By Shane Brophy
Since the emergence of Clare, Limerick, and Waterford on a consistent basis over the last thirty years, the Tipperary v Cork rivalry at senior level has been diluted as their dominance in Munster hasn’t been as great as it was in the first century of the GAA.
Well, it got a new lease of life on Saturday evening as the sides played out a Munster Championship classic on the banks of the Lee. Big Saturday championship games this early in the season take getting used to but the Munster Council are onto a winner if the last two weekends are to go by and you can see them becoming marquee games in the coming years. A crowd of over 36,000 in a fantastic match venue of Pairc Ui Chaoimh, a beautiful evening, and two teams coming in with positive momentum provided the perfect platform for a rivalry game and it didn’t disappoint.
The major disappointment from a Tipperary point of view is that they didn’t take both points from a game they dominated for large spells. When you break down the individual performances on both sides, Tipperary had way more with Dan McCormack, Bryan O’Mara, and Ronan Maher strong in the half back line, Alan Tynan and Seamus Kennedy contributing seven points from play in midfield, and up front the glorious touches and vision of Noel McGrath, complementing the sniping ability of Jake Morris and sub Mark Kehoe, all producing performances of strength, but still it wasn’t enough to win, with only Ciaran Joyce, Declan Dalton and sub Shane Kingston matching them for impact on the Cork side.
However, when you concede four goals, and Cork had good opportunities for at least two more, it is hard to win any game, no matter who dominant you are.
Defensively, Tipp are still a work in progress and should gel better the more they play together. It has to be remembered that Michael Breen, while experienced, is still a novice at full back at this level. Johnny Ryan is but a cub, learning on the job, largely due to the enforced absences of Craig Morgan and Barry Heffernan. Ryan has all the attributes of a top corner back in the making but is still physically light as was shown when Robbie O’Flynn bounced off his tackle for Cork’s second goal.
Bryan O’Mara might be 23-years-old, but he is a novice at this level and still has filling out to do but you can see the potential in him as a long serving centre back. He is helped by having two experienced colonels either side of him in Ronan Maher and Dan McCormack who both hurled well.
What is a problem is that, apart from Breen, the rest of the Tipp defence lacks pace and is why when they get turned, there is the potential to concede goals as has happened against Clare and Cork. However, as they get to play more together, hopefully that understanding will come.
One area that will have to be worked on is how Tipp close out games when having a decent lead. In both Munster games so far, the Tipp defence has been too open in the closing stages. There needs to be a change in system, much like Limerick do when they have a lead around the fifty-minute mark where they pretty much sit back and ensure their defence is compact, where essentially, they play a counter-attacking game, but crucially still remain potent in attack, and Tipp have the weaponry to do the same.
All players are monitored in-game in terms of their energy levels and while Tipp’s bench was impactful again, few changes were in the defence or midfield, bar the late introduction of Enda Heffernan. The rest were all attacking changes, although one was enforced with Jason Forde limping out on sixteen minutes with a hamstring injury which thankfully isn’t too serious and was a precautionary measure to take him off. He was missed, particularly in his ability from dead-balls, with three missed in his absence, all in the second half, two from Gearoid O’Connor and the other by John McGrath in added time from 65-yards in front of the goal. Forde would likely have nailed all three and that is the ball-game.
You take learnings in every game and another one from the management is knowing who their third free-taker is when Forde and O’Connor are off the pitch, as they were when McGrath stood over his free. He takes the frees for Loughmore/Castleiney and would have been disappointed to have missed, but he is a player still short on confidence in the Tipperary jersey, and there is no doubt that if he got it that it would have done wonders for him, but it was a risk that didn’t pay off.
This is where Noel McGrath needed to step up as captain and take on the responsibility. While he was trusting in his brother to convert it, this was a key moment and Noel can take frees to a high level as we saw against Limerick last year. Plus, he was playing so well on the evening, arguably his best performance at this level, having a hand in no fewer than 1-6 of Tipp’s total. An assassin without having to pull the trigger!
Despite the areas of concern, there was still a lot to like about the Tipperary performance, becoming more composed on the ball right from the back. Their use of the ball and space, particularly Seamus Kennedy who was left untracked on the right wing throughout and was found regularly.
The workrate in the middle third was ferocious with Kennedy, Conor Stakelum and Alan Tynan really dominating that area with the latter announcing himself on this stage with a four point haul, but his physicality and hard running is just as vital.
Sean Ryan might have been whipped off at half time in his first championship start but there was a lot to like in what he did and will come on from it, particularly as Conor Bowe’s chances of getting more time will have been hurt as he didn’t make the impact hoped, replaced again late on by Seamus Callanan who almost made the dream return but Patrick Collins made a superb intervention to deny him a match-winning goal. However, as impressive was Callanan’s sharpness on the rebound to nail the point which proved to be important in the end and come the end of the round-robin, this point could be the one that sees Tipperary hurling into June and hopefully beyond.
