A work in progress admits new Ladies Football boss Burke
By Noel Dundon
The good news from a Tipperary perspective is that superstar Aishling Moloney is expected to be available for the next round of the Lidl Ladies Football League.
New manager Ed Burke said he was very pleased with the preparations for the opening round tie against Galway, but he had to admit that the All-Ireland finalists were the better side on Sunday and deserved their solid victory.
“We know we have a bit of work to do,” he began.
“We know that we didn’t play exactly as we wanted to play but you know, bar a few mistakes in the first half when we gave away two goals, we would have gone in at half time only a point or so down.
“Then, in the second half we created two goal chances, but we didn’t take them. You could come out against Galway on occasions and create no chances, but we had chances.
“Galway were obviously a better team than us, but had we turned the tide and Galway didn’t get one of their goals, and we got one of our chances, it would have been a different game.”
Tipperary have a solid block of training under their belts, and it showed in the strong manner in which they finished the game out. They were pressing hard right up to the final whistle and that augurs well for the future.
“It was our first day out and we came up against a team which contested the All-Ireland final last year,” Burke added.
“We know that we have to get to the standard, and we plan to get there. We lost by eight points in the end, but a score here and there and that changes it around a bit. We are disappointed because we came out to win the game – we didn’t come out to be competitive.
“Some of the sloppiness was disappointing but we did some good things and we frustrated Galway at times. But, at the end of the day, we lost.
“We had prepared really well, but it looked as though we were a bit nervous. We were getting on the ball, and we were a bit afraid and wondering what we were going to do.
“But that will come with time because we have a lot of new players, and they take time to settle into the pace of the game.”