Tipperary 2-20 Limerick 1-19:QUALIFIERS notwithstanding, yesterday must have been a time of great stress for Tipperary connections. Trailing by seven points heading into the last quarter, the GAA Munster hurling champions were staring down the barrel of the biggest surprise in the province for a while.
Their misfiring team, groomed for a few years as the only serious contenders in the world of Kilkenny and the team that interrupted the gilded sequence of the All-Ireland champions two years ago, were on the verge of elimination by a wholehearted, young Limerick side.
Somehow, Tipp found a response and in the final 15 minutes doubled their score from 1-10 to 2-20, sufficient to take them past and keep them in front of the by now faltering challenge.
There will, by the time postmortems have been concluded, be something for everyone in this provincial quarter-final. Limerick were under pressure after a disappointing but hamstrung league campaign had failed to deliver promotion, whereas Tipp had not impressed in Division One A.
They proceeded to come out sluggishly on to what should have been a perfect afternoon – Semple Stadium’s broad expanses glistening in the hot summer sun. But it was the outsiders that struck the early tempo and Tipperary struggled.
By the time the match headed into its endgame from the 55th minute, Declan Ryan had thrown in a full complement of replacements and, as acknowledged by both sides, the quality of the Tipp bench made a sufficient impact to shift the match on to a different track.
Balancing the feeling of satisfaction for Ryan and his management must have been the underperforming display of the selected 15.
They took a long time to get settled, as both teams shuffled their starting line-ups around with Tipp’s forward zipping in and out of various positions and it was Limerick, chiefly through the efforts of Shane Dowling, who had a most impressive debut, who pushed into early command of the match.
Their movement was good and their shooting economical – two wides in each half, one of which wasn’t an attempt at a score – but the home side played into their hands with sloppy defending and some poor clearances.
Dowling capitalised with the first five of Limerick’s points, two from play, to the two that Tipp could muster. Despite all of this adversity, the favourites were hanging on and in the 18th minute closed the three-point gap when Brian O’Meara, the only starting forward to impress consistently and who had just hit a nice point, laid off neatly to Pa Bourke in support and his low shot across Nicky Quaid arrowed into the bottom corner of the net.
Tipperary’s forwards were still far from clicking and Eoin Kelly was wide with a couple of shots and Noel McGrath’s input was intermittent, but they managed to stay in touch after Graeme Mulcahy had been gifted a second chance – after Brendan Cummins had saved his first shot, but the defence failed to clear – to put Limerick 1-8 to 1-4 ahead.
At the other end, Limerick’s defence were enthusiastically throwing themselves around at every assault – one passage of play just after the half-hour featuring four separate blocks on Tipp attackers. Again, though, Limerick didn’t pull away and the champions presumably felt happy to be just a point behind, 1-8 to 1-9, at the break.
Nonetheless, the third quarter was the stuff of nightmares for Tipperary. Far from exploiting their proximity to the challengers they watched as six unanswered points rained over from all points, as Kevin Downes, Dowling, David Breen, Mulcahy and Seán Tobin converted chances with a crisp aplomb.
Eoin Kelly was replaced – his last action to be fouled a couple of times without reward on a run through the middle – and significantly Patrick Maher made his reappearance, the first since last year’s All-Ireland final.
It nearly got worse for Tipperary in the 50th minute when trailing, 1-9 to 1-15, they watched as Kevin Downes took possession immediately after Limerick had conceded the first score of the second half and flicked the ball into David Breen but, with a goal at his mercy, the wing forward fumbled and Paul Curran cleared.
The match turned as Patrick Maher began to make a nuisance of himself and Limerick mysteriously withdrew Downes, allowing Conor O’Mahony to get into his stride and mop up a succession of dropping ball.
Referee Barry Kelly emerged from his reluctant period with the whistle and began to call fouls and Tipp began to cut the deficit – hitting six points to one in the 10 minutes until the 65th when the vital breach was made.
Patrick Maher was instrumental but could have been penalised for charging; instead O’Meara came in behind the ruck and clipped the ball into the net to put Tipp ahead at 2-15 to 1-17.
From then on, they outscored Limerick by 0-5 to 0-2 and Tipperary had effected their escape. Cork are next up and are unlikely to be as accommodating, but the outing will stand to the winners.
TIPPERARY: B Cummins; D Maher, P Curran, M Cahill; T Stapleton (0-1), C O’Mahony, P Maher; J Woodlock, B Maher; G Ryan, N McGrath (0-3), P Bourke (1-7, four points frees and one 65); E Kelly (0-1, free), B O’Meara (1-2), J O’Brien (0-1). Subs: S McGrath (0-1) for Woodlock (28 mins), Patrick Maher for Kelly (42 mins), C O’Brien (0-1) for D Maher (49 mins), S Callanan (0-2, one free) for Ryan (52 mins), S Bourke (0-1) for J O’Brien (64). Yellow card: Cahill (15).
LIMERICK: N Quaid; S Walsh, R McCarthy, T Condon; W McNamara, D O’Grady, G O’Mahony; P Browne, J Ryan; D Breen (0-1), C Allis (0-2), S Dowling (0-8, four frees); G Mulcahy (1-2), K Downes (0-2), S Tobin (0-3). Subs: D Hannon (0-1) for Downes (51 mins), B Geary for Allis (64 mins), N Moran for Tobin (65 mins), T Ryan for McNamara (70 mins). Yellow cards: Condon (19 mins), Dowling (42 mins), Walsh (48 mins), Mulcahy (50 mins), McCarthy (59 mins).
Referee: Barry Kelly (Westmeath).
THE SUBSTITUTIONS WE MADE WORKED’
BEING AS he is, unflappable, Declan Ryan’s demeanour bore little witness to the fact that he had been very tight margins from having to conduct an altogether more disagreeable post-match media scrum.
Instead, he was able to reflect on a late deliverance, chiefly the work of his extensive list of replacements.
“The substitutions we made worked reasonably well, all the lads that came on made a huge contribution, they added a lot of energy to the game. It was very warm out there and it was great they had the impact they did,” said Ryan.
Although there were improvements all over the pitch – replacement corner back Conor O’Brien even got up for a point and Shane McGrath energised a static centrefield – it was the first appearance of the season by Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher that really got the crowd buzzing.
“Patrick has great energy about him,” said Ryan, “Shane (McGrath) has been going very well in training in the last three weeks. Im just delighted with what they added when they came on.”
Captain Paul Curran was just relieved. “It was looking dodgy because you could hear the Limerick supporters in full voice and I suppose we just dug deep. There were seven points in it at one stage and it ended up four so we were lucky.”
Limerick manager John Allen was torn between satisfaction with his young side’s storming attempt at a major upset and regret at what, trimmings aside, was a championship defeat.
“Well you see I thought we were going to win the game and I went to the bookies yesterday to prove it. Our training in the past six weeks had been really good. We had a game last Friday night, a green versus white we’ll call it, where a number of altercations took place which kind of was really the way our training had gone all along.
“There was a real intensity in training. The team on Wednesday night wasn’t a foregone conclusion. There were players who certainly weren’t sure that they were going to get on the team. I’m extremely proud of the team. They were heroic really, but this game is about winning.
“This game will bring us on, but championship games are all about winning. Today’s performance is great for confidence – I’m sure the Limerick public will have been impressed so yes, it will bring us on.”
