Tipperary joint-captain Grace O’Brien. Photo: Bridget Delaney

Tipp have to overcome poor Cork record to reach quarter-finals

CAMOGIE: Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship Preview

By Thomas Conway

CORK v TIPPERARY

Pairc Ui Rinn, Cork

Saturday 2nd July

Throw-in @ 4.00pm

It wasn’t expected to come to this, yet here we are! One game, one chance. But that’s not all.

Even if Tipperary defeat Cork next Saturday in Páirc Uí Rinn, a series of results will have to fall in their favour. The arithmetic is complex. Bear with me for a few seconds.

For Tipperary to have any chance of progressing to the knockout stages of this year’s All-Ireland senior camogie championship, they must secure second or third place in the Group 1 table.

Cork have already sealed the top spot. They’re sitting rather comfortably on twelve points, with four wins from four, meaning that Saturday’s game doesn’t really matter to them - mathematically at least.

Behind the Rebelettes on six points is Waterford, while Dublin and Tipperary are both conjoined on five points, with an identical score difference of minus-5. Because Dublin have scored more, they take up third position, while Tipperary lie in fourth. Wexford are fifth in the table with three points. Clare, somewhat surprisingly given their pre-championship form, sit last, with just two points from four games.

Clare face off against Waterford on Saturday, while Dublin visit Wexford. Should Tipperary win, their focus will turn to the outcomes of those two games. If both Clare and Wexford emerge victorious, or hold their opponents to a draw, Tipp will shoot up the table into second place. If both Waterford and Dublin were to win, Tipp would have to better Dublin’s winning margin, and facing Cork that will be a difficult ask so realistically Tipp, while getting the win, will be hoping one of Waterford or Dublin slip up.

Should Tipperary draw, they still have a chance of advancing, but only in third position. For that to happen, Wexford would have to defeat Dublin. There are certain other permutations, but if you managed to follow all that, then you’re doing quite well.

As you might suspect, vice-captain Grace O’Brien isn’t getting hung up on all the numerical possibilities. The Nenagh Éire-Óg clubwoman is laser-focused. Tipp have a job to do on Saturday - they must defeat Cork. It isn’t an easy task, but the midfielder admits that the dramatic come-back win over Wexford the weekend before last has restored confidence levels amongst the players. Prior to that, Tipp had been struggling psychologically, but the renewed sense of belief was palpable in the air down in Bellefield that day.

“We’d be lying if we said that we weren’t all elated at the final whistle,” she said.

“Everyone was just so happy to get over the line because obviously we knew it could have gone the other way and that could have been the end of our season.

“So, it was a huge confidence boost, that we could pull that performance out of ourselves at the end of the game. We had performed reasonably well in the first-half, and then our work-rate probably dropped off after half-time, but to be able to turn the tide in the last quarter, which is probably something we weren’t able to do in the last couple of games, we did take a lot of confidence from that.”

You won’t beat Cork with confidence alone. To dismantle the Rebelettes, Tipp will have to find a way of negating the influence of their midfield duo of Katie O’Mahoney and Aishling Thompson. Their half-back line is also an impenetrable platform, which Tipp will have to bypass in order to ensure the likes of Cáit Devane receive a sufficient ball-supply. With dual star Hannah Looney now back in the Cork fold, Matthew Twomey’s side are growing inexorably stronger, but they may not be at full-pitch in Páirc Uí Rinn next weekend, quite simply because they do not need to be. Still, O’Brien knows how difficult it will be to snatch all three points.

“Playing Cork in Cork, you don’t need motivation for that,” O’Brien added.

“It’s already there. So, we’re going to go out there and absolutely let loose. It will be a huge challenge in itself, one of the toughest challenges in inter-county camogie, but this is where everyone wants to be - challenging one of the best teams.

“We’re excited by it, we know it’s going to be a huge, huge test, but we’ve taken a good bit of confidence from the Wexford game. We’ve also got some game-time into girls that were injured - the likes of Clodagh Quirke - and we’re getting a few other girls back that weren’t available to us, so that’s bringing a pep into our step as well.”

If the win over Wexford represented a watershed in Tipp’s 2022 championship campaign, then this game could be considered a test of legitimacy. Tipp have already shown that they can dig deep, that they can deliver when the need is greatest. But can they do so on a consistent basis? All will be revealed on Saturday evening.