Tipperary 5-22 Clare 3-23
A first Tipperary championship win since July of 2021. A first Munster championship defeat at home for Clare since June 2019.
For the visitors to Ennis, seven championship defeats in a row could not be countenanced. They were as ravenous to correct that most un-Tipperary of stats as they were for green flags.
Having crafted 14 goals in five league games, Liam Cahill’s charges further swelled that count with five here.
The first two came gift wrapped. There was an element of the third being a present too. But four and five captured the extent to which Tipp torched the Clare full-back line.
Jake Morris, as he had done for his second and Tipp’s third on 22 minutes, showed a clean pair of heels to all saffron shirts in close proximity seven minutes into the second half.
David McInerney would be damned if he was going to allow Morris repeat his first half trick. The half-back conceded the penalty, took a black card for his goal-denying action, and got little thanks for it in the end as Jason Forde dispatched the penalty.
Forde finished with 2-6. Not one point of it from play. Morris was next with 2-4, every one of them got off amid the open environs of a Clare defence that lacked for authority.
Six behind (4-13 to 2-13) and a man down, the hosts were unable to wipe out a deficit they had successfully erased in the opening quarter.
Their task grew beyond them on 63 minutes. Tipp sub Sean Ryan, with his first championship touch, delivered green flag number five.
Tipp head home on the front foot. For Clare, the defeat is by no means fatal. But theirs is now the very real prospect of being pointless when Cork visit for their third outing on May 21. Why so? Well because Limerick are next on the schedule next week - in Limerick.
The first half came and went in a blur. A film reel spinning at an impossible pace.
With all that had been served up and all that had to be digested, the half-time ham sandwiches found themselves surplus to requirements among the well fed 17,971 in Ennis.
After three minutes and three seconds, Tipperary had hurried into a six-point 1-3 to 0-0 lead. Jake Morris and two of the McGrath brothers, Brian and Noel, raised early white flags. The green flag, meanwhile, was a Jason Forde sideline cut that went all the way to the net from outside the 45-metre line.
The goal marked the beginning of a difficult opening half for Clare ‘keeper Eamonn Foudy. More on that further on.
Clare’s response to conceding 1-3 in the blink of an eye was to reel off six on the spin to tie matters by the 12th minute.
And so the tone of the opening half was set. No matter the period of dominance enjoyed by either side and no matter the amount of scores put on the board during said spell of supremacy, there was no getting away from the other crowd.
This was a tug of war without end.
On 29 minutes, Gearoid O’Connor hit the first of his two points to shove Tipp’s lead into double-digit figures. 3-9 to 0-8.
Foudy was again at fault for Tipp’s second, the Clare goalkeeper dispossessed in possession by Jake Morris. Morris was again the finisher for their third on 23 minutes, John Conlon turned over after receiving a short restart from Foudy.
All three were avoidable.
Clare needed more than Aidan McCarthy placed balls to bring some rope back in their direction. The half-forward, playing his first championship game since July of 2021, accounted for eight of their 11 first half white flags.
Step forward Mark Rodgers. The corner-forward engineered and executed two goals in just over two minutes to bring the interval gap back to four (3-12 to 2-11).
His first was a Tony Kelly skyscraper superbly fetched and finished. His second was a one-two with McCarthy. The latter was so unlucky not to add a third Clare major in injury-time, his shot stopped by Barry Hogan.
Clare finished with 3-23. It wasn’t anywhere near enough. Welcome back Munster championship fare, how we’ve missed you.
Scorers for Tipperary: J Forde (2-6, 1-1 sideline, 1-0 pen, 0-5 frees); J Morris (2-4); S Ryan (1-1); N McGrath (0-3); G O’Connor (0-2); C Bowe, S Kennedy, M Kehoe, B McGrath, J McGrath, A Tynan (0-1 each).
Scorers for Clare: A McCarthy (1-12, 0-7 frees, 0-2 65s); M Rodgers (2-0); R Taylor, I Galvin, S Meehan (0-2 each); D Ryan, J Conlon, T Kelly, R Mounsey (0-1 each).
Tipperary: B Hogan; M Breen, C Barrett, J Ryan; B McGrath, B O’Mara, R Maher; D McCormack, A Tynan; G O’Connor, N McGrath, S Kennedy; J Morris, J McGrath, J Forde.
Subs: C Stakelum for Tynan (45); M Kehoe for J McGrath (58); S Ryan for O’Connor (63); C Bowe for N McGrath (70); E Heffernan for B McGrath (73).
Clare: E Foudy; A Hogan; C Cleary, P Flanagan; D Ryan, J Conlon, D McInerney; C Malone, R Taylor; A McCarthy, P Duggan, S O’Donnell; I Galvin, T Kelly, M Rodgers.
Subs: R Hayes for Hogan (44); S Meehan for Galvin (52); A Shanagher for Rodgers (62); R Mounsey for Taylor (66); J Kirwan for Duggan (70).
Referee: T Walsh (Waterford).
