Limerick didn’t show anything we didn't expect

By Shane Brophy

It was a familiar experience for Liam Cahill at the hands of Limerick. In his three years in charge of Waterford and into his second with his native Tipperary, Cahill has tasted victory only once.

Saturday’s final margin of defeat might have been just one point, but it felt like more considering Limerick’s control of the game, particularly in the second half.

“Well, ten minutes after half-time they looked to really assert themselves on the game again,” admitted the Tipperary manager.

“Sure look, that’s nothing new with Limerick. That’s their trait. They seem to be able to find them moments when they need to, especially after half-time.

“We hung in there; the margin was three points for a long time. It didn't feel like that maybe on the sideline from where I was. If I’m being honest, it probably felt it should have been more but very encouraged with the way our boys stayed at it, really, really stayed at it.

“We maybe lacked a small bit of energy and I suppose, again, that’s down to the way Limerick applied themselves, it takes a lot of energy to curtail them.

“Still there were massive learnings from us. We’re still very much a team that is, I wouldn’t say finding our way, but we’re nearly there in relation to finding our personnel, I suppose, our best personnel.”

Limerick aren’t a team that concede many goals and even with scoring three goals, Tipp still fell short, having been outscored 26-19 with Limerick’s response to each of the first two goals with four points in a row on each occasion.

“You’ve hit the nail on the head there,” Cahill said of their response to both goals and Tipp’s inability to build on them.

“When you get a goal like that and, all of a shot, there’s three or four points from Limerick it takes that bit of energy out of you. That’s something we really need to look at, that when we do apply ourselves on a team like that, any team, when we get an opportunity to raise a green flag, we need to stem the tide even further by following it up with a couple of scores again, but we weren’t allowed do that.

“It’s something that we need to practise and discuss and make sure that that awareness is in the group. We have to create that awareness. We were hit for four and five scores in-a-row there on two occasions, maybe three occasions, throughout the match. Yep, that’s a big learning for us leaving today now.”

On the plus side, Tipperary did manage 3-13 from play but struggled to get a regular supply of ball into the full forward line, where Jason Forde and Jake Morris were a threat all through, as were Patrick Maher and Sean Ryan off the bench.

“That’s where the big threat is,” Cahill agreed.

“You’d like to get more ball in deep but the way Limerick set up and crowd that midfield, their half-forward line coming deep and their half-back line, they make that area that little bit more condensed and it is harder to get clean ball into an inside forward line.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Limerick didn’t do anything that Limerick don’t do every day they go out. They didn’t come with anything extra special. To be fair to Limerick, they’re just so good and so consistent at what they do. I can’t say that we didn’t know what was coming but we just weren’t able to counteract it again today, call a spade a spade. We have to go away and look at it and work on it and keep chipping away at it and find the answers.”