Cahill pleased but knows more is needed

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary manager Liam Cahill admitted it is an achievement to have finally secured a return to Croke Park for the first time in six years, after seeing off Galway in the All-Ireland senior hurling quarter final on Saturday.

“We're thrilled to be in the last four of the championship,” he began.

“Looking forward now to getting back up to Croke Park with the nucleus of a very different team to maybe five years ago.

“Today was about getting the job done. It wasn't pretty at times. I suppose we showed snippets of what we've been capable of doing all year, but plenty to work on and a real opportunity now for us to go after it and see if we can sneak into a final.”

Ordinarily a nine point win in a quarter final would suggest a strong performance but as Cahill pointed to already, Tipp were comfortable without being near their best.

“We could’ve been caught for two or three goals minimum in the first half, absolutely. Having said that, we left two or three chances ourselves after us,” he reflected.

“We were thrown a little bit at the start with the three different changes for Galway. That threw us a little bit in relation to our match-ups.

“We left a little bit of passing on of one or two players in particular that hurt us and created little overlaps. In fairness to these fellas, I've always said that when we get to a stage where they start fixing it themselves, we're in a good place in Tipperary.

“At half-time these players got together, a little bit of guidance from the coaching team and ourselves and fixed a few areas that they needed to go after.

“So very proud of them in that regard and very happy that we were able to nullify them threats in the second half.”

Despite Tipp being the slicker outfit throughout, when Galway goaled early in the second half to cut the gap to too, the pressure was on but as they have done throughout the campaign, they responded with a five point burst before Oisin O’Donoghue’s goal killed the game off.

“The game really didn't get into its flow as often as we'd like it,” Cahill admitted.

“I was probably a little bit disappointed at half-time in some parts of our play but they're the expectations I have of these players and the standards that I feel they can come to.

“That would be the only reason that I felt I would have been a little bit animated maybe at half-time going in was that those standards, maybe our expectations of players, wasn't where it should be.

“As I said, credit to the players, they fixed it again at half-time and got about their business well in the second half, so I'm happy with that.”

In a game that was very loose with Tipperary scoring 1-28 but also shooting fourteen wides and also having a couple of goal chances denied, they created 51 scoring chances, way above the average of 40.

“It's always good, but I would say at least 10 to 15 of them were bad decisions,” Cahill said.

“That's what I'm talking about when I talk about trying to fix little areas before we go up the road to take on the might of Kilkenny. We’ll look at that and we'll see, but that's a very interesting stat.

“Our shots off are important, every team is chasing it now because you have to be in the 30-point bracket or the 2-25, 3-25 to have any chance of winning an All-Ireland.”

One area that was superb on the evening was Tipp’s latch ditch defending to get back and get hooks and blocks when Galway threatened on too many occasions to be worried about to get a goal.

“Thankfully it has improved significantly I suppose since the league final,” Cahill admitted of protecting the goal.

“Little baby steps, the fellas know their jobs better, good understanding around passing on players and tracking and all that goes with a good unit.

“We'll continue to work on them bits now into the next couple of sessions and please God give ourselves a chance in two weeks' time.”

The greasy conditions, after a dry week, made things difficult for both sets of players while Tipperary also had to overcome pressure for the first time in the campaign, expected to win in advance but having to overcome a Galway side who won the last three championship meetings, as well as losing in the last three quarter finals.

“The players that I suppose were on our radar are now starting to come of age,” he added.

“They're still very young. I still think that the mix of the more experienced cohort that are still with us are really bringing brilliant culture and standards to the set-up.”