We got an awful hammering – Cahill

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary manager Liam Cahill didn’t sugar-coat the poverty of his side’s performance in the defeat to Waterford.

Expected to get the result to book their progress to the next stage, and a likely Munster Final with Clare, Tipp were left sweating on the outcome of the Limerick v Cork game with the win for the Shannonsiders seeing Tipp survive in the championship as the third placed team in Munster and now go into the All-Ireland Championship via the preliminary quarter final route.

“We were very fortunate today,” Liam Cahill admitted.

“We didn’t deserve to get anything from that game.

“From an early stage, we looked to be a fraction off it and very fortunate to still be in the Championship.”

Right from the word go with Waterford taking the lead after just twenty seconds, they never were never led thereafter as a very flat Tipp side struggled to get to the pitch of the game, with Cahill not accepting that the effort put in against Limerick a week previous as the reason for their lifeless performance.

“I don't think it took anything out of us. I don't think it took anything out of Limerick, from what I am led to believe,” Cahill added.

“We looked really sharp during the week and again here on Friday night. I don't know. It is just something that happens, and when it happens, it is very hard to stem.

“Waterford, to be fair, they really asked questions of us. They ran hard, they broke the tackle. Only for a few more shooting errors, they could have been more out. They had a good few wides.

“We got rightly bet today, we got an awful hammering to be straight and honest about it. That is something that we have to try and sort out, it will test me as a manager, and it will test our players' resilience. So, a big job of work over the next couple of weeks.”

But did the Tipperary manager sense any element of complacency over the last week?

“From a management perspective, we were driving this all week,” Cahill said.

“I know how dangerous these Waterford players are. I know that better than anybody.

These Waterford players, they don't use excuses.

“The narrative around Waterford the last couple of months was that there's a bit of emotional baggage with that Waterford team. That's the one thing that disappoints me about the whole thing - emotional baggage. To me, that statement was unfair. Waterford showed no emotional baggage today only the good team that I know they are and the quality players that I was fortunate enough to be involved with the last three seasons.”

At half time on Sunday, Tipperary were staring at a championship exit so how aware were the players and management aware of the scenario they required to qualify which was minus five as Tipp would have pipped Munster on score-for if the teams were level on score difference.

Cahill revealed: “We had four (points) in our head, once we kept it to four, we had destiny in our own hands at that stage regardless [of what happened in Limerick].”

Tipperary’s injury crisis was added to further with Gearoid O’Connor (ankle) and Brian McGrath (chest) forced off during the game, already on top of Cathal Barrett, Jake Morris and Jason Forde already miss the game.

“They’re all big hits when the thing is coming as fast as it’s coming at us here,” Cahill said of the injuries.

“We’ve a big job of work now to get all these fellas back on the field for a preliminary quarter-final against Offaly in three weeks’ time.”

He added: “We’d hope it’d be enough to get everybody back on the field and I think more so to get our heads around our underperformance today. We’re really disappointed. That dressing room is really on a low down there. It’s like a major defeat. The main disappointment is we all felt we let down the Tipperary public today that came here in big numbers. That’s something that’s weighing heaviest of all on us at the moment.”

Cahill revealed that he hopes to have all injured players available for the Offaly game on June 17th with Niall O’Meara featuring on the subs bench for the first time while his Kilruane clubmate Craig Morgan is nearing a return from his cruciate knee injury. However, Barry Heffernan is unlikely to feature in this campaign from the same injury.