Tipp are in knockout mode
KILLINAN END
To a certain extent last Sunday’s game in Cork defies analysis.
The early sending off skewed an already difficult fixture beyond any reasonable expectation of winning. At 3-6 to 0-3 after just fifteen minutes, and just fourteen players to call upon, a storm of unprecedented threat was gathering. In an era when scores are coming thick and fast this could have turned really nasty. Tipp’s trip to Cork in 2010 – another difficult experience – does not seem like an age ago yet in many ways it’s a foreign country. That game ended 3-15 to 0-14 which is not an unlikely half-time score these days. Last Sunday it was 3-13 to 0-12 at the break. What constitutes a big beating has changed significantly since even 2010.
In the circumstances Tipp came out of it with heads held high. This could have been beyond demoralising but even Micheal Duignan remarked on the commentary that “Tipp can take a lot out of this”. The margin was just three points down on last year, but this year’s circumstances provide significant caveats. Without some of the inaccuracy and even maybe better choices when there were goal chances, this could have been a tidy enough margin, which does make you wonder about Cork. They have an unprecedented number of fan-boys in the media so getting a reasonable assessment of where they are at is quite a dilemma. Suffice to say that they will stare down the barrel in a tough tight game at some stage before the year is out and old truths will be tested for their staying power.
An even bigger dilemma is figuring out quite what the plan is with the schemozzles before the start of the games. This can claim unwitting victims. Ever since Darragh McCarthy was a juvenile hurler one of the basic tenets of any advice would have been to take no nonsense from a corner-back. For what happened last Sunday he essentially will miss two matches – the immediate one in Cork and the coming up one in Ennis. In an era when players are clearly being instructed to dive at the most innocuous invitation, and officials seem to be increasingly literal in their interpretation of rules, it did leave Darragh vulnerable.
There was time when soccer players were maligned for being divers and frankly a little bit soft. Unfortunately, it seems as if hurlers have caught up with this trend – assuming it was ever a genuine observation of course. Probably like their soccer counterparts it is simply reflecting the nature of refereeing and taking advantage of the pressure on referees. It is an odd counterfoil to all the tiresome swooning about the how amazing all the scores and skills are – and an addition the sport could do without. However, with refereeing likely to get more inclined to make the sport entirely non-contact it seems unlikely that the genie will ever be back in this particular bottle.
The closest we might get to a solution is perhaps like it was in the old days with Brian Gavin when the All-Ireland Final was adjudicated quite differently to the rest of the championship. But when you have a sport being refereed with such inconsistency that Conor Cooney’s tackle on Mike Casey in the League is a yellow card, while what happened last Sunday is a red, the drawing board cannot be far away.
Whatever the merits of these debates the Munster Championship heading relentlessly towards decision-time. Tipp might well have to consider the possibility that they are going to play well in all four games and win none, with this team’s best days probably a few years down the line. Nonetheless, Tipp have lost nothing yet. From the start of the championship, winning in Ennis and beating Waterford in Thurles was probably regarded by most people as the most plausible route out of Munter. Tipp were unlucky in that the draw decreed that these would be the last two games. The challenge was to get there intact. In that context the point against Limerick was a bonus. However, the essential challenge remains ahead of us. To this mind at least the team has done nothing to suggest that getting four points from the last two games is not possible. Difficult yes but certainly feasible. But there may be a few unforeseen twists and turns yet.
Limerick face a very hazardous trip to Walsh Park next weekend. A defeat there could leave them in grave danger. Cork and Clare have been their most difficult opposition in recent years – to play them in successive weeks needing to beat both is not a scenario they will consider with any enthusiasm. For what it’s worth at least Tipp’s task is now clear and unambiguous, devoid of ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’. Every game is a cup final now.