MUNSTER SHC QUARTER-FINAL Tipperary 1-19 Cork 0-19: SUMMER ANNOUNCED itself in Thurles yesterday with a first-round match from the Munster hurling championship brochure. The sun beat down on Semple Stadium, raising the temperature for the latest instalment of the game's most enduring rivalry in front of 35,103 spectators.
Everything was in place. Cork emerged into the light after a year torn ragged by controversy, their new manager Denis Walsh with only a few weeks to prepare his team to take on the defending champions. Tipperary were the tightest price they’ve been in this fixture for two decades. In rivalries like this, such an imbalance of expectations generally means trouble for the favourites.
If there was a twist in the end it was that Tipperary survived. Having frozen on the verge of putting away the match after a good start to the second half, the champions somehow rallied in the dying minutes with their lead down to the very minimum and put some crucial further distance between themselves and their fast-closing opponents.
Cork will take some encouragement from a performance that so nearly overturned the pre-match consensus – to the extent they could feel genuine frustration at losing. They had to ride out the loss through injury of the most experienced of their full-back line, Shane O’Neill, and line out there with two championship rookies and a panel player for the best part of an hour.
Full back Eoin Cadogan, having put a nervous start behind him, confounded the reservations about his prospects on the edge of the square with a display that became more assured as it progressed even if the contest with Micheál Webster descended a little too frequently into brawling.
At the far end of the field Aisake Ó hAilpín survived a painfully clumsy and unproductive first half at full forward to start causing real problems once the supply line – which his brother Seán had almost single-handedly been trying to establish – began to flow.
He managed to gather one of these deliveries and score a point at the start of the second half and created a couple of goal chances for Pat Horgan later on, one of which was sent badly wide and the other which forced the withdrawal of Brendan Cummins – unusually nervy at times yesterday – after making a brave interception and sustaining a gash to his head.
Ben O’Connor delivered another big contribution, scoring 0-11 even if his dead-ball striking wasn’t flawless, and constituted his team’s main attacking threat.
Tipperary should have had Cork as good as buried at half-time. When they hit their best spells they looked comfortably superior. Teenager Noel McGrath struggled for a while on Seán Ó hAilpín but got into the match in the second quarter to hit three points and contribute an array of dextrous flicks which disrupted the Cork defence and kept Tipp going forward.
But they wasted a succession of good chances and even after finding some rhythm, saw a mildly satisfactory six-point lead whittled back to four after gifting two daft frees – and picking up yellow cards in the process for Pádraig Maher and Paddy Stapleton.
The third quarter started well for the home side. Séamus Callanan confidently rifled home a goal after good pressure from Webster created a loose ball that Lar Corbett flicked into his centre forward, who within two minutes had added a point.
Rather than go up the gears and squeeze the life out of Cork, Tipperary didn’t score again for a quarter of an hour. In that time the balance of advantage and confidence was inverted and the outsiders took a grip on the game that threatened to choke the champions.
Walsh had performed an effective switch in the first half, placing Tom Kenny at wing back and moving team captain John Gardiner to centrefield where his performance levels revived. The amended half-back line raised its game and their direct opponents, generally the most questioned line in the Tipp team, disintegrated.
Even Callanan, who by that stage had 1-3 to his name, plunged into a bleak and anxious phase during which errors abounded, including a mistake that led directly to Ben O’Connor reducing a margin that had stood at seven to a single score by the 49th minute.
Tipp’s centre forward wasn’t alone in his crisis of confidence, as John O’Brien and Lar Corbett also fumbled ball and failed to break the stranglehold of the Cork half backs.
Before the match, Tipperary supporters had cheekily chanted, “We’re on strike, we’re on strike” as their team left Cork alone on the field to run through their pre-match routines for quite a while before appearing. By the third quarter, any talk of a strike didn’t seem funny any more.
Two goal chances for Cork came to nothing. Horgan’s miss in the 40th minute was followed by another wide, this time from a point attempt, from the same player shortly afterwards so it was a surprise to see him addressing a penalty in the 42nd minute after referee Barry Kelly called back play despite Cork unhappiness over the disallowing of Timmy McCarthy’s goal in the same move.
That unhappiness was compounded when Cummins’s head blocked Horgan’s shot and Ben O’Connor missed the consolation 65 but they continued to press and by the start of the final quarter the margin was down to two, 1-14 to 0-15.
Eoin Kelly – who survived the full 70 minutes on his return for the first time in nine months but who was starved of ball for much of the second half – chipped in two critical frees in the 54th and 66th minutes. They kept Tipperary’s heads just above water.
The second one was won by Shane McGrath’s determined run down the left wing, which drew a foul. McGrath was in and out of the match yesterday but he was there when it counted.
Sheedy finally made some changes to his under-achieving attack and it was the experienced Benny Dunne, who did most to lift the siege, sweeping over two points in the closing minutes to wrestle back the initiative.
Tipperary may have been more thankful for the win than they might have expected but there’s nothing wrong with relief at the end of a fast and furious championship match.
TIPPERARY: 1. B Cummins; 2. P Stapleton, 3. P Curran, 4. C O'Brien; 5. D Fanning, 7. C O'Mahony (capt), 6. P Maher; 8. J Woodlock, 9. S McGrath (0-2, one sideline); 13. N McGrath (0-3), 11. S Callanan (1-3), 12. J O'Brien (0-1); 15. E Kelly (0-5, four frees), 10. L Corbett (0-3), 14. M Webster. Subs: 23. P Kerwick for Webster (51 mins), 24. B Maher for O'Mahony (54 mins), 26. G Ryan for N McGrath (63 mins), 19. B Dunne (0-2)for Woodlock (65 mins), 22. P Kelly for Callanan (67 mins).
CORK: 1. D Cusack; 4. C O'Sullivan, 3. E Cadogan, 2. S O'Neill; 5. J Gardiner (capt; 0-3, one free, one 65), 6. R Curran, 7. S Ó hAilpín; 8. T Kenny (0-1), 9. J O'Connor; 10 . B O'Connor (0-11, eight frees), 11. N McCarthy (0-1), 12. T McCarthy; 13. K Murphy, 14. A Ó hAilpín (0-1), 15. P Horgan. Subs: 18. S Murphy for O'Neill (18 mins), 22. P Cronin (0-2)for N McCarthy (44 mins), 21. C Naughton for T McCarthy (50 mins), 24. P O'Sullivan for K Murphy (59 mins), 23. F O'Leary for Horgan (64 mins).
YELLOW CARDS: Tipperary: C O'Brien (35 mins), P Maher (37 mins), Stapleton (42 mins), Webster (47 mins), Corbett (70 mins). Cork: Curran (65 mins), P O'Sullivan (67 mins). RED CARDS: None.
Referee: B Kelly(Westmeath).
