COLUMN: Tipperary opening round win built on early break neck start in Ennis

Just prior to throw-in at Ennis last Sunday there was a real sense of tension and a palpable sense of nervousness amongst the supporters in place waiting for the fare to commence.

Everyone present in Cusack Park knew how important this game was, none more so than the Tipp players, whose early salvo of 1-3 really went a long way to silencing the hostile Clare support in the Ennis venue.

It was a very unusual game for spectators with an incredibly high scoreline - considering how the game has gone in recent years - with neither team covering themselves in glory in terms of keeping their goalmouth untainted and while there were eight green flags raised on the day it could have been into double digits quite easily with the chances both teams created.

Liam Cahill was happy to get the win for obvious reasons in the post match interviews, but he was quick to highlight that it was far from the perfect performance from Tipp and Clare’s self-destruction in the early parts of the game gave the Premier a huge boost right from the off, and it is something that the players fed off for the rest of the game.

That’s not a bad place to be for Liam Cahill and his team. Going to Ennis in the first game with so many championship debutants and inexperience at this level, coupled with a raft of injuries was never going to be easy, so to have the two points in the bank and with plenty of sticks to beat his players with, it will be a perfect build-up to round 2 as Tipp have the benefit of a week off along with the vantage point to eye up Cork taking on Waterford this weekend ahead of the clash in Pairc Ui Chaoimh on May 6.

While there will be plenty of work ons before that game, there were plenty of positives aside from the finished result, none more so than the performance of Jake Morris who was in top form scoring 2-4 and you can say with a great degree of certainty that he has announced his arrival as the player all Tipperary supporters have been touting him to be at senior level for some time now.

There were some really good memories made by a few debutants on the day too, with Gearoid O’Connor, Alan Tynan and Sean Ryan hitting the target during the game, while Johnny Ryan had a magnificent game at corner back, in a position where there was a lot of scrutiny all year. Add to that the fact that he is Arravale Rovers first ever outfield representative to start for a Tipperary team, which surely added its own pressures to perform.

All-in-all, you couldn’t but be pleased that Tipp have ended a six-game losing run in the championship and have set themselves up nicely to have a tilt at qualifying from Munster.