TIPP OVER THE EDGE..
Premier men staring at the abyss after just two games
TIPPERARY have less than a fortnight to save their season after back to back Munster round robin defeats by Waterford and Clare.
Colm Bonnar’s side need a result at the home of Allireland champions Limerick on Sunday week if they’re to retain any hope of getting out of the group and going on in the Championship.
The Premier men have issues at both ends of the field, with their starting attack managing just three points from play and their defence shipping three first half goals against Clare.
“They seemed to cut us open very quickly,” said Tipperary boss Colm Bonnar.
“They were just so quick on top of everything in that first 20, 25 minutes. It made us look a bit flat footed. That’s something we have to revisit.”
Tipp’s top scorer from play was substitute Ger Browne, who hit 1-3, while Jason Forde and Jake Morris were held scoreless from play, and it took Mark Kehoe 53 minutes to land his only score of the day.
The team shot 16 wides and missed from 19 shots in all, with Forde’s goal effort after 12 minutes blocked by Diarmuid Ryan, and Michael Breen hitting a post and dropping another point effort short.
“We had chances as well,” said Bonnar. “When Clare were taking theirs, we just needed to kind of give ourselves some hope of staying in the game.
“Those three goals really pushed the game to a place where we didn’t think we would be.”
Bonnar continued: “We are not doing ourselves favours.
“Maybe that comes with experience but it’s something that would give us a handle on the game where we can take the scores when we do create chances.
“I can only look at our side of it. We did create enough to bring the game back into the melting pot, but it just didn’t happen for us. “That’s the nature of it for a younger forward line. We just need to be more clinical. They have to be a bit more authoritative when taking those shots on.
“That will come because they will look back on the
Waterford game where we actually got it back to a point with about three or four minutes to go and we had three or four chances.
“When you’re 13 points down and you get a goal, you need to back it up with a couple of points.
“That is where you build momentum and a team starts really digging in more.
“Every miss, it gave Clare more energy. I thought the first 20 minutes we brought a big game to Clare but unfortunately it didn’t happen for us on the scoreboard where it needed to be.”