Eagerness to do the right thing came against us - Mullaney

By Enda Treacy

The disappointment of losing in yet another national semi-final was clear to see on the face of Tipperary manager Bill Mullaney, as Galway proved again to be a bridge too far, but the Ballinahinch man was still quick to lavish praise on his players despite starting the game slowly once again.

“Wexford, Waterford, the same thing,” he bemoaned.

“We kind of respect the teams too much almost. We get into the dressing room at half-time, you give them a talk and they know it themselves and then they go out and you’re another team.

“But when you’re two or three points behind a team like Galway it’s hard to make up that gap and then to get in front.”

One thing is for sure, the effort certainly wasn’t lacking from the Premier ladies when the chips were down, and they were so close to finishing off some excellent attacking play where they showed great cohesiveness and speed but were ultimately let down by that final decision in the scoring zone.

“So, I’m devastated for the players,” Mullaney reflected.

“In fairness, you couldn’t ask any more of them, they were absolutely unreal.

“Galway punished us, took their chances when they were on, although they had a lot of wides too, don’t forget.

“But inside, we could have pulled the trigger earlier or tapped them over. We were giving that extra pass to try and make the perfect goal.

In recent years, the lack of killer punch in raising green flags in the big games against the likes of Galway, Cork, and Kilkenny will not have gone unnoticed by management, and perhaps this played on the group's mind coming into the game, as they seemed to force the goal opportunities when perhaps the point would have been the better option in some cases.

“We’d oceans of chances,” Mullaney continued.

“Maybe getting carried away going for the kill, we could’ve tipped them over, got back level, got a point in front because we were dominating that end of the field in the second half.

“I was delighted with the way they were playing, I thought we were playing excellently. We just didn’t take the scores when they were on. We were trying to go for the big score when all we needed was one or two because there wasn’t that much between us.”