The Good, the Bad and the Ugly admits Tipp boss Burke
By Michael Heverin
Tipperary manager Ed Burke referenced a famous Clint Eastwood film to describe how his team played against Westmeath on Sunday..
“The Good, Bad and Ugly can summarise it best, mixing the brilliant with the brutal”, he said after witnessing his side hit 3-11 in the first half against Westmeath, and then totally losing their shape in the second when they were outscored 1-5 to 0-3 by the divisions bottom team.
“The first half was excellent, and we probably thought the game was over, and in the second half we settled into a pattern of making mistakes”, the Moyle Rovers clubman said as he accepted that his nine second half substitutions impacted their display.
“Westmeath had the momentum then, but I was delighted with the first half. There was some excellent football, but we have to play for sixty minutes.
“It was great to have Aisling Moloney back and she was excellent. We could see the shapes that we wanted to see on the pitch, with players in the right positions and see the space opening up.
“We had a lot of good scores that were made look easy and we also left a few scores behind us. We played aggressively and that created the chances for us. We would have liked a better second half, but the two points are important for us and we got the result that we wanted.”
Asked what pleased him most about the performance, he replied: “The general working together as a team, in terms of structure and organisation, because when we do that we can make our players look really good when they are on the ball. When we are crowded and bunched and not doing what we need to do, then even the best players can look average”.
Burke is now looking forward to the last two games in the league, away to both Donegal and Roscommon, and then the start of the Munster championship when he hopes to have an even stronger panel.
“We have strength in depth, with another six or seven girls to come back in. We have had only 75% of our team on the pitch so far this year. We are building up to get them all on the pitch and we will be a formidable force when we do that,” he concluded.