London calling for Tipp's promotion push

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary’s promotion defining game with London will go ahead as scheduled on Saturday evening, despite calls for all games in the final round to be played simultaneously.

Tipperary, along with Cavan, Sligo and Leitrim can still be promoted to division 3, with Tipp’s game with London scheduled since before the start of the league for the Saturday evening.

Strangely enough, the Cavan v Waterford game has been brought forward from Sunday to Saturday but will start at 6.00pm, while the Sligo v Leitrim game remains on Sunday, but that match will have nothing at stake if Cavan and Tipperary gets the results they need.

And it is an issue Tipperary manager David Power feels has been overblown.

“What difference does it make, if we win, we are promoted, if lose we won’t,” he said.

The permutations are such that if the favoured Cavan and Tipperary get the wins they will be promoted and reach the division 4 final at Croke Park. A loss for Tipperary opens the door for the winner of the Sligo-Leitrim game the following day. There is also a scenario where if Tipp draw, only Leitrim would have something to play for in that game as they could pip Tipp on the head-to-head, while Sligo would lose out having lost in Semple Stadium last month.

With that expectation of winning comes pressure, but Tipperary manager David Power feels his side got a taste of that against Carlow last Sunday and will be well prepared for a stiff London challenge.

“There is an expectation that after beating Cavan that we should be beating Carlow and London. I thought we handled that well against Carlow and performed like a team that was going to get promoted,” he said.

“But we have to do the same again next weekend again. We know it is not going to be easy. We did our homework on Carlow and will be doing our homework on London as well.

“After round 2, it didn’t look like we would be in this position and to be fair to the players we have turned it around from the Sligo game and getting that win and now we are hoping to finish off with five wins in a row which would be huge as well.

Power is sweating over the fitness of captain Conor Sweeney who limped out of the Carlow win before half time with a calf strain and is rated as doubtful, while Bill Maher also dropped out of the starting team against Carlow but should be good to go.

The Tipperary manager is still confident that his players will rise to the occasion, even if they are missing some experienced players for such an important game on Saturday.

“This was also a pleasing thing that the game was still in the melting pot without Conor who has been a key figure, and the lads really stood up,” he said.

“We finished with four under 21’s on the field (against Carlow) which is quite pleasing, Cathal Deeley, Mikey O’Shea, Martin Kehoe, and Sean O’Connor so that is very pleasing.”