By Noel Dundon (Tipperary Media)
Winning the league will do no harm.
The talk in sport these days is all about ‘getting the job done.’ Get over the line with the nose in front; and see off the challenge.
Well, Tipperary got the job done in Antrim at the weekend in the final round robin game of the Allianz National Hurling League to set up a mouth watering clash against Clare in the semi-final – Galway drawing with fourteen man Limerick ensured that the Tribesmen exit stage right for this season.
A potentially tricky trip north was dealt with very efficiently by Tipperary and the only real area of concern emerging from the game is the injury to Eoghan Connolly. On top of the terrible news of Seamus Kennedy’s cruciate injury, the last thing the management would have wanted would be to lose another player.
Everybody in Tipperary wishes Seamus the very best in his recovery – he is a huge loss to Tipperary but his loss to St Mary’s and Clonmel Commercials is enormous as he has been the heartbeat of the clubs for a long time now. A more genuine Premier warrior you will not come across and the level of experience and versatility that he brings to the field is unsurpassed.
Presumably he will still have a role to play in the dressing room because when men like Seamus Kennedy speak, they are listened to. Liam Cahill will be well aware of the influence he carries and will be anxious that he continues to have an input in the 2024 project.
The Clare game will be another great test of Tipperary and supporters will want to see plenty of fire in the belly as they face off against Brian Lohan’s men in Portlaoise next weekend. There is a real opportunity here for Tipperary to get to the league final and more importantly to get another high octane game of hurling under the belt before the championship campaign kicks off.
So, expect Tipperary to really go after this game – no member of the panel has a league medal and for a county which was regarded as being the specialists in the league many years ago, that says something.
The league might be a secondary competition in the eyes of many, but there is surely no harm in winning the title….if you can at all. Clare will have something to say about that in the semi-final and we have a fine contest to look forward to. Let’s hope for a right good contest and the right result.
Club Games
The weather conditions ensured that a lot of club fixtures got the knock at the weekend, so in a sense the already crowded fixtures calendar is already behind time…. in the month of March – a March of many weathers already!! There is very little wiggle room when it comes to fixtures but the wiggling will have to start right now to make up for the lost games.
Footballers have a long way to go
A Wexford side which had everything to play for gave Tipperary a bit of a walloping in their league tie which was eventually played in Fethard on Sunday. The home game in Templetuohy was switched to two different Wexford venues before eventually ending up back in Fethard – the Tipperary one, rather than the Wexford one.
And, any time you are putting four goals past the goal line in a football game, you are odds on to win the match. That three of those came in the first half to give the visitors a 3-6 to 0-5 interval lead tells its own story. It eventually ended up 4-10 to 0-8 and it just about sums up the whole league experience for Tipperary so far this season.
They were pretty resolutely run through and though Tipp had almost half the team changed from the original one named – the rescheduling of the fixture didn’t help in this regard – it was still another stinging defeat which compounds a rather difficult campaign with only Leitrim left to play. Finishing the league on a winning note would be a bonus but one feels that Tipperary would really have to be in top form to claim only a second victory.
Any morsel of positivity would be very welcome for the footballers at this stage. The U-20’s sharing the spoils in their opening clash on Friday evening against Limerick was unfortunate too in one sense – a late score denied Tipp the victory as the visitors kicked a 12th point against a 2-6 Premier tally.
More from The View anon. Don‘t miss it.
Be Sure to give Noel a follow on Twitter for all the Latest Tipperary News and Views