Curley and Tipperary aiming for progression

LADIES FOOTBALL: TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship Preview

By Thomas Conway

TIPPERARY v ARMAGH

FBD Semple Stadium

Saturday, 15th June

Throw-in @ 5.30pm

Referee: Anthony Marron (Monaghan)

It’s easy to become pessimistic about Tipp ladies football. The past few years haven’t run smoothly. There have been relegation battles, near misses, false dawns, and failed opportunities.

However, Tipp have proven themselves to be a very capable, resourceful side but at the same time they’ve failed to generate any real momentum when it comes to the All-Ireland series.

In fairness, Peter Creedon’s outfit have consistently retained their senior status - Tipp are still a top level side playing top level football, even if they are among the weaker counties at senior championship level.

This year, they’ve been thrown into a group alongside division 1 league champions Armagh and 2021 & 2022 All-Ireland champions Meath, two sides with contrasting styles and a myriad of talented All-Star winning footballers. In the opening game of the group last Saturday, Armagh edged out the Royals 3-9 to 1-14.

From a Tipp perspective, it won’t be easy. Nothing ever is at this level. Still, Tipp captain Maria Curley remains defiant. The Templemore defender is now a seasoned warrior in a blue and gold shirt. She’s been around the bloc long enough to know that Championship football is harsh, and wins are difficult to come by. But she’s confident. Curley was satisfied with Tipp’s Munster Championship campaign.

The Premier might have been well-beaten by Kerry, but they responded with a highly creditable performance against Cork and victory over Waterford - their first ever win over the Déise in a senior championship encounter.

Both Curley and her colleagues are literally raring to go for their next challenge. It’s been several weeks since the end of the Munster series and she admits that the prevailing feeling amongst the players is one of excitement.

“You always have to be optimistic going into campaigns like this,” she began.

“We were happy enough with our Munster campaign - we suffered a one-point defeat against Cork which was kind of hard to get over, but I think we played pretty well that day. We just let it slip in the end and that was disappointing.

“But look, we were happy enough then to get our first Munster Championship win over Waterford ever so that was a good stepping stone for us.

“We knew if we came third in Munster we’d have a tough group in the All-Ireland series, and that’s the case unfortunately with Armagh and Meath.

“But look, we go in with an optimistic frame of mind. And I think the main mood in the camp at this stage is actually excitement, because we haven’t played a competitive game in a number of weeks and we’re hungry for action.”

Three-team groups are a ruthless battleground. One loss and immediately a relegation struggle looms. Win your first game and things can look very different. Tipp’s first game, a home bout with Armagh this Saturday could prove decisive.

Armagh present a formidable challenge, but the Orchard County has been significantly weakened by the loss of their chief attacking weapon, Aimee Mackin, whose season was ended prematurely due to a knee ligament injury sustained just a couple of weeks ago.

Curley has sympathy for her Armagh counterpart. Mackin was in player of the year form, and nobody wants to see the game’s stars sidelined by injuries as debilitating as the one she picked up. But Armagh will still be a force to be reckoned with.

The plan, from a Tipp perspective, is to trust in their own gameplan. Creedon’s side can play a smooth, elegant brand of football when they get going, laden with rapid transitions and quick counter-attacking, but Armagh will certainly attempt to stifle that.

On a broader level, Curley believes that contemporary Gaelic football has become ultra-defensive. Strategy and tactics are everything, and she admits that Tipp may have to adopt very different gameplans in their two separate group stage matches.

“Modern football, both men’s and women’s, has become very defensive in its nature,” she says.

“Every forward has to be a defender as well and vice-versa with your backs - trying to get them up the pitch as soon as you turn over possession. That’s the way the game has developed, both female and male, but I think styles and plans always change slightly and have to be tweaked at different times depending on the circumstances, depending on your opposition.

“And look, we’ll probably be tweaking things and making a few adjustments after the Armagh game to prepare for Meath, because they’re two very different teams.

“But look, we like to run the ball as much as we can, and carry the ball as much as we can, so that is an element of our game. But the challenge I suppose is that we have to match what we want to do versus what we’re going to come up against in the opposition.”

The Templemore physio is unambiguous about Tipp’s objective for 2024. Progression from the group is a must. As she points out, Tipp haven’t emerged from their Championship group in some time, but Curley feels that this could be the summer that Tipp finally make that breakthrough.

It won’t be easy. Armagh and Meath are two seasoned sides, with lofty ambitions of their own.

Tipp will have to find something extra, an additional spark up front perhaps, but with no real injury concerns and a full panel of players to choose from, Tipp are in a good position. The only question now is whether they can deliver.

“In order for us to progress, for Tipp ladies football to progress, we need to get out of the group,” she said pointedly.

“We’re putting pressure on ourselves as players, Peter (Creedon) is putting pressure on us as a manager, because that’s what we want to achieve, we want to get out of the group. So that is what success looks like.

“The past few years, we haven’t progressed past the group stages, but really that has to change, and we have to step it up a level.”