Power not looking at potential paths beyond Waterford

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary go into the 2022 Football Championship with everything to gain.

In old money, they are on the kinder side of the draw along with quarter final opponents Waterford, with the winners to face Clare or Limerick, so there is a route to the Munster Final.

A Munster Final berth will mean Tipperary will compete in the All-Ireland Series along with the top sixteen teams from the end of the National League. But if they fail to get to the provincial final, the Premier County will play in the first edition of the Tailteann Cup with the lower sixteen teams, but a competition Tipp would have a great chance of winning.

However, Tipperary manager David Power is aiming high.

“Our target is to be in the Sam Maguire and for us get there we have to get to a Munster Final,” he admitted.

“We haven’t spoken about it (Tailteann Cup), I couldn’t tell you when the first round is scheduled for because our pure focus has been on Waterford

“But we will deal with it with the Tailteann Cup if we are in it and if we are we will give it every bit of respect. We just hope Croke Park give respect towards it by promoting it properly and not having a Tommy Murphy Cup situation.

“If you want to promote the Tailteann Cup, the final should be on with the All-Ireland Football Final, and I’d argue there should be All-Stars for the Tailteann Cup so that is how you are going to get engagement from the players and the coaching teams.”

Tipperary won’t be able to compete for the Sam Maguire or will go into the Tailteann Cup on a downer if they fail to beat Waterford in Dungarvan on Saturday evening, an opponent who held the Premier to a 0-10 each draw in the opening round of the National League last January.

“We are looking only at Waterford, and we can’t look any further than Waterford because last January we were lucky to come out of there with a draw, the only point Waterford got in the league,” Power added.

“However, if you look at Waterford’s results, bar the Cavan game, they were beaten by no more than three points in their games so they were very competitive in the league, so we aren’t looking any further than them because they have some very good players, the Curry’s and Conor Murray so we have to be very careful and Dungarvan is not a place Tipperary can take for granted either.

“Waterford would always feel they can beat Tipperary.”

That draw with Waterford along with the subsequent defeat by Leitrim left Tipperary’s league hopes hanging by a threat but after that they reeled off five successive wins to earn promotion, before losing to Cavan in the division 4 final.

There was a change in approach from the first two games to the final six and continuing that style of play is what Power is hoping for on Saturday evening.

“The big thing that we need to concentrate on is getting a performance, really move the ball quickly and bring intensity to the game and if we do we feel we should be good enough to beat Waterford.

“If we play slow lethargic football we are going to get punished. The five games we won in the league we started really well so we need to do the same on Saturday.”

He added: “The big disappointment in the league final was we lost the game because it stopped our winning run.

“Looking back on the game, we should have won, we had enough ball, but it was silly errors, the two goals were soft goals to concede from our point of view and is one of the things we have been working towards over the last couple of weeks.

“We had an excellent camp in Fota Island on Easter Monday and the lads have kicked on from the league and are moving really well.”

With the format of the championship being tweaked for this year and next, the provincial championships remain integral for now, with Munster a competitive province if Kerry weren’t involved, but David Power said that Cork showed that in 2020 that anything is possible on the day.

“Clare have been seven seasons in division 2 so they have been up there and to be fair to Limerick they have been improving every year and they are in division 2 next year which is a great achievement for them. Waterford have been competitive as well, and after a bad start we are after having a decent league as well.

“I would say all the four teams would feel, if we get a bit of luck, we have a good chance of getting to a Munster Final. It is really competitive which is great for Munster Football.

“In my opinion there are five teams on the same level. At the minute, Kerry are a good bit ahead of the other five teams, including Cork, and of Cork the four other teams would have a chance against them as well, so it is a very competitive province outside of Kerry but two years ago Cork proved every game is different and you never know.

There is going to be a lot of pressure on Kerry and every team will have a bad game over the course of a championship and it is up to that opponent to take advantage of when Kerry play poorly.”