Plenty to improve on for quarter final - Ralph

By Joe Scully

Tipperary minor manager Ray Ralph was happy with his sides twelve point win over Dublin in the final group game in the Championship which secured their place in the knockout stage, but the Moycarkey/Borris clubman wasn’t as happy with the performance, particularly in the first half.

“I thought we were very poor in the first half,” he began.

“I thought across the board, we were missing balls, missing scoring opportunities and not doing what we should have been doing, so we had a bit of a stern talking to at half-time, and we got a bit more from them in the second half. We held Dublin scoreless in the second half. They are a physical side but look we have to focus on what we are doing, and we weren’t happy at all with the first half showing.

“There’s a lot to work on, we feel we need to get out on grass to train, as we are kind of finding it hard on the astro turf.”

Ralph, however, was impressed with how his team defended in the second half. “Our wing backs in the first half were more focused on marking, and maybe weren’t doing as much, but they came more into the game in the second half,” he said,

“Our half back line dominated when we took over in the second period and our inside backs were very good, we had Leah (Maher), Sarah (McLaughin) and Leanna (Coppinger), and I thought they were very good in fairness to them.

Looking ahead to the All-Ireland quarter final against Wexford at the end of the month, Ralph knows there is a lot of work to be done before then, if they are to be ready for a make-or-break game. “We have a bit of housekeeping we need to sort out,” he feels.

“We butchered a few goal chances today, our running off the shoulder, we also butchered a few passes, dropping the ball that kind of stuff.

“We have an awful lot to work on before the quarter final, and look that’s all we can do going forward.”