Where do Tipp go from here?
Not a hurling championship campaign anyone foresaw coming....Tipperary out of it on June 10th.
Less than two years on from All Ireland glory, Tipperary have fallen dramatically from their perch. A team of so much vim and vigour on that September day in Croke Park has been replaced by a team lacking in confidence.
The quality is still there but for the last fourteen months or so, the nature of the defeats in big league and championship games has eroded away the belief which has been replaced by an element of panic, highlighted in some of basic errors against Clare last Sunday which handed them so many cheap frees which kept them in the game.
A Tipperary team moving well wouldn't be making those mistakes and would have put a Clare team, under pressure themselves, to the sword.
This fall will be what will be exercising the mind of manager Michael Ryan as he trawls through the coals of the campaign in the coming months to identify why Tipperary have dropped down the pecking order of All Ireland contenders. The Upperchurch/Drombane clubman still has two years left on his current term along with his coach Declan Fanning, and selectors John Madden and Conor Stakelum. The manner in which he spoke after last Sunday suggests he will remain on after suggesting that the demands of reaching the National League final and then many of his players going into a busy club championship schedule, left Tipperary under-cooked heading into the championship.
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