Tipp pass early test set by the conditions

By Shane Brophy

Planning a trip to Salthill at any time of the year isn’t easy at the best of times, be it for sport or pleasure. On the last Sunday in January, it is even less so as the remnants of Storm Eowyn remained.

Then as they were mentally psyching themselves up for the game, the Tipperary players and management must have been wondering on Saturday night would there be a game such was the state of the pitch at Pearse Stadium. To state it being awful put it mildly, even without a football match being played on it the night before, it was borderline unplayable, a surface that looked like it had just been cut after being allowed to grow unattended for three months.

However, while far from ideal conditions, the challenge they presented were perfect from a Tipperary point of view for as much about this game was how they would perform and getting the win, it was also about attitude, and they passed it with flying colours. A players mentality will be tested more than anything else in such conditions and to a man, none of the Tipperary players hid from the challenge.

In fairness, they couldn’t. As much as manager Liam Cahill was under pressure to right the ship following last years poor campaign, so were the players as they are the ones ultimately that have to perform, and if this is to be the baseline in terms of performance going forward, it’s a solid foundation.

This is also taking into account the paucity of the Galway performance, one of the worst in recent memory for such a proud hurling county. 2017 All-Ireland winning manager Micheal Donoghue has returned to the fold, and much like his Tipperary counterpart, has to rebuild, and he certainly has a job of work ahead of him, going on this performance, although there were green shoots in the likes of Oisin Lohan.

He has a certain amount of lee-way as a first year manager, something Liam Cahill doesn’t going into year 3. He knows excuses will start to wear thin among the demanding support and is why he referenced the knowledgeable and unknowledgeable support in the aftermath. A squad with sixteen new players, and trying to get results, is always a tough ask but this is a good start.

It has to be a cautious one though as Tipperary had a similarly big win in the opening round of last years National League away to Dublin, but it didn’t lead to anything. In that respect, you are looking for signs of what is different.

Firstly, in terms of their fitness, the players look a lot leaner than they were last year. The manager admitted himself in his post-match interview that the panel last year weren’t in the shape required to compete for seventy-minutes in championship hurling, and you couldn’t disagree with him.

They looked heavy legged throughout that campaign, and struggled to compete physically at both ends of the field. They looked like a team trained for the national hunt season rather than for the derby of the summer. This year, the initial observation is Tipp are getting to the ball an awful lot quicker and moving it an awful lot faster before opponents can get a tackle in.

On Sunday, Tipp dominated the aerial battle in a defensive sense, starting from the forwards where they were putting in the hits, and time and again forced Galway defenders to turn over possession. While on the breaks, even on the bobbly surface, they were tenacious in the rucks.

There was also a discernible style of play. Rhys Shelly got the nod in goals, and once again his restarts were top notch. It’s the one area he has the edge over Barry Hogan for the number one position, and in the modern game, being able to win your own puckouts is huge. However, Shelly’s weakness, and is a strength of Hogan’s is their command of the square, and the two late goals conceded can be both partly laid as his feet. It will be interesting if the management go down the road of alternating their keepers as they have done over the last two years or stick with Shelly.

In terms of developing a team for the championship, there were some indications of their thinking with Eoghan Connolly again at full back, building on a good display against Clare in the championship last year, and he has the size and ability to play in the position. Ronan Maher was at centre-back, his best position, and he more any anyone provided evidence of the new leaner Tipperary in his conditioning. Michael Breen was again given the man-marking duties on Galway danger-man Conor Whelan and they had another terrific duel.

Another nod to the future was four players making their senior debuts, six in total with Conor Martin and Robert Doyle off the bench, the latter impressive as was the player he replaced at half time in Michael Corcoran, who had his hands full with Liam Collins but never allowed the Galway man a moments peace.

Darragh McCarthy is the one player many are looking forward to seeing at this level, and with the management handing him the free-taking responsibility over Gearoid O’Connor from the start, highlights the confidence they have in him at just nineteen years of age. While he didn’t score from play, he was a willing out-ball at full-forward with the imposing Fintan Burke for company, and hand a hand in a number of scores.

It was another debutante in Dylan Walsh who claimed the limelight with 1-3 from play but could have finished with a hat-trick, forcing a superb early save from Eanna Murphy and was also fouled for the early penalty which McCarthy converted.

Walsh is far from a novice at the age of 25 but looked comfortable at this level. There is no doubting his ability, with the one concern against him being his size in the modern game but he didn’t look out of place, and neither did Sam O’Farrell, the 2022 All-Ireland minor captain who was assured and composed at wing-back.

Added to that the display of Brian McGrath, a lot more mobile, Gearoid O’Connor getting back to his confident self, Andrew Ormond’s selfless work on the forty, Jake Morris’ quality on the ball, and the combination of the hard running Craig Morgan with the vision of Willie Connors at midfield, it was a performance to be pleased with, including the impact from the bench of Conor Bowe and Joe Fogarty, while the return from injury by Seamus Kennedy after ten months out is like getting a new player.

All in all, as good a day as you have by the sea-side for a Tipperary person at this time of the year.