Kelly pleased with response from united panel

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary manager Paul Kelly was proud of the fight of his players despite coming short to Antrim in the opening round of the Tailteann Cup on Sunday.

The pride wasn’t just for the manner in which they responded following the poor performance and defeat to Waterford in the Munster Championship five weeks previous, but also how they fought back after numerous set-backs in game, but ultimately those set-backs proved critical in the end.

“It was an end-to-end, rollercoaster of a Summer’s day of championship football but unfortunately came out the wrong side,” began the Tipperary manager.

“I’m very proud of the guys with the effort we put in there and some of the football we played.

“It was great to have Steven (O’Brien), Conor (Sweeney), Sean (O’Connor), and Mark (Russell) back and please God Stephen Quirke nearly back. It shows you overall what we were missing to a degree in the league.”

He added: “It’s a small group but a good group. I am proud of the way they responded, a lot of teams would have been rocked back considering one or two of the set-backs and when they happened. We should have had a goal at one end, and they went down and got a goal at the other, a huge turnaround, a sickener.

“But in fairness you saw the application, the heart, and no little skill and athleticism the guys have brought to it.”

Tipperary will feel all four goals were preventable, and that lady luck was also against them as Antrim’s first two goals had an element of good fortune about them.

“When you make errors at this level of football in advanced places, against a counter-attacking team, you can get punished,” Kelly added.

“We started off well at the start of the second half, made a mistake and got very badly punished for it.

“Then again, we came back with no little football, no little athleticism, and direct play, but unfortunately gave ourselves a little too much to do.

“We created an awful lot of chances ourselves but didn’t punish them to the same extent.”

Sunday’s game saw Conor Sweeney start for the first time in sixteen months after recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon and Kelly was full of praise for the Ballyporeen clubman who scored five points from play out of 1-7.

“Conor is a special act,” he said.

“There are probably only two or three teams in the country that could do without a Conor Sweeney for fifteen months and we certainly can’t, so it is great to see him back.”

Tipperary will look to build on this performance when they welcome Sligo to FBD Semple Stadium next Saturday for a must-win game if they are to keep their hopes of progressing in the competition alive.

And the Tipperary manager feels the spirit is there to produce another strong performance.

“A team can then go one of two ways, feel sorry for themselves but the guys have been excellent over the last couple of weeks,” Kelly added.

“This time of the year is unforgiving, and you need a big panel. We have lads coming back from injury that we are trying to mind as well so they don’t go back on the treatment table, the likes of Steven O’Brien who has come back from a fairly significant hamstring injury. I could stand here and be ultra selfish and tell him to stick it out, but you have to think of the player, and he reached a point in the game where he couldn’t stay going.”