Team Tipperary is on the move
By Shane Brophy
There are many factors you can point to as the most pleasing aspects of this Tipperary team but the most prominent of all is their resilience.
Right from day one in the championship when Limerick hit a 1-2 burst after half time, when the challene was laid down, the players have responded each time. Through the games that followed in the wins over Clare, Waterford and Galway, even in the loss to Cork with 14-men, there were periods when Tipp came under pressure but had the answers.
When Darragh McCarthy was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 58th minute, with Tipp already trailing by a point, it should have been the turning point for Kilkenny to go on and win.
A number of Tipperary players referenced this year the inspiration the minor hurlers of 2024 were in winning the All-Ireland Final against Kilkenny with thirteen men, and with that in the memory bank, you just felt they wouldn’t let being a man down define how this match would end.
Not for the first time, a team with the numerical disadvantage finds a new level, helped by Jake Morris scoring from the next attack, which let his teammates, and also the Tipp supporters know, we can still win this.
That Tipperary outscored Kilkenny 1-4 to 0-4 for the remainder of the game ensured the merited nature of the win, the conclusion of which was as dramatic as any All-Ireland semi-final has been, but we’ll come back to that.
Going back to the start, it played out as many had predicted with Kilkenny starting fast as they had done in the last three semi-finals against Clare while Tipp were edgy in the early going, struggling to get their hands on the ball.
John McGrath’s goal in the eighth minute was their only score in the first fourteen minutes, by which time Kilkenny had pointed eight times and also shot three wides. However, that goal was so important as it kept them on Kilkenny’s coat-tails until they would settle into their rhythm, but few would have predicted that Tipp would go onto win the reminder of the half, 2-11 to 0-8.
An area Tipperary still have great scope for improvement in is the quality of the ball going into the forwards, in comparison to Kilkenny, and indeed final opponents Cork, who tend to get their scores much easier as the ball going in is to ta greater advantage of their team-mates.
Yes, the forwards could do better to win more of the fifty-fifty ball but there needs to be a better quality coming in their direction because we saw what they could do with ball in hand, 3-11 from play in the opening half, and but for a super hook by Mikey Carey on Andrew Ormond and Eoin Murphy saving a Jake Morris shot at the expense of a point, Tipp could have had five first half goals.
It flipped the script in advance where the openness of the Tipp defence was something Kilkenny could exploit but the back-six protected Rhys Shelly to such an extent that John Donnelly’s last gasp shot was the first and only goal chance Kilkenny had, beating Shelly but thankfully Robert Doyle was behind him to get a strong hurley, making the match-winning block.
What gives Tipp a lot of hope that the All-Ireland Final against Cork will be different in a defensive sense from the league final and Munster round-robin encounters where the rebels scored seven goals, is the cynical nature of it, prepared to give away the free rather than the goal, epitomised by Bryan O’Mara’s ‘good’ foul on Billy Ryan right on half time when Kilkenny were threatening a timely green flag.
Tipp are also more assured on their match-ups, pairing them with players that suit their strengths, such as Ronan Maher on TJ Reid, held to two points from play, while Robert Doyle did the same with Eoin Cody. Michael Breen featured a lot on the ball, but that Martin Keoghan finished with six from play will have frustrated him.
The biggest success from a defensive sense was Eoghan Connolly at left wing-back. Primarily to track Adrian Mullen, he ended up outscoring his opponent, 0-3 to 0-2, as he has the athleticism to get up and down the field, and showed his long range shooting ability isn’t just confined to placed-balls.
The three points from play both he and Conor Stakelum managed in the first half were huge considering the forwards, apart from Jake Morris, weren’t keeping the points ledger ticking over, despite McCarthy, McGrath and Forde nabbing a goal each. Willie Connors was another who shone in the early going when Tipp were threading water.
Kilkenny managed to get a grasp on Connolly and Stakelum in the second half to such an extent that Tipp managed just 1-3 from play; which won’t be remotely good enough in the final. Crucially, as the scores dried up, they didn’t let Kilkenny get a run on them at the other end.
Things could have been made a little easier if Darragh McCarthy had converted two scoreable frees, with the management making the only call they could after the second in handing that responsibility over to Jason Forde.
Forde’s contribution in the last twenty minutes was immense, his nerveless free-taking, all four from difficult positions when Tipp needed every score they could, before producing what would have been the score of the game from play in the 68th minute to put Tipp in front.
But then up stepped Oisin O’Donoghue to better it! The under 20 star had already made an impression off the bench in intercepting a Richie Reid pass which resulted in the Forde point, before producing his party-trick of a goal, his third in five championship games, somehow contorting his body to get a shot away despite three Kilkenny defenders on him, beating a goalkeeper of the calibre of Eoin Murphy with a dream finish to the top corner of the net.
It put Tipp into a three point lead going into the four minutes of added time when the subsequent after-match controversy began following Noel McGrath’s shot which went wide, but was counted as a point on the scoreboard in the stadium.
Up in the press-box, we were aware it was waved wide, but with the stadium scoreboard and RTE both having Tipp on 4-21, maybe were wrong but we weren’t!
There’s no point in saying that it didn’t have an impact in how Kilkenny played the remaining time, where they had time to score three points instead of four which required a goal. Jordan Molloy pointed to reduce it to two while Eoin Cody went for goal when he could have taken a point, which would have meant John Donnelly could have tapped over an equaliser with the last play.
However, the game might not have played out like that, particularly if Rhys Shelly had another puckout, who is to say Tipp might not have gotten a point or a free at the other end. It was an unfortunate chain of events that shouldn’t have happened to take the shine off a classic semi-final, not the best in terms of quality, but it had the excitement and the drama.
The most relieved person at the final whistle would have been Darragh McCarthy that his team-mates bailed him out. His first yellow card after four minutes for flicking out on Paddy Deegan, while technically correct, was extremely harsh in that a warning would have been enough early in the game.
To his credit, he didn’t let it reduce the combative nature of his play by having an effective period either side of half time, scoring his first championship goal, playing in Jason Forde for his, while also assisting for points for Jake Morris, Sam O’Farrell and Forde’s first free in the second half.
When you are on a yellow card, you have to be so careful and anyone who plays the game knows any tap on the knuckle is a hurley is a sore one, and once Eoin Murphy let go of the hurley in pain, McCarthy was in trouble. It might not have been the worst challenge, but it was enough for a second yellow card.
Thankfully, it wasn’t costly, but is another huge learning moment for the youngster who does have an edge to his game, which all top-class forwards need to have, he’s just got to be extra careful in terms of making it effective.
Not only does he get a chance to make up for it in the All-Ireland Final, it will be against Cork for whom he’s had a difficult experience against in the two most recent encounters.
Whose to say he and Tipp won’t have the last laugh!