Tipperary’s defeat of Clare in last Sunday’s opening Munster Senior Hurling Championship game ticked a few important boxes for the Premier County.
It was their first championship win for the best part of two years, a total of 658 days, since they beat Clare in the Munster semi-final in July 2021.
It stopped a depressing run of six successive championship defeats. And, hopefully, it has provided the team with the momentum they will need for the remainder of what will be a difficult campaign in the province, with matches against Cork, All-Ireland champions Limerick and Waterford still to come.
Clare weren’t among the favourites to lift the MacCarthy Cup before this game started. But a win against an aggressive Clare team, with a jam-packed Cusack Park providing a raucous backdrop, isn’t something to be sniffed at.
Despite building up a 10-point lead in the first half, Tipp found themselves under duress for much of that opening period, and in the second half they had to withstand more severe pressure.
Clare didn’t do themselves any favours by conceding a few soft goals, but overall it was the sort of examination that you wouldn’t have fancied Tipp to have passed either last year or the previous year.
Even if they all didn’t perform to the peak of their powers, the application, workrate and attitude of every Tipperary player was laudable. They started at a high tempo, surging 1-3 to no score ahead inside the first three and a bit minutes, and never relented. No one took a backward step throughout the seventy-plus minutes.
The individual highlights were supplied by sharpshooter Jake Morris, who scored 2-4 from play, and Jason Forde’s accuracy from placed balls, which yielded 2-6.
From numbers one to fifteen, and beyond, every player was singing from the same hymn sheet, and perfectly tuned in to what was required of them. There was goalkeeper Barry Hogan’s important save from Aidan McCarthy on the stroke of half-time.
Bryan O’Mara, Brian McGrath, Ronan Maher and Cathal Barrett were defensive linchpins, with Noel McGrath pulling the strings from the middle of the field.
And when minds and bodies began to tire near the end, Sean Ryan - what a championship debut he had, scoring a goal and a point - Conor Bowe, Mark Kehoe, Enda Heffernan and Conor Stakelum came on to help finish the job.
Alan Tynan, making his championship debut, and John McGrath, on his return to championship action since suffering a serious injury in the corresponding fixture almost 12 months ago, often found themselves on the periphery of the action in this helter-skelter of a game.
Despite those difficulties, both players still contributed a point apiece and were part of a performance that, while still leaving considerable room for improvement, secured that all-important win on the opening day of the championship.
The overall display will have lifted the spirits of their supporters, not to mention Liam Cahill and his backroom team, ahead of their next game, another awkward away assignment against Cork at Páirc Uí Chaoimh at 7pm on Saturday evening week, May 6.
Afterwards, manager Liam Cahill said “While it is great to come to Ennis anytime and win, we won’t be getting too carried away with aspects of our play today.
“We would be disappointed to give away three goals.
“When we got our chances we seemed to take them a bit easier than Clare.
“There’s plenty to go on. Championship hurling brings that little bit of an edge and a little nervousness”
