Déjà vu as Tipp fail to spark again

By Shane Brophy

This defeat is one that is going to sting for some time. Not that Tipperary deserved to win, but it wouldn’t have taken that much more to do so.

The flatness of the performance against Waterford, it was hoped was a once off, but it happened again on Saturday, and this time it cost Tipperary their season and progression to Croke Park and the All-Ireland semi-finals.

This is a game that could so easily have been won with even a half decent performance as Galway were no great shakes either in what was a poor game overall, littered with poor shooting and mistakes on both sides.

However, Galway made fewer errors and that’s why they progress to face Limerick in the semi-final for the second year in a row. A repeat performance and they will lose to Limerick, but they showed enough to suggest that if they can tidy up their shooting and produce one of those inspired displays, there is no reason why they cannot dethrone the All-Ireland champions.

It’s a nice spot to be in at least having that problem to try and resolve whereas Tipperary players and management will have to stew over it for months as to how and why they didn’t bring anything close to their best for the second time in three championship games. If they produced anything close to what they showed against Clare, Cork, and Limerick, they would have blown Galway away as they were there for the taking.

There was still an element of a Leinster final hangover from Galway in the first twenty minutes of this game, but Tipp were unable to take advantage of it, with three wides from Noel McGrath and a missed free from Jason Forde, admittedly not helped by a cross-field breeze, symptomatic of a Tipperary side not fully on their game.

From there, Galway realised Tipp were there for the beating and but for eighteen wides and three missed goal chances, they would have won this game pulling up.

There’s no doubt there was a lot of frustration amongst the Tipp players after their no-show against Waterford and they stewed on it for three weeks and took it out on Offaly in the preliminary quarter final, however, it looked like they had used it all that up last week leaving no bitterness or edge to their hurling seven days later when it was really needed.

There will have been a conscious effort to ensure that a repeat of the Waterford performance, which came seven days after the Limerick display which had everything you wanted from a Tipperary team, wouldn’t happen again, but it did. Now the Offaly game wouldn’t have been physically taxing by any means but mentally, the focus, energy and drive Tipp brought to that game right from the off was missing against Galway, and still they could have won it, even if it would have been undeserved.

When John McGrath fired to the net on 62 minutes to bring Tipp back within one point, there was plenty of time to push on to win as they had the spark they were craving but like much of the game, they never built on it.

Crucially from the next puck-out, it was Galway who responded in a positive manner with sub Thomas Monaghan getting the first of his three points in a huge cameo off the bench. Twice more, Tipp got within one point but on each occasion from the next puckout, it was Galway who made the big play with Cianan Fahy for the first while Cathal Barrett conceded a silly free on Conor Whelan for a free.

These plays were indicative of Galway’s mentality being at the level needed for this game, even if their general play and wastefulness in front of goals wasn’t top notch. This difference in mentality could arguably be summed up in the final play of the game when Rhys Shelly launched a last gasp free into the square, yet no Tipp player stood under the dropping ball when it landed around the 21 yard line with Daithi Burke going up unchallenged, and not only that, while he fumbled he ball, it was a Galway player who then won the break from where they cleared their lines to the sound of the final whistle.

Still as close as the final scoreline was, it was false as but for goalkeeper Rhys Shelly, it would have been a hiding for Tipp as he pulled off three outstanding saves to keep his side in the game but it never seemed to inspire his teammates out the field to find another gear.

Not only that, Shelly’s puckouts, which are the reason he is in the team, he had very few options to find a teammate. Against Offaly, the ball was sent out so quickly off restarts as players out the field were offering themselves, but on this occasion those options weren’t provided, admittedly stifled somewhat by Galway’s well-structured defence but it wasn’t purely down to that as too many players were waiting for things to happen rather than making them happen.

Tipp at their best are a front foot team that show for the ball, but it seemed like the went back to their bad old ways of sending too much direct ball into the full forward line, a lot of it poor quality which is meat and drink to a defence of the calibre of Galway. Seamus Callanan and Mark Kehoe were the fall guys at half time butmost of the ball they were asked to work with was very poor indeed.

When the middle third pillars of McGrath, Stakelum, Tynan and Kennedy play well, Tipp tend to play well but all four didn’t influence the game in a meaningful way, although showing glimpses in the second half when the arrival of Gearoid O’Connor and Johnny Ryan brought youthful energy into that area while the guile of John McGrath generated the goal.

Tipperary would have gone into this game with a gameplan to vary their use of the ball but for whatever reason, as manager Liam Cahill alluded to afterwards, the players largely veered away from it, most likely a mentality issue as a fully tuned in side will play to script, and overplaying direct ball into forwards is a sign of taking the easy way out and not taking a risk which Tipp’s style is best suited to.

The management will wonder where the flatness came from but also tactically, they were well-beaten on the evening. There is no reason as to why Cathal Mannion was allowed to be a free-man for Galway, if Tipp did the same with Noel McGrath on the other side, Henry Shefflin would have ensured that wouldn’t have happened as you can’t allow Galway’s best passer to have as many possessions as he had in the game, many of them under little pressure.

At the other end of the field, Tipp started off well defensively with Dan McCormack taking on Conor Whelan in the early going but around midway through the first half, Cathal Barrett moved onto him despite Barrett starting well out on the wing on Brian Concannon. Why that that change was made when it wasn’t needed at the time was hard to fathom. Admittedly, there would have been a trust in Barrett who go toe-to-toe with Galway’s star forward, but the All-Star defender got a roasting we have never seen before, probably not helped by not being at his sharpest having missed a decent chunk of training with concussion and leg injuries since he was last seen against Limerick five weeks previous.

As much of the progress that was made by Tipperary this year, it was a sobering way for the campaign to end, particularly as they are way better than what they showed on Saturday but the reality is the flaws within the Tipperary set-up were exposed by Waterford and Galway and you can’t win All-Ireland’s with them and that will be the high amongst the things the management will be reviewing in the long off-season.