Tipperary cashed in on determined and lengthy preparation by winning the Church & General National Hurling League title at Ennis yesterday. The result might not have blasted out a championship warning but it represents a fitting conclusion to what has been a confident first few months of Nicholas English's management.

The crowd of 13,500 was an improvement on last week's attendance at the football equivalent but the occasion was curiously flat as the winners established an early grip on proceedings and comfortably resisted Galway's attempts to recover.

Yet the match hadn't started well for Tipperary as Galway's forwards ran riot in the opening 10 minutes and flew into a 0-5 to nil lead. The left flank of the attack which had been so diffident against Kilkenny in the semi-final sprang into life - between them, Eugene Cloonan and Kevin Broderick took all but one of the initial five scores.

Declan Carr followed his eye-catching display against Clare in the semi-final with another highly effective performance in the Tipperary midfield. He battled it out with a largely disappointing Liam Burke until Galway made the necessary switch in the second half.

In the 10th minute Carr registered his team's first score with a fine long-range effort which he was to replicate 10 minutes later. The first helped steady the team and within two minutes, Galway's momentum was permanently halted.

Brian O'Meara - who had switched out to the wing with John Leahy moving into the corner - launched a diagonal ball deep into the full-forward line and Paul Shelly gave Brian Feeney the slip and barrelled in along the endline before hand-passing across the face of the goalmouth to where Leahy was waiting. He cracked in the goal.

Broderick replied almost immediately, accelerating onto a pass from Tom Kavanagh and pointing. Tipperary's selectors acted quickly on the line and identified Brian Horgan's difficulties on Broderick as in need of swift remedy.

In the 15th minute Conal Bonnar was dispatched to deal with the threat and he played so well that Broderick's scoring dried up and he himself ended up being chalked in for the championship duty by the vast majority of those present.

Elsewhere the match wasn't as encouraging for Tipperary as the semi-final against Clare in that they struggled to put away a match for two thirds of which they were clearly the better team.

Nonetheless, as the team is so obviously in development, there won't be too much sleep lost over that.

For Galway the situation is similar although Matt Murphy and co will have a lot to think about in the months ahead. The half-back line which caused a few worries against Kilkenny wasn't greatly improved yesterday.

Nigel Shaughnessy was marginalised on the wing and the move which worked so well in the semi-final fell completely apart when Tom Kavanagh proved unable to reproduce the vigorous form of two weeks ago in the company of an impressive Eddie Enright.

Tipperary were only bothered at midfield when Galway's substitute Noel Kenny switched there for the final 10 minutes. At centre back, Fergus Flynn failed to resolve lingering reservations about his suitability for this level although Declan Ryan was kept very quiet in the first half-hour.

In attack, once the initial flurry had subsided, there wasn't a lot for Galway to enthuse about. Alan Kerins played well, combining a good bit of grafting on the wing with an eye for score which yielded four points from play and no wides.

In order to compensate, Galway rearranged the formation and all forwards except Cloonan and Broderick found themselves in positions different to where they started but to no great effect.

Tipperary's defence played well after Bonnar's arrival. The young full back Fergal Heaney was fairly untroubled by Mark Kerins and Ollie Fahy. David Kennedy quickly defused Galway captain Cathal Moore and caused his switch to the right wing before the end of the first half.

Fortunes didn't vary for Moore thereafter and he was replaced halfway through the second half. Put together with his intermittent display against Kilkenny two weeks ago, it adds up to unconvincing form for the Galway player, who at least has a couple of months to sort himself out.

Tipperary's steady accumulation of scores left them a point a head at half-time. It could have been more. In the 29th minute, O'Meara swept in on goal and drew a fine save from Damien Howe. The rebound was turned into the net by Shelly but disallowed for square ball.

Howe played well throughout but demonstrated a short fuse in one exchange with Shelly just before the interval - an incident which got them both booked.

Signs were ominous for Galway by the start of the second half. Their scoring had been all done between the fifth and 19th minutes and the decline was well underway by the end of the first half. Early after the break, Howe was called on to make a double save from Liam Cahill, who pulled on Declan Ryan's hand-pass across goal.

Tipperary proceeded to outscore Galway five points to one in the 12 minutes after half-time. In the 46th minute, some relief was granted the Connacht champions and those in the crowd anxious for a bit of a contest.

Eugene Cloonan, whose impact had declined with Broderick's, sent a 65 all the way to the net to cut the deficit to a single point, 19 to 1-10. Hopes that this would spark a revival evaporated as Tipperary knocked over the next three points amidst few signs that Galway's cause had been revitalised by the goal.

Cloonan was sufficiently emboldened to to go for goal from a close-in free in the 52nd minute but his shot was blocked on the line. Five minutes later, he mis-hit a similar attempt and it was comfortably cleared.

In retrospect, a couple of points would have been a better idea but it was all academic and Tommy Dunne rounded off another prodigious afternoon with a pointed free, bringing his total to nine points from six frees, two 65s and a score from play.