Dublin lose out to Tipperary by the puck of a ball

They took it all the way to injury-time on the last day but in the end Tipperary managed to get the handbrake pulled just short of the cliff’s edge. An injury-time point from second-half substitute Ronan Maher was enough to push their winning margin over Dublin out to three points, buying them passage to the quarter-finals of the Allianz Hurling League and condemning Anthony Daly’s side to a relegation play-off against Waterford.

The tangled arithmetic these final-day games can often lend them an air of unreality and yesterday was no different. After Maher’s point put Tipp 1-19 to 0-19 ahead, Dublin sub Niall McMorrow chose to try to force a draw by dropping a free into the Tipp square in search of a goal, apparently oblivious to the fact that a two-point defeat would have been enough to see Dublin through to the quarter-final on scoring difference.

Had he gone for it and nabbed a point, Dublin would still have lost the game but their overall scoring difference would have stood at -9 as opposed to Tipp’s -11. But once Tipp dealt with the dropping ball, it meant that their three-point win left both sides level on four points and with a tied scoring difference of -10. Consequently, Tipp progressed to the quarter-finals by dint of having scored 9-95 over the course of their five matches by comparison with Dublin’s 5-80.

In the short term, it means a league quarter-final date next weekend against Cork. In the medium term, it should mean at least a temporary quelling of talk of a Tipp crisis. Neither looked anything but a remote possibility for early spells of the first half in Thurles, as Dublin pushed into a six-point lead.

Carve out
And even though Tipp brought it back to just one at half-time, nothing in the league so far had suggested that they would find the requisite fight to carve out the three-point win they needed. With Kilkenny easing to a 20-point win over Waterford in Nowlan Park, the other spot in the relegation play-off was always going to come down to what happened in Thurles. To Eamon O'Shea's huge satisfaction, his much-maligned squad came through the biggest test of their year so far.

“The belief was still strong,” said O’Shea afterwards. “We spoke during the week – we didn’t speak much but worked hard, got them to think more about performance than anything else, to win those dirty balls. I’m glad for the players more than anything else, a really dedicated bunch who work very hard, every Tuesday and Thursday night. It’s a victory for them really.”

As for Dublin, a topsy-turvy league that has included wins over the two sides that head the betting for the All-Ireland in Clare and Kilkenny will end with a relegation play-off against a Waterford side that beat them a fortnight ago.

Recent past
It's a position they've been in before in the recent past and Daly was sanguine enough about their fate afterwards. Most of all, he was keen to absolve McMorrow of any blame for not taking his point in the heat of the endgame.

“I’m not certain,” he replied when asked if McMorrow knew that a point would have put Dublin through. “I didn’t pin him to the wall inside and say, ‘Did you know the story?’ I suppose he was just thinking of the game and got caught up in that. I think everyone knew the situation if Tipp won by three but I suppose that’s the whole ebb and flow of the thing.

“It was a really good point chance but Niall had done some great work when he came on for us and set up a few things, so no blame to Niall. It’s disappointing but what can you do? It’s a mad league and I felt we hurled really well.”

Elsewhere, a late Colin Ryan free secured Clare a 0-18 to 1-15 draw with Galway and meant they finished the league on top of the table on seven points. But far and away the most ominous sounds of the day came from Nowlan Park, where Kilkenny laid a 4-22 to 0-14 hammering on Waterford.

“We have qualified for the quarter-finals which was the first thing and we have looked at a lot of players,” said Brian Cody. “We used it that way. A lot of them have sampled action so we’d be happy there’s a good depth to the panel. Like everyone else we’ll start settling things a bit now.”

Cork’s 2-24 to 1-20 win over Wexford means they are promoted to Division 1A for next year, while Antrim and Offaly will meet next weekend in the Division 1B relegation play-off.