Tipp’s lack of sharpness proves their undoing

By Shane Brophy

In the end, the game panned out as was feared that Waterford’s greater pace and speed would be the difference. However, it was also a game Tipperary had their chance of winning.

Firstly, you can’t expect to win a championship match conceding 4-28, the largest score ever conceded by Tipperary in senior championship hurling, only eclipsed overall by the 1-40 Westmeath conceded to Cork in the 2019 All-Ireland preliminary quarter final.

However, Tipperary are a gold-standard inter-county hurling team and to concede that amount, even in modern high-scoring hurling, is not a good look.

On the day, Waterford’s efficiency in front of goal was incredible, 32 scores from 42 shots, a strike-rate of 75% which is very high, and came about from getting the ball to the man in the right position which makes converting chances that little bit easier.

Such a high strike-rate in front of goal is usually the calling card of Tipperary teams, and in the modern game where having more shots at goal than the opposition usually sees that team win, on this occasion, it didn’t work out that way for Tipperary.

Only converting 57% of their chances was way below their usual standard, with another high wides tally of sixteen, an aspect that has been a blight on the season right from the start of the league. We would have expected that as the season wore on that Tipp would have become sharper in front of goal and less wasteful, and in many other instances, 2-27 would have been enough to win a lot of games but in modern hurling, you have to take your chances.

They can point to the three goal chances that went a beginning in the second half as being costly, but as much were Tipp’s poor option taking from out the field. Of the thirteen wides shot from open play, ten were from 65-yards or beyond; that is a killer when you have high calibre forwards inside looking for possession, even if they were struggling to hold off the tight-marking Waterford backs where Conor Prunty was a bully, in the best sense of defending.

Ronan & Padraic Maher are colossal players for Tipperary and are well capable of scoring from long range, but they shoot too often. Ronan scored three points from long range, but he also sent three wide, along with a long range free. Padraic sent two wide, including a killer in the dying minutes when Tipp were in the ascendency and the forwards had finally gotten the upper-hand on the Waterford defence.

It was as if the Tipp players overall were so driven to make a positive impact on the ball, they lost a little of the composure of doing the right thing with the ball, and that is all it can take to lose a game at this level.

This could explain their lack of sharpness right from the throw-in. Normally, Tipperary’s first touch and passing is slick but on this occasion, they weren’t getting the ball up first time and when they did there was fumbling of possession, and in those instances Waterford pounced, highlighted by their first goal for Austin Gleeson where Brendan Maher and Barry Heffernan both had chances to win possession but didn’t and Patrick Curran and Jack Prendergast nipped in.

After the manner of the second half performance in the Munster Final defeat to Limerick two weeks previous, there was no doubt there was increased pressure on the Tipperary players selected to bounce back and maybe that pressure led to some of the fumbling of possession as the confidence was lacking slightly.

Another aspect of a dent in confidence was their passing which wasn’t as crisp as usually associated with them. Austin Gleeson’s first half sideline cut point came from an overshot Barry Heffernan pass to Noel McGrath, similarly from Michael Breen later in the half which resulted in a Shane McNulty point. Then there was the second Waterford goal for Dessie Hutchinson, which came from Tipperary overplaying the ball in the middle of the field with Jason Forde’s pass to Noel McGrath not quite on the money, however, Noel shouldn’t have allowed himself to be blocked down, from where Waterford broke into space.

Both Forde and McGrath were also involved in the seminal moment which was decisive for Tipperary in the 55th minute when Noel found himself in space and in such a three-on-two scenario, Tipp would usually be ruthless, however Noel’s pass to Jason wasn’t straight to hand as if it were, the net would have bulged and the margin would have been down to four with plenty of time left. Instead, Forde was forced to improvise brilliantly and forced Waterford keeper Shaun O’Brien into a smart save, with Seamus Callanan pulling the loose ball wide. The Tipp captain should have scored in any case, but the chance should whave been converted earlier in the move.

That play encapsulated Tipperary on a wider scale as that crispness were missing in terms of their sharpness in all aspects of their game. A fully confident Tipp and those kind of chances aren’t wasted.

Games can also be decided on big calls and much like the Munster Final, any bit of luck that was going didn’t fall Tipp’s way. It’s as if the big penalty call Tipp benefitted from against Clare came against them, as with the Gillane non-red card against Limerick at a time when Tipp were still well ahead on the scoreboard. Then here against Waterford in the decisive period after half time where Tipp have had their struggles this year, Waterford were awarded a very soft penalty, for what we still are unsure about, but once Stephen Bennett converted it, it was a long way back for Tipperary.

One thing we were sure about was that this Tipperary team wouldn’t throw in the towel when they fell eight points down at one stage and with the help of the fresh legs of Willie Connors, Mark Kehoe, and John McGrath who contributed four points between them, and the hard work of Niall O’Meara, the finally put Waterford on the back foot, and but for an incredible piece of goalkeeping by Shaun O’Brien to deflect McGrath’s goal-bound shot over the bar, Tipp would have been level with ninety seconds of injury time left and who knows how the game would have turned out from there.

However, it must be said that despite Waterford again struggling in the fourth quarter, they still had enough resolve to get the crucial scores and in subs Michael Kiely, Colin Dunford, and particularly Neil Montgomery, whose 73rd minute goal finally broke the Tipp spirit, and is in the end why they were the deserving winners and remain in the hunt for All-Ireland honours.