Cahill left stunned by gap in standard

“A long evening to say the least,” was how Tipperary manager Liam Cahill described watching the Munster Under 21 final defeat to Cork.

It was the same in the stand as there was nothing in the Tipperary performance in the first half which indicated a comeback might be in the offing, trailing by ten points at the break. And it only got worse at the break and but for some sloppiness in the Cork play, the thirteen point margin of defeat could have been a lot more.

“I didn't see it coming to be honest,” added Cahill.

“I knew it was going to be very difficult coming down here but I didn't foresee us being dominated in so many key areas of the field. We just had no answers. There were so many gaps to fill as the evening progressed and we have a fair bit of work to do to get get ourselves back on track for a couple of weeks time.”

While Cork were very slick and set a high tempo to the same, it was something Tipperary couldn't match and Cahill struggled to understand why his charges so under-performed collectively on the evening.

“Cork came to the table with everything,” he continued.

“We put a big emphasis on starting the match; we started reasonably ok, probably left a couple of scores behind us that would have allowed us to hang onto their coat-tails for a little bit longer.

“Mikey (Bevans) said it to me after 5-6 minutes that these guys are spooked, whatever was wrong with them. The ball just seemed to popping out of their hands, taking the ball off one another, basic errors that, as a coach and a manager, you just say these are not the fellas we trained last Tuesday. It's just unaccountable for."

 

To read more, pick up a copy of this weeks Nenagh Guardian locally or subscribe to our e-paper to access it online each Wednesday.