Poor first half cost us dearly - Heffernan

By Joe Scully

For Tipperary manager James Heffernan, there were mixed feelings following his sides five-point defeat at the hands of Kilkenny on Saturday.

“We were beat up a stick in the first half,” he said bluntly.

“There is a big difference in how we are feeling now after the game as to how we were feeling at half time. We were a totally different team in the second period.

“I don’t think it had anything really to do with the wind, just Kilkenny got on top of us in the middle third. I don’t want to say they were more up for it than us, because we felt like we were up for it, but it just felt like they were the more aggressive team.

“They got eleven points in a row in the first half and that really killed us, it’s very hard to come back from a nine-point deficit.”

After a bright enough start for his charges, Heffernan wasn’t quite sure where it went wrong in the first half.

“We started well and kept them scoreless for the opening twelve minutes,” Heffernan continued.

“It’s hard to put your finger on where it went wrong. You would have to watch the game back, but they just seemed to get on top all over the field, and we definitely had a couple of scoring chances that maybe we butchered and kind of lost a bit of confidence, which might have happened against Antrim to.

“Going long periods without scoring is disappointing, but the second half was definitely a positive.”

Another positive for Heffernan despite was in the absence of several players on the day was the chance for some of the fringe players to get gametime.

“From a panel of 35 I think we were missing fifteen today,” revealed the first year manager.

“It’s a lot of players to be down, but we’re happy to use our panel and some of the girls who wouldn’t have got much gametime previously did really well there.”

The Clonoulty/Rossmore clubman also felt the game was a huge learning process for his side and one that they can take huge lessons from.

“You learn a lot from that game especially and the players will learn a lot from that game, and some of them were playing their first game of the year so there’s no panic on our side just yet,” he said.

The return from injury at half-time of All-Star defender Mairead Eviston delighted Heffernan and he felt she made a difference when introduced.

“She’s just back from injury, so we felt maybe she had a good 30-40 minutes in her, so that’s another positive for her to get thirty minutes game time into her legs,” the manager added.

“She really shored it up when she came on. Celine (Guinan) played really well when she moved out wing back, but overall, it was a much-improved team performance in the second half and that’s what we need to build on ahead of Galway in two weeks.”