John McGrath showed 'balls of steel' to take late free, says Tipperary hurling selector Declan Laffan

Selector Declan Laffan said that his Loughmore/Castleiney clubmate John McGrath showed “balls of steel” to step up and take the last-gasp free that earned Tipperary a draw in Sunday’s thrilling Munster Senior Hurling Championship clash with All-Ireland champions Limerick.

Deep into additional time, and in the last action of a gripping encounter, McGrath drove the free between the posts from around 60 metres, after he himself had been fouled.

“Fair play to him, I’m really proud of him and it was tremendous for him personally,” Laffan said when referring to John McGrath’s late intervention, and he added that he especially showed great courage after missing a late free in the previous game against Cork.

In a feisty ending to the game, manager Liam Cahill received a red card from the Dublin referee Sean Stack, while players squared up to one another after the final whistle.

What was Declan Laffan’s take on those incidents?

“I honestly don’t know what happened after the final whistle, but sure look, that’s hurling, it gets emotional.

“It’s an emotional game, I’m no different myself when I’m on the line, so it’s all part of the game. Sometimes we go over the top, we don’t mean to, it’s just sport.

“We’re delighted to come out with the draw at the end. We maybe felt it might slip away for a minute or two but we responded and got the scores that got us over the line.

“It was real, proper Munster championship hurling. It felt a bit like the old days with a big crowd and a tremendous atmosphere, it was a wonderful place to be involved in.

“A feature of our games all year is that we have fallen asleep for little periods here and there, at different stages, coming into half-time or just after. But you have to be proud of the boys the way they reacted. We came back, we went three up again, and Limerick came back to level. It was tit for tat then for the last eight, ten minutes. 

“When they stuck up six minutes of injury time you wonder what’s going to happen. But look, we got there and we got the draw, so we’re delighted.

“Maybe we should have won it, we could have lost it. Look, we’re happy, we’re still undefeated in Munster, I think we’re the only ones still undefeated and we’ll take that”.

When it was put to the Loughmore/Castleiney man that the match-ups had worked well from a Tipp perspective, he stated “They did today but you all know yourselves in sport, the next day they mightn’t so you always have to be on your guard. I thought Dan McCormack was brilliant on Gearoid Hegarty, Bryan O’Mara on Cian Lynch, the inside back line. I think pretty much all of them worked, to be fair. Another day they mightn’t”.

And the defence had tightened up after they were criticised for leaking goals in the first two games?

“I was trying to remember were there goal chances, probably Cathal Barrett recovered one situation that looked really risky, and there was another maybe half-chance. We probably had one, early in the second half, the one that Jake lashed over the bar, I think it went to Hawkeye. The ball spilled away from Mark Kehoe previous to that, if it hadn't spilled away I think he might have got in.

“Look, we’re delighted with that (not giving away goal chances) obviously. You're always hoping for improvements. It’s still early days and we’ll take it from there”.

When asked about Conor Bowe’s impact from the bench, he said “yes, he was tremendous. He hit three points from around the middle of the park, it’s not an area you would expect him to, and he picked off a couple of lovely points that had a huge bearing on it, maybe at a time when we were struggling. They kept us in it and kept us ticking over”.

Before the game started were they aware of the Cork/Clare result, with Clare winning by a point?

"We were aware of it, somebody said it to me as we sat down before the match started. But other than that it wasn't something we were following, it didn’t really bother us or come into our thought-process".

With the prospect of reaching the Munster final if they beat Waterford in the final game of the round robin at FBD Semple Stadium next Sunday, he said “It would be great to get to a Munster final, obviously in the first year with this group of players and management. 

“It's a big challenge (against Waterford) and we’re not going to take anything for granted”.

Declan Laffan also thanked the Tipp public, saying that “they really came out and supported us today, and we ask them to come again next week in big numbers, and really drive on this team.

“They (the team) are showing that they deserve this support”.