A game to be wary of, as Tipperary hurlers are within touching distance of Munster Final place

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Fancy a flutter on Tipperary against Waterford this Sunday? Forget it. The bookies have the Premier County listed at odds of 1/10 to topple the Deise. Waterford are available at 13/2. Such are the perceptions ahead of the final round following Tipperary’s dramatic draw with Limerick.

It’s a narrative, I’m sure, Liam Cahill and colleagues will be keen to rubbish in the build-up to this final round. The Munster championship is a bear pit where even wounded animals like the Deise have the potential to bite deep. Complacency will be the enemy.

If the Cork game was a point lost, I rather view this Limerick match as a point gained. When you go behind to four-time All-Ireland winners deep into added time you tend to fear the worst. To salvage a draw then in those final, fraught moments was commendable. John McGrath showed glacial coolness to nail that leveller. It was an outcome our game-long effort fully deserved.

What a game! This Munster championship just continues to enthral. The round robin may be a league format but every game appears to be a do-or-die effort, no different from the old days of unforgiving knockout. The intensity was savage, the collisions ferocious on a day of colour and drama.

A hallmark of Liam Cahill’s managerial style has been a willingness to tackle problems head on. We may have yielded seven goals in our two previous games but there was scarcely a sniff of goal offered to Limerick on Sunday. Clearly, much focus in the last fortnight was on tightening the squeeze of that defence.

Promoting Rhys Shelly was courageous. The Moycarkey man was untested at this level. Yet, despite the inexperience, he turned in a confident display, doing the routine stuff with assurance and delivering mostly accurate puckouts. For the moment, at least, he has displaced Barry Hogan.

Eoghan Connolly’s promotion to the defence was also a success – nothing spectacular but a steady contribution on what was a huge day for the Cashel man. Bryan O’Mara and Ronan Maher led the rearguard with outstanding performances. Add in Dan McCormack’s skin-tight marking of Gearoid Hegarty and Cathal Barrett’s shackling of Seamus Flanagan. Michael Breen had difficulties at times with Gillane but had strong moments too.

The ultimate tribute to the defence was the fact that Shelly hadn’t a single goal attempt to stop.

With the security system in place at the back, it was then up to the outfield warriors to man the front lines. Modern-day punditry makes far too much play on tactics and styles, as if hurling is some sort of board game. Ultimately, it’s a physical tussle for supremacy. The teams with the greater appetite and zest for the battle usually win. In that department, Tipperary were superb on Sunday.

For once Limerick were outworked in the crucial stats around hooks, blocks and tackles. I can’t ever recall a Tipperary team getting in more blocks in a game. The workrate was simply phenomenal and, crucially, it was sustained to the very end. Players like Seamus Kennedy, Alan Tynan and Conor Stakelum may have appeared quiet but they too were doing the donkey work in the background.

Then there was the creative genius of Noel McGrath at play once again, mixing fight and flair in equal measure, grafting for ball one moment, then gifting Conor Bowe with a sublime pass in the next.

In the opening half Jake Morris threatened to demolish Limerick on his own. His four points in that half were rich pickings but it was the take-‘em-on attitude at every turn that delighted the followers even more. Mark Kehoe’s input too was top class in the first half. Gearoid O’Connor had a few moments from general play but his sureness on the frees was invaluable.

And what about “Bonner” Maher, rolling back the years and tearing at that defence in trademark fashion.

From early, Tipperary had the ground rules in place. Gillane may have opened with an instant point but Tipp’s grafting and grinding was soon having effect. We were more economical with chances and led for most of the first period. Our best goal opening was denied by a bad refereeing call on a “Bonner” handpass that sent Morris away.

That incident encapsulated the absurdity of the handpass rule. It’s unenforceable, yet Croke Park comes out yearly with this instruction to referees to tighten implementation and look for clear striking action. The result? Referees feel obligated to blow for a few token ones in every game, as if to suggest they’re obeying instruction.

The outcome is an injustice like that with “Bonner” on Sunday.

Encouragingly, now we’re told that Conor O’Donovan’s solution will be trialled among the freshers in the new higher education season. Such a move is years overdue, so let’s hope it bears fruit.

Three points up at half-time felt like less than we deserved on general play and everyone was bracing themselves for Limerick’s third-quarter riposte. It came with worrying predictability on resuming. A Gillane free, then a pair from Cathal O’Neill, who had been bothersome all day, and a Flanagan special, suddenly turned three-down into one-up for the Shannonsiders.

Briefly, our hearts sank. Was this going to be another repeat of a previous narrative? Thankfully not. The players dug in, clearly in no mood to follow the script. “Bonner” produced a moment that only “Bonner” could produce. Dan Morrissey beat him to a ball but as the defender emerged the Lorrha man got back, tackling and taking possession to draw the free, which O’Connor pointed.

Don’t underestimate the value of that moment. It was a crucial score, halting the Limerick surge and restoring parity. Soon Kehoe found Noel McGrath with a crossfield pass and we were back in the lead.

It remained a ding-dong tussle for the remainder of the time. Limerick had big inputs from substitutes, Mulcahy and Casey, but Tipp too had their heroes coming off the bench. Conor Bowe’s three points were pure gold and Callanan too landed a precious one.

Six minutes of added time seemed like forever in the tension of the final straight. Deep into stoppage time a Tom Morrissey point looked like a winner but in one final play John McGrath won and pointed the deserved levelling free.

Afterwards, John Kiely described that free as the type a team that’s trailing always gets. Indeed, just like the one Diarmaid Byrnes landed a few minutes earlier from just outside his forty-metre line when it was hard to see any foul.

That one, I suspect, angered Liam Cahill, as well as the terrible line ball call by James Owens. The manager got a red card for his annoyance and there’s talk now that he may have to forego involvement for the Waterford game if punitive sanctions are imposed.

In the rough and tumble of a game like this there are going to be disputed calls but on this occasion Sean Stack’s errors leaned heavier on Tipp than Limerick. Even Brian Gavin, not a card-carrying member of the Tipperary Supporters Club, was clear that two bookable offences by Tom Morrissey went unpunished. Let’s see what emerges.

It’s difficult to know what mood and method Waterford will bring on Sunday. For Tipperary, it’s definitely one to be wary of. The Deise will have motivation to make things hot for Tipperary, so focus and discipline will be essential. The prize of a Munster final appearance is huge, too huge to let slip at this stage.