Tipperary footballers into League action - ‘Good start vital’ as Down come to Thurles

The football season kicks off in earnest this weekend with the commencement of the Allianz Football Leagues and Tipperary begin their Division 3 campaign in FBD Semple Stadium on Saturday evening with the visit of Down (throw-in 5 pm).

With two competitive January games already under their belts, David Power’s side are looking forward to the visit of the Mournemen to Thurles, hoping to maintain their unbeaten start to the year following games against Waterford and Limerick.

On the first Sunday in January, Tipperary opened their McGrath Cup campaign with a positive 13 points win over Waterford at the Gold Coast, and last Saturday week they drew with Division 2 side Limerick in a game played on the astro turf in Fethard. Indeed, it looked like Tipperary had secured a McGrath Cup final place when Joe Lawrence goaled late on against Limerick, only to be denied by an injury-time equaliser. The Shannonsiders advanced to that final meeting with Cork by virtue of a superior winning margin against Waterford.

This coming Saturday’s Division 3 opener against Down will be the first meeting of the sides since they went head to head in the corresponding opening round game of the Division 3 League in 2020, a tight encounter that ended in a 0-10 to 0-10 draw at Clonmel Sportsfield. That game is also memorable from the point of view that it was the first game of David Power’s tenure as Tipp boss, and also the last National Football League game played at the Clonmel venue.

Since then the counties have gone in different directions with Down, under the management of Paddy Nally that campaign, promoted to Division 2 while the following year Tipperary suffered relegation to Division 4. Last year the trajectories changed again. Down had a disastrous league run, ending their seven games in Division 2 with just a single point to show from it, to be relegated alongside Offaly; Tipperary on the other hand were gaining promotion from Division 4 with Cavan.

After the topsy-turvy year that 2022 was for Tipperary footballers, management will begin this difficult seven-game campaign buoyed by recent McGrath Cup results and, particularly, the performances in those games, and from the positivity gained from using 27 players over the course of those games. It was flagged by David Power before the McGrath Cup competition started that preparations were going well and further down the road than they were in comparison to 12 months ago, and the displays on the pitch backed up that assertion.

"One of Tipperary football’s greatest servants" Robbie Kiely was a joy to behold

GOOD START AND A GOOD RUN

“It is vital that we get a good start in the league this year, and get a run of games going early. All the games in Division 3 will be tough for sure, and the better we start the better our chances will be of consolidating our place in the division,” said the Tipperary manager before the McGrath Cup game against Waterford.

“We have to be at it from the start, in our first home game against Down, and I feel the panel are a lot stronger and fitter now than what we were this time last year facing into that opening league game with Waterford,” he added.

There is no doubt that Division 3 is an upgrade from the bottom rung of the Allianz Football League and with just three of the seven games at home for Tipperary this year, the importance of getting results in Thurles cannot be overstated. It was the home defeat to Leitrim in the second game of the 2022 campaign that very nearly scuppered the side’s promotion chances, even at that early stage.

“Our first target starting out will be achieving six points as quickly as possible. Six points, I’d imagine, will be enough to consolidate our position and progress. So getting going a bit earlier is key because it will be very hard in Division 3. We have only three games at home this time (Down, Antrim and Offaly) so home games are very, very important. We need to get points from these games and we will be looking for a win against Down to give us some momentum,” he added.

A feature of the two games thus far has been the utilisation of Steven O’Brien at full forward and while the Ballina man came off injured in the first half against Limerick, he is expected to be available for the weekend. Killenaule’s Paudie Feehan was also taken off due to injury in Fethard, but hopefully he will be back in contention also to start against the Mournemen.

Another positive development is that Kilsheelan’s Paul Maher is back training, and while he isn’t likely to feature in the opening games, his availability would be a boost over the seven games up to the end of March.

While management were still in the process of finalising their panel, it would seem that of the freshers that both Dean Carew and Conor Cadell are staking biggest claims to starting jerseys for the game with Down. Moyle Rovers clubmates Luke Boland and Jack Harney have also been impressing.

Thereafter the starting team should go along expected lines of experience. On Monday evening manager David Power announced his new 38-man panel for the year. In a separate announcement at the same time came the news that long-serving Tipp player Robbie Kiely (formerly of Arravale Rovers) has retired from inter-county football.