Tipp survive tense showdown with Rossie’s to stay perfect

LADIES FOOTBALL: LIDL National League Division 2 Round 3

Tipperary 0-6

Roscommon 0-4

Report: Kevin Egan at Fethard Town Park

MATCH DIGEST

Player of the Match: Emma Cronin (Tipperary)

SCORERS – Tipperary: Aisling Moloney 0-4 (2 frees); Emma Morrissey 0-2.

Roscommon: Laura Fleming 0-4 frees.

If last Sunday’s National League contest was a medical patient, it would have made for a good central character on an episode of House, or Grey’s Anatomy.

It presented with all the symptoms traditionally associated with the worst aspects of the modern men’s game – overcoaching, low scoring, long spells of possession without any end product – and yet the usual diagnosis (“Defensive muck”, or other synonyms for muck that aren’t fit for print in a family newspaper) didn’t apply.

Both of these teams tried to attack the game, they tried to carve open good scores, and they tried to win the two league points on offer, instead of working hard to prevent the opposition from winning them. Yet that didn’t really work out, for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, was the quality of the one-on-one defending. Player of the match was Tipperary corner back Emma Cronin, although Roscommon’s Róisín Wynne could have shared it. In truth it’s almost impossible to split the two, because they both fulfilled the same function, that of taking on the threat of the opposition’s best attacker and nullifying them.

Admittedly, Aisling Hanly was a non-factor in the tie entirely, while Aisling Moloney simply wasn’t as effective as she can be, but the other side of the coin would say that Wynne had a much tougher opponent than Cronin, her Moyle Rovers counterpart, given that Hanly, while she is in her third year of senior inter-county football, is still just a secondary school student, and nowhere near as physically imposing or as naturally athletic as Moloney.

However, while these were the stars of the show, all across the board, backs got the better of their forward counterparts.

The second factor in the low-scoring, and one which cannot be laid at the feet of either team, was the peculiar performance of Kevin Corcoran.

The Mayo official did that thing which is so common in ladies football, that of treating the players as if they were made of porcelain, and whistling for even the slightest bit of contact, while also completely ignoring any potential advantage to the attacker. However, perhaps in a conscious or unconscious bid to balance the scales between the player in possession and her tackler, he also took an utterly ruthless approach to over-carrying, penalising several players when it looked as if they had barely taken their four steps, never mind exceeded that tally.

Add two deeply disciplined defences to a referee that gave runners little or no leeway in trying to carry the ball through the tackle, and scoring chances were thin on the ground.

Both sides had just two wides each, both sides dropped a couple of shots short, and Aisling Moloney also fired a penalty into the goalpost and out to safety, and so the game was reduced to which side could carve out enough chances in heavy traffic.

In Moloney, and wing forward Emma Morrissey, Tipperary had that extra touch of quality and class that Roscommon manager Ollie Lennon simply didn’t have at their disposal, and it’s because of their influence that Tipperary are now top of the table with three wins from three, while Roscommon are the only team in the division without a point.

The visitors will feel more than a little hard done by to be in that position. While they conceded a point to Aisling Moloney off the throw in, as the returning star won the throw and drove at the opposition defence before launching a towering kick through the uprights, they then shut down Tipp for the next 29 minutes, albeit while wind-assisted.

Team captain Laura Fleming kicked two frees, and while Tipp missed their best chance, that being Moloney’s penalty after Róisín Daly was fouled, they didn’t have a lot of other clear cut chances until Morrissey’s two scores just before half-time, one of which was a very fortunate score from Tipp’s perspective, as it came on the back of a particularly harsh overcarrying call that killed a promising Roscommon attack.

0-3 to 0-2 at half-time became a three-point game shortly after the restart, with Moloney putting her name on both points, but Roscommon hung in there, and two more frees from Fleming ensured a tense finish.

Under normal circumstances, a Tipperary squad with far more depth than Roscommon (the visitors had just three subs available who had played a single minute of adult inter-county football before 2023) might have expected to kick on late in the game, as they did last time out against Cavan.

However, a very harsh yellow card for Aisling Moloney after 51 minutes led manager Peter Creedon to simply batten down the hatches and see out the closing storm, which they did quite well, denying the Connacht county even a sniff of the goal they badly needed.

So, while the contest as a whole might have been a bit off colour, and a long way short of the robust, healthy event that might have been expected, Tipperary themselves remain in rude health, as they continue to find different ways to win. They enter the first league break before hosting third placed Laois in what could be a key game in their promotion quest.

* A minute's silence was observed at the start of the game for Martin Ryan of the Moyne-Templetuohy club, who passed away on Friday last. Martin's son, PJ, is a selector with the Tipperary Under 16 LGFA team.

TEAMS – Tipperary: Lauren Fitzpatrick (Ballymacarbry 8); Cliona O’Dwyer (Brian Borus 7), Maria Curley (Templemore 8), Emma Cronin (Moyle Rovers 9); Neassa Towey (Templemore 8), Lucy Spillane (Fethard 7), Sarah English (Ardfinnan 6); Anna Rose Kennedy (Aherlow 8), Marie Creedon (Thurles Sarsfields NR); Niamh Martin (Sliabh na mBan 6), Angela McGuigan (Eadestown 6), Emma Morrissey (Aherlow 8); Ava Fennessy (Clonmel Commercials 6), Aisling Moloney (Cahir 7), Roisin Daly (Moyne-Templetuohy 6).

Subs: Clara English (Ardfinnan 7) for Creedon (15 inj); Rosanna Kiely (Cahir 7) for Daly (45); Laura Morrissey (Brian Borus 7) for McGuigan (45); Áine Delaney (Templemore 6) for Martin (45); Elaine Kelly (Cappawhite NR) for Towey (58); Maureen Murphy (Brian Borus NR) for Fennessy (60).

Roscommon: Helena Cummins (7); Áine McGrath (7), Róisín Wynne (9), Saoirse Wynne (6); Ellen Irwin (6), Rachel Fitzmaurice (7), Ruth Cox (7); Lisa O’Rourke (8), Caoimhe Cregg (5); Laura Fleming (8), Aoife Gavin (6), Niamh Feeney (7); Aisling Hanly (6), Aisling Feely (5), Millie Hagan (6).

Subs: Sinéad Glennon (6) for Feely (42); Abby Curran (NR) for Gavin (54), Ella Thompson (NR) for Hagan (58).

Referee: Kevin Corcoran (Mayo).