Tipperary 1-12 Offaly 0-10OFFALY FOOTBALL has officially hit rock bottom. Relegation from Division Three of the National Football League was bad enough but then came a 13-point hammering in Leinster before Tipp cruised to a five-point victory at Semple Stadium in Saturday's qualifier.
At the break, Offaly were in contention, 0-6 to 1-5 adrift having played against the breeze. Tipp, who scored a 17th-minute goal from Peter Acheson, also missed a penalty in first-half injury-time.
But it didn’t matter as Michael Quinlivan, who saw his penalty saved by Alan Mulhall, kicked the opening score of the second half.
Offaly responded through Ken Casey, who never stopped trying and finished with 0-5, before Tipp hit four points without reply to lead by 1-10 to 0-7.
Offaly waved the white flag of surrender from a long way out and Tipp’s youthful enthusiasm trumped a dismal effort from the visitors.
“Beaten fair and square in the end,” Offaly boss Tom Coffey said. “We went at it there for the last 10 weeks’ training. We put our best players on the field and that was the result.”
Cork native Peter Creedon has worked wonders since succeeding John Evans in April.
Tipp ran Kerry to just six points in the Munster championship before collecting a first championship win since 2010 on Saturday and Creedon was, naturally, pleased.
“We’re delighted with the win. We’ll take a championship win any day of the week,” he said.
“At least the lads have something out of the season – everything else for the rest of the year now is a bonus. It means that they’ll start back next season regardless in a positive frame of mind.”
TIPPERARY: P Fitzgerald; A Morrissey, P Codd, C McDonald; B Fox, R Kiely, A Campbell; G Hannigan, H Coghlan; P Austin (0-2), P Acheson (1-0), D Leahy; A Maloney (0-3), M Quinlivan (0-4, 0-1 free), R Ryan (0-2). Subs: B Mulvihill (0-1) for Coghlan (43 mins), S Scully for Leahy (62 mins), L Egan for Hannigan (66 mins), B O'Brien for Quinlivan (67 mins), P Whelan for Maloney (68 mins).
OFFALY: A Mulhall; S Sullivan, J Moloney, S Pender; B Darby, M Brazil, E Rigney; R Brady, A McNamee; N Dunne (0-3, 0-2 frees), K Casey (0-5, 0-1 free), R Dalton; A Sullivan, P Cunningham, N McNamee (0-2). Subs: N Smith for A McNamee (half-time), D Hanlon for Brazil (51 mins), G Guilfoyle for Rigney (51 mins), D Currams for Cunningham (64 mins), D Kelly for Dunne (68 mins).
Referee: C Lane (Cork).
