Kelly laments Hennessy red card which turned the game

By Thomas Conway

For the past several months, Tipperary have probably been tormented by the memory of their All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Galway last August. This one will torment them further.

It may even feel more painful, not least because the reasons underlying this defeat were not completely of their own making. In the final analysis, the performance of John Dermody and his officials was impossible to ignore. They arrived at two crucial decisions, at two critical junctures in the game.

The dismissal of Casey Hennessy in the fifteenth minute dramatically reduced Tipp’s prospects of winning, while the decision to award Galway a match-winning free in the fifth minute of stoppage time devastated those prospects entirely. Dermody will robustly defend those decisions, and when viewed through an objective lens, the technical arguments may well be on his side. But there’s no denying that Tipperary felt utterly aggrieved at the final-whistle, as selector Denis Kelly enunciated after the game.

"You hate focusing in on a referee's performance, but we were disappointed Casey got the straight red card,” he said.

“We felt she was going honestly for the ball, let fly, happened to make a connection, and then the next thing she was on the line.

“But look it, we're focusing on the girls, on us playing fourteen against fifteen for the majority of the game, and we really put our shoulder to the wheel. At stages we got caught - when the McGraths were introduced, we got caught for a goal - but other than that we were delighted with the girls, because they really put in some performance.”

The fact that Denis Kelly had the equanimity to place those controversial decisions aside and assess Tipperary’s performance more broadly speaks volumes about the man, but the players will have to adopt a similar mindset.

There was a myriad of positive aspects to Saturday’s display. In attack, Tipp worked the channels, created space, and conjured scores. From a defensive perspective, their performance was solid - they looked fragile on occasion, but held a compact, solid structure for much of the game.

The defining element of this performance, however, was their fitness levels. Galway are All-Ireland champions in part due to their superior conditioning and on-the-ball agility. Tipp seemed to outperform them on both those fronts, although it would not be unusual for the All-Ireland champions to still be a few weeks behind other teams at this stage of the season. Come the beginning of the championship, they’ll be in pristine condition.

For Tipp, the next few weeks will require a process of refinement. They’re already super-fit, as Kelly notes, but there are still psychological barriers to overcome, and while Saturday’s performance will have instilled them with belief, the agony of losing in such close circumstances will remain difficult to bear.

“Alan O’Connor is with us this year and he’s really pushing the girls in terms of fitness levels, building on what we’ve done since last year,” Kelly revealed.

“So, we’re delighted with that, and we knew we’d have to carry those fitness levels into that second-half wind today. We were a player down, the wind was strong, so we couldn’t afford to hit the ball long - we knew we would have to carry.

“But the running was very good, we got some lovely scores off the shoulder, some beautiful scores in the second-half. So, look it, you hate losing any match, and we would have taken a draw there in the end, but the girls have been here before, they know the feeling, and they’re really determined to give the championship one hell of a rattle.”