Tipperary must turn the page quickly after Cork game, says Liam Cahill

With all the focus on Sunday’s clash of Tipperary and Cork in the Munster Senior Hurling Championship in Thurles (4pm), the opening game of the campaign for each team, it might be easy to lose sight of the fact that the sides will be in action again just a week later, Tipp when they play Waterford in Walsh Park, while Cork face Limerick.

A similar situation will arise for Tipp’s final two games, when they entertain Clare in Thurles on May 16, followed by a trip to the Gaelic Grounds a week later to face Limerick. It’s a tough schedule, one for which Tipperary manager Liam Cahill has been preparing.

“Over the last four weeks since the Kilkenny game (in the league) we have been preparing for both teams, because the turnaround is so quick,” he says.

“Whatever the result will be against Cork, once we go back down that tunnel, whether we win, lose or draw, we have to turn the page the following evening, because we have only six days to prepare for Waterford. We had to do a certain amount of work over the last four weeks, the majority is on getting a result against Cork, but some of our work is done with Waterford in mind as well”.

First up is Cork in what is a rematch of last year’s All-Ireland final, and the Tipperary manager is expecting “a real ding dong battle”.

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“Obviously Cork, coming out of the league final, will want to fix a few issues that maybe they feel they had coming out of the Gaelic Grounds (against Limerick).

“I think Cork, rightly so, will be slight favourites coming into this game. We find ourselves in a similar position to where we were this time last year in relation to the expectations of being in the business end of it at the end of the year.

“Cork are coming out of a really competitive game in the league final, and they’ll have that under their hood to leverage from.
“Looking at the league final, you’d say there’s definitely aspects of Cork’s game that they didn’t show their hand a whole lot, to be honest. But still it was a hugely competitive league final, ferociously physical.

“Cork are a really good team, on any given day they’ll beat anybody, that’s the joy of the Munster championship. If you’re right on the day you have a chance of getting out the gate.

“Cork went aggressively after the league to get their house in order early after last July and they’ve shown huge appetite. There’s a bit more physicality in them, but again, no different to ourselves, come April 19 I think a lot of the same personnel (as last year) will be doing battle again, so it’s very much a 50-50 game”.

The Ballingarry man says getting to the pitch of the game early will be the key for his team.

“I suppose that’s our main objective, that we get up to that pace early, and once we find that pace early, and get into it, and get a feel for it, I have no doubt that we have the work done to be able to see it out.

“It’s a huge help to be playing our first game at home, and obviously not getting to the league final is a bigger help, because Thurles to us, being able to get into it on the odd occasion (for training) will be a big help and hopefully increase our performance.

“It (Sunday’s game) won’t define either team’s championship straight away but it will have a mental aspect to it, especially with the six-day turnaround for us. It’s a really tough assignment, so winning or getting something out of this game is vitally important for us”.

Ahead of the championship, much of the talk has centred around Limerick and Cork as potential All-Ireland winners, with Tipp rated as third favourites.

Liam Cahill’s view is, “it’s an old cliche but we really just concentrate on ourselves, we’re very privileged to be in the position we’re in as All-Ireland champions. We respect that, we know what it’s like to get there. We’ve often said to the players it’s like flying a hot air balloon, it has taken huge oxygen to get that balloon off the ground, but only a little pin hole in it can have it come crashing back down.

“Our objective is really to keep that afloat as long as we can, and always with us it’s a case of making sure that we represent that jersey properly every day we play. The days we haven’t (done so) it has weighed heavily, and a lot of players in that dressing room still have the taste of the days where things mightn’t have worked out. We just want to try and keep that at bay every day we play, and make sure that we acquit ourselves well”.

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