TIPP ARE STILL THE TEAM TO BEAT
Premier have class to recover after reality check in League final
WE HAVE a peculiar habit in this country of making snap judgements based on one event. Whatever happened last Sunday, that’s it. That’s the story for the year. It’s Galway’s All-Ireland. Tipperary aren’t the team to put back-toback titles together. The Championship is wide open.
It’s easy to understand the rush to judgement but a little bit of context wouldn’t go astray. What about last September? Hurling supporters were quick to hail one of the best performances by a forward line ever in an All-Ireland final when Tipperary’s inside line hit 2-21 – 2-15 from play – against reigning champions Kilkenny. Doesn’t that count for something, even now after being humbled in the Allianz League final?
While I fancied Tipperary after a spring in which they looked the best team in the country by five or six points, I said I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Galway win.
Because in recent years, I’ve continually said they are the second best team in Ireland. In 2015, only Kilkenny looked better. In 2016, nobody pushed Tipperary to the brink more.
They are the only team in Ireland who could have done that to Tipperary last Sunday.
In horse racing terms, it was a 16length win. A stroll in the park. But Tipperary are still the most likely Liam MacCarthy Cup winners to me. The League decider could yet prove to be a dress rehearsal for the All-Ireland.
Galway now have a serious central spine with Daithí Burke at three and Gearóid McInerney at six. And then they have all these fabulous hurlers up front, led by Joe Canning. They put up 3-21 without the injured Conor Cooney who was outstanding during the rest of the campaign.
To me though, the most important man on the team is David Burke. His ball-striking, his link play and his distribution is just unbelievable. And he has it upstairs, too. As soon as he hit a couple of wides out of character in the first half, he immediately stopped taking pot shots. Instead, he turned play-maker. For one handpass to Canning, the ball must have only been in his fingers for a millisecond before he popped the pass to set up a point. He then played in Canning for another.
Looking back at the fine margins against Tipperary in the All-Ireland semi-final last August, Canning’s loss through injury and that of Adrian Tuohy was key.
No big surprise then that they won. Well done to them.
Finding out where it all went so badly wrong for Tipperary is a bit trickier.
Last September, they gave one of the truly great displays in an AllIreland final.
In 2010, it was something similar. With five Under 21s on the team, I said that night that I thought they’d win three of the next five All-Irelands. Instead, it took six years to climb back to the summit. The reality is that the Tipperary tradition that is spoken of dates back to the 1960s. Since then, the strike rate has been roughly one All-Ireland every 10 years. It’s nothing like the old big-three rivalry with Kilkenny and Cork that used to be there. So it was such a monkey off their back to win again last September. I’ve no doubt there were huge celebrations after. It is very hard to get up to the level again the following spring – how Kilkenny did it over the years is remarkable really.
There seemed to be maturity there during the League. Some people tried to suggest they weren’t trying against Galway – I don’t buy that. If you don’t go out in the right frame of mind, that can happen. Once the game started to go away from Tipperary, they were simply blown away.
The tough campaign in Division 1A looked like it caught up with them.
No disrespect to Galway, but playing Offaly, Wexford, Laois, Kerry and Limerick isn’t quite the same.
So it gives Tipperary a timely reality check ahead of the summer. I thought they were five or six points better than anyone – and I wasn’t alone.
It raises question marks too over certain players. Michael Cahill was caught for pace and didn’t look comfortable all day. Cathal Barrett was cleaned out by Conor Whelan. The Galway forward line overpowered the Tipp defence with power, pace, and ball-winning ability. Even the Mahers, Ronan and Pádraic, struggled. Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher might have been missing from the starting line-up in attack but nobody obvious was absent in the backline. That was their best six. So, to see them really struggle gives everyone else encouragement. All of a sudden, it sparks a bit of life into the Munster championship. I was expecting Tipperary to win the League and coast through Munster but Cork suddenly have more reason for optimism ahead of their quarter-final meeting. Nobody was declaring Tipperary a great team. Not with one AllIreland. But they still have a chance to put themselves up on a pedestal. If Galway play like that all Championship, they can’t be beaten. But the thing is, they have to do it four or five times during the summer. So many other things are required to win the All-Ireland. Hurling ability is one. All the pressure then of all the other years comes back into play when you reach a final. Tipperary have done it. Some of those finals that they featured in going back to 2009 have been some of the best All-Irelands. They won’t be down for long.