Significant improvement will be expected from Tipperary hurlers in Tullamore

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The Tipperary hurling reboot starts here. A preliminary quarter-final against Offaly at Tullamore is the vehicle for our re-entry to the business end of the championship. Anything other than a Tipperary win will be unthinkable, though presumption, as ever, is to be avoided.

Call it atonement, call it redemption, call it what you will, it’s the team’s opportunity to get back on the horse after such a heavy fall against Waterford. We’ve been down this road before and often stumbled a bit before pushing on against counties like Laois and Offaly.

Galway await in the quarter-finals after their late blow-out against Kilkenny. Meanwhile, Limerick endorse their status as front runners to retain the title following an eventful win over Clare in the Munster decider.

Our past record against Offaly is impeccable: played five and won five. Admittedly we avoided them in their glory years in the eighties and nineties. We probably came closest to a meeting in 1989 when they slipped up against Antrim in their semi-final. I can still recall the Offaly applause for Antrim as they left the pitch that day in Croker and thinking if we can only handle Galway, there’s an All-Ireland awaiting. Sometimes things fall your way.

Our first-ever championship meeting with Offaly was in 2002 at Portlaoise. Fr Tom Fogarty was in charge of the Faithful and while we won handsomely in the end, 2-19 to 1-9, that final tally gives a somewhat skewed impression of the match. We only led by five at half-time and that was still the margin heading into the last quarter before a run of scores embellished the victory.

The year after we met again, this time at Croke Park in a quarter-final, where the gap was five points, 2-16 to 2-11. Two late goals somewhat flattered the Offaly lads on that occasion.

John McIntyre was in charge of King’s County when we met in 2007; there’s a Tipperary connection this year, with Brendan and Martin Maher on the Johnny Kelly ticket.

Once more Tipperary prevailed in 2007, but only after some difficulty. The game was at Semple Stadium and we went five-down in the second half after being level at half-time. Eventually a Lar Corbett goal was crucial in a 2-17 to 2-13 success.

Then there was the 2010 qualifier meeting at Portlaoise. This time it was comfortable enough for the Premier county, though a late consolation goal for Offaly cut the end margin: 0-21 to 1-12.

Our last meeting was in 2014, the Hawkeye year. It was our biggest championship win-ever over the Faithful, 5-25 to 1-20. Resounding you might say, though a little flattering in the context of an up-and-down performance.

So, apart from that 2014 outcome, we haven’t a history of blowing Offaly away in these encounters.

The lineout on Saturday will, as ever, be instructive. Much depends on how many of the walking wounded are recovered sufficiently. One suspects Cahill and company won’t be taking any gambles with fitness, given the likely quarter-final the following week.

The goalie issue will be debated, whether to persevere with Rhys Shelly or reinstate Barry Hogan. Cathal Barrett should be back at corner back and you’d expect the remainder of the defence to be familiar enough.

Ditto with midfield, though the attack should be quite different from the one that faced Waterford. If Jason and Jake are fully ready to return it will be a major boost. Niall O’Meara is back in the frame now as well, though Gearoid O’Connor’s situation is less clear.

Losing to the McDonagh Cup runners-up is not an option. Much interest will focus on how the team rebounds from that Waterford defeat. One expects a significant kick-back - anything less will be unacceptable.

Ahead of the game we know what the prize is, as the latter stages of the championship take shape. I suspect we’d have preferred to meet Kilkenny in a quarter-final but Galway’s flakiness once more decrees otherwise.

What an extraordinary finish to that Leinster final! This was one that Galway could – and should – have won. Against a Kilkenny side minus a few key players such as Richie Reid and Darren Mullen, a Galway win was an absolute imperative. Yet their old brittleness surfaced once again.

They’ll have nightmares watching the final seconds of this match. They just needed one player to get possession and get the ball away anywhere, but they seemed spooked by the tension of it all. They lost their collective nerve, the final kicked clearance summing up the panic.

I thought the goalie should have done better on Cillian Buckley’s shot, which was into the corner but not exactly zipping with power. In that moment all of Galway’s insecurities came to the surface.

And here’s the difference with Limerick. The title holders know the routine with these cliff-edge finishes. It’s extraordinary how many times they nudge home when the game is in the balance. In this Munster championship alone, two-points was the biggest margin in any of Limerick’s five games.

If you recall their breakthrough year of 2018 there was an edginess to some of their victories. Cork could have caught them in the semi-final and even in the final they were clinging on when Joe Canning faced up to that final free. The belief wasn’t yet fully embedded – but it is now.

They remind me a lot of Dublin’s footballers during their six-in-a-row. They too had found the secret to winning on the cliff edge. Teams regularly matched them, like teams are doing now to Limerick, but the champions just kept pulling off those one or two-point wins. Which is why Limerick will probably complete the four-in-a-row this time.

Interesting to see how Clare react to this defeat. They had the chances to win but weren’t clinical enough. Taking fifty minutes to recognise that a corner back wasn’t coping didn’t help either. And a brain freeze by the referee on the final play denied us all the extra-time that should have ensued. How the team processes all those factors in the weeks ahead will be telling.

Elsewhere, the premature passing of Teddy McCarthy has been widely mourned. You didn’t have to be a Corkonian to acknowledge the buzz that he brought to the games. That extraordinary salmon leap was his calling card. A better footballer than a hurler, I would suggest, but athletically effective in both.

Without knowing him personally, he always struck me as a sort of devil-may-care guy who just went out and gave it a lash, whatever the sport. He was the last of the great dual players, his 1990 feat unlikely to be ever matched.

Incidentally, it has been pointed out to me in this regard that Denis Walsh is the forgotten figure from those Cork teams. He too collected both All-Ireland medals in 1990 but, unlike Teddy, didn’t play in the football final.

Finally, a long-running transfer saga hereabouts is over at last. You may recall mention in the past of the transfer requests from the O’Dwyer brothers, Gerard and Brian Óg, from Rosegreen to Boherlahan. Rosegreen objected and the requests were refused last year. The saga continued this year and after much manoeuvring the players have finally got their wish.

I’m glad the case is over and the lads can resume playing after a year out in the wilderness. It’s a major boost to Boherlahan.

The whole issue of the parish rule is a strange one, with widely varying strictures from county to county. Some national uniformity would be welcome.