Gloomy day, gloomy game. The scoreboard hardly shimmered with light either, as Tipperary bludgeoned a 5-19 to 0-13 victory over Waterford to mop up back-to-back Munster titles.
It’s been a while since the anticipation levels for championship encounter so brutally outstripped the reality. There was nothing satisfying about being reintroduced to the taste.
Ultimately, this was the sort of day from which the drenched masses in Limerick – all 26,508 of them – will remember the rain long after they've forgotten the scoreline. Tipperary held up their end of the bargain, Waterford did not. Though the systems failure here from Derek McGrath's side will be met with barely-contained glee in traditional circles, more than anything this was sad to watch.
Mick Ryan’s Tipperary side is retooled and refigured from the one Eamon O’Shea left behind him last August but their capacity for running up a score remains as healthy as ever. Seamie Callanan cut loose with a smooth 1-11, John McGrath pinged to the front of the young hurler of the year running with an opportunist’s 3-2. John O’Dwyer’s wasn’t even missed.
For that, Waterford have a lot of soul-searching to do. They misfired here to a galling extent. They didn’t score from play for half an hour in the first half and pucked 10 wides before the break.
They conceded as many goals in seven second-half minutes as they had in the whole of last year’s championship.
Beaten docket
They lost by 21 points, the same margin as in 2011 when they were considered a thoroughly beaten docket. This side is supposed to be more than that – much more. McGrath has a massive task now turning them around for a quarter-final against Wexford in a fortnight.
“A young group, it could be hard to lift them,” sighed the Waterford boss. “The demoralising effect of the nature of the defeat, it’s very hard to quantify how they might react. That’s the honest answer.”
Tipp were direct, abrasive and admirably clinical. In the conditions, Callanan and Bonner Maher got in amongst it with the Waterford defenders through the centre of the attack and caused wreck. McGrath slipped in and out around the margins and filched a hat-trick out of meagre ball.
For Ryan, it’s a Munster title in his first season and a reward for so identifiably putting his stamp on an already successful group. What the rest of the summer might hold doesn’t need spelling out.
“Look, we’ve been down this road before,” said Ryan. “Jesus, this bunch has suffered enough .. . But it is a challenge for us tomorrow morning, and tomorrow is when we’ll think about it, not today.
“But we’ve got to manage this. And, you know, hopefully, and I’d like to think the Tipp public are behind this team, but not to have excessive expectations.”
With Waterford and Clare having already met, it means no draw is needed for the quarter-finals. Waterford have Wexford and Clare have Galway in a double-header on July 24th, almost certainly in Thurles.
Six teams left. Let the whittling begin.
