm Bonnar refused to say if he believes Tipperary can still qualify for the All-Ireland series.
In what would be the second time in three round-robin versions of the Munster SHC, the county appear to be on their way out of the championship as they head to Limerick on May 15.
But Bonnar is only focusing on taking on the All-Ireland champions after this “big setback” against Clare.
“We never really looked that far,” he said of making the last eight of the All-Ireland SHC. “Initially, everybody said ourselves and Clare were in the bottom half of the table and Clare have brought a big game and now they are really in it. They are playing Cork here next Sunday. They have so much to play for.
“It’s going to test our character. We knew the two games coming up, Limerick and then Cork here – Cork love Thurles as well so every game is a big game. We wanted to win them all. I can’t say any different. It’s not like we went out and said we will try to contain this group. We went out to try and play it our way. We asked the players to have the courage and have the confidence to do what we are trying to get them to do in training.
“When it looks good in training, it looks awesome and I think we can beat anyone and then you get thrown back like that, so it’s going to test the character of this team and it’s going to test the development. As I said, we are building people, we are building players like this and we are trying to build this team.
“It doesn’t happen overnight even though I would still think on any given day if we click and we get it right we could drive into anyone so that will always be my belief. It didn’t happen today. We are going to go at it and hope it’s going to happen - we are going to try and make it happen on Sunday week.”
Asked about the injuries sustained by John McGrath (ankle) and James Quigley (hamstring), Bonnar remarked: “John McGrath, it looks a serious injury. I’m just hoping it’s not what it is. Nobody likes to see a player not finishing a game because they put so much into it and they’ve done so much to get onto the first 15 so to come off injured is not a nice place to be. I'm just hoping they’re not long-term injuries.”
