Burke delighted at breaking new ground

By Michael Heverin

“This is where we want to be”, said a delighted manager Ed Burke in the aftermath of Tipperary’s win over Donegal in the All-Ireland Ladies Senior Football clash on Saturday that saw them through to the quarter finals for the first time in 45 years.

“We haven’t been in a knock-out game in the All-Ireland championship since the last time that Tipperary won it back in the 1980s. It’s something that we haven’t done for forty years”, he said, as he and his team basked in the glow of Tipperary’s best performance of the season.

And the Moyle Rovers clubman is not just content with making the final eight. Speaking before the draw was made, that pits Tipperary against Meath in the last eight, he said: “I believe that all the teams remaining in the championship are close and it would be wrong for other counties to think that Tipperary might be the easy draw”.

Burke accepts that many of his post-match interviews this season have been made up of “what ifs, buts and maybes” as he saw his side too often struggle to reach the levels that he knows they are capable of.

But on Sunday, everything was positive. “The performance was excellent. In the first half we really controlled the game. Not many teams that came up against that Donegal defence this year went in five points up at half time. We kicked some lovely scores from distance, we were patient, and we restricted their scoring. It was a real serious team performance from Tipperary”.

He described the four first half points from Anna Rose Kennedy as “unbelievable” while also highlighting the immense contribution of Aisling Moloney. The Cahir star was closely marked by Donegal, but Burke added: “some teams feel that if you mark Aisling Moloney then you mark Tipperary out of the game. But she continued to win great high ball and we also had players such as Anna Rose (Kennedy), Kirsty (Crotty Ryan) and Emma (Morrissey) who were able to kick scores”.

The Moyle Rovers clubman admits that he was worried when Donegal reduced the Tipp lead to a single point midway through the second half, but doesn’t blame the players.

“That was a management thing. We went five points up and dropped a player back and that suited Donegal. We did it for fifteen minutes and they got a goal and points. Then we decided to press again, and we had more control of the game. The more we mastered our own destiny and trusted ourselves then we were able to shut them out.

“It was worrying when they got the lead back to a single point. We might have wilted but we won a fabulous kick-out and held on to the ball for three or four minutes. Then when we regained possession, we didn’t concede a free and saw the game out. It was excellent game management”.