Kearns excited by Mayo challenge

Tipperary manager Liam Kearns feels if the lessons are learnt following the Munster semi-final defeat to Cork, his side have a massive chance of upsetting Mayo on this Saturday’s All Ireland senior football championship round 2 qualifier.

The Premier County produced their poorest performance in the Kearns era in the provincial semi-final lost to the rebels last month and while the Tipp boss felt their preparations were hindered by having just seven days to prepare off the quarter final win over Waterford, they made too many mistakes on the evening.

“Having looked at the game, the first 20-25 minutes, the huge difference is they were taking their scores at their end and we were, again, unfortunately for us, and the Cavan game was another example, because we didn't take our chances which is normally our strong point,” he reflecting.

“We got opportunities for three goals and three of our points, and we got zero so you can't do that an expect to win big games.

“Even at that, would we have won had we taken some scores? We'll never know now but at the same time I don't think our performance was good enough. We were out worked and out tackled. They looked like they wanted it more, lots of things that when Tipperary play Cork, they might be better than you but you don't expect to be losing out in those areas.”

However, Kearns was keen to stress that it wasn’t all on his forwards who scored just nine points, his defence were also off the pace with Cork finding too many gaps.

They took a week off after that loss before regrouping for the qualifiers and Kearns is welcoming the challenge Mayo will pose, compared to some of the easier draws Tipp could have gotten at this stage.

“It's great to have a chance to redeem ourselves, to go out and perform so we are delighted to get the opportunity, it would be worse if you had to live with that for the year.

 

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