Getting the job done with the minimum of fuss is the target for Tipperary

A weekend of intense hurling activity has cleared the decks for the knockout phase of the championship. So, now we know Tipperary’s pathway for the weeks ahead, starting with a visit this Saturday to Portlaoise. Assuming victory there, we then face Galway in what promises to be a really testing quarter-final. No point in thinking beyond that, with Cork lying in wait in the semi-finals.

This is it. The round robins and provincials are over so all roads now lead directly to Croker for the business end of the championship. The ringmaster has removed all safety harnesses so there’s real jeopardy from here out. It’s good to be part of it all heading towards mid-June rather than watching dispassionately from the sidelines as others slog it out.

Anthony Daly’s power ranking of the contenders has Tipperary listed in fourth place behind Cork, Limerick and Kilkenny - in that order. The bookies reverse the top two, giving the nod to Limerick ahead of Cork but also ranking Tipperary in fourth spot behind Kilkenny.

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It’s a fair assessment of our whereabouts and one that we hardly dreamed of at the start of the year. In January our twin targets were to avoid league relegation and – an even bigger challenge – get out of Munster. Both targets were met impressively, getting to a league decider and, with two wins and a draw qualifying from the Munster bearpit.

Onward we go and will expect to be still standing after we face Laois on Saturday. Queen’s County came up well short of Kildare last weekend in the Joe McDonagh Cup final, so it would be some sensation if they turned over a top-tier county at this stage.

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Once again, the wisdom of giving the defeated McDonagh team a preliminary quarter-final comes into question. The winners at least have real bounce and momentum behind them but the losers face a hopeless task after the deflation of defeat. It’s a pointless fixture.

Championship meetings between these counties have been rare – and one-sided. The most recent was the 2019 quarter-final. Under Eddie Brennan’s guidance, Laois won the McDonagh Cup that year and, more significantly, toppled Dublin in a preliminary quarter-final.

There was a real buzz in the county and they gave Tipperary plenty to think about in that quarter-final. We were only four-up at half time and eventually eased to a 2-25 to 1-18 victory after Laois were reduced to fourteen men early in the second half. It was less comfortable than we would have liked.

The present Laois side is coming from a much weaker position, though I’m sure Liam Cahill will be keen to avoid any presumption.

We’ve only met on two other occasions in championship hurling. Back in 2003 there was an All-Ireland qualifier game, again in Portlaoise, which Tipperary won at their ease (3-28 to 0-13). Otherwise, you go back to 1949 and an All-Ireland final meeting, which again went heavily the Premier way; the final score was 3-11 to 0-3. It was the first of a famous three-in-a-row.

All of which is entirely irrelevant to this Saturday. It’s more of an awkward fixture for Liam Cahill than anything else. Not winning is unthinkable but they still have to get the job done and do it with as little fuss or controversy as possible. Then the focus can rapidly switch to Galway and an entirely different challenge.

This year’s Munster championship may not be rated among the finest of the genre but the final certainly rounded things off with a bang. What drama and spectacle!

The quality may have been flawed because it was a game of errors, but the sheer pageantry of it all was extravagant.
Against the backdrop of Limerick’s 16-point drubbing of Cork three weeks earlier, this game was always going to take on a different life. Could Limerick be as impressive again? More importantly, could Cork again be so poor?

Neither happened. It was a transformed Cork team and Limerick never quite hit the pitch of the round robin game. The net result was a major tightening of the margin – tightening to the extent of inseparable. The hurling couldn’t prise them apart so it took the lottery of a penalty shootout to make it Cork’s day.

The win was more essential for Cork than Limerick. There was the prize of a seventh Munster title in a row for John Kiely’s side but for Cork, pride was the real prize. They needed a restoration and they got it.

All of which has people salivating over the potential prospect of a third instalment on the biggest day of all. It’s likely to happen but Kilkenny could yet upset expectations.

In four games now spread over two seasons, Cork have taken down Limerick three times – something nobody else has come even close to achieving. Yet for all that the Rebels have still left some threads of doubt hanging.

When you surrender a twelve-point lead (v. Clare), fail to push on against a fourteen-man opponent (v. Tipperary) and soak up a sixteen-point humiliation (v. Limerick) then questions are bound to swirl about in the ether. The answers await another day.
For Limerick it was disappointing but no more than that. They’re still a formidable force in this championship. For the moment their conversion rate has slipped and that has made all the difference.

Think of Darragh O’Donovan’s simple chance to win the game and how he mishit the shot. Or Nickie Quaid’s fumble for a ‘65’ that saved Cork. In previous years those missteps would have been unthinkable. Even their choice of penalty-takers was questionable.

Before leaving the game, a few comments on the refereeing. “Tyler” Walsh has been praised for letting the game flow, which loosely translated means he allowed a host of fouls go unpunished, especially in the first half when there were only six frees awarded.

I know of no other field game where the referee gets praised for overlooking the rules. Could you imagine a soccer pundit praising the referee for ignoring the handball rule or the offside rule? Or a rugby pundit happy to see knock-ons go unchecked? Other sports strive for stricter implementation of the rules but in hurling we are delighted when they’re ignored. A flowing game is great but not at the expense of absent refereeing.

For sixty minutes or so the Leinster final was a bore. It limped along, sleep-inducing, with Kilkenny happily going through the ritual of another provincial final win - and Galway tamely adhering to the script.

Then something happened. Whether it was Kilkenny being infected by the day’s sleepiness or Galway’s waking up to what was happening, is hard to tell. Probably a mix of both. The Galway goal summed it up, Kilkenny’s backs dawdling and Cathal Mannion suddenly seeing potential.

Momentum is everything in hurling and suddenly Galway had it. Point after point whittled the lead back to just four before Kilkenny responded. An unbelievable catch by TJ Reid was the catalyst, fetching and feeding Adrian Mullen for a crucial, steadying score.

Kilkenny had staunched the bleed before Galway’s goalie made an unfortunate error for the finishing goal.

In players like Reid and Huw Lawlor, Kilkenny have star quality. Add in Adrian Mullen and if Eoin Cody returns and regains form, then they have significant quality in the side. Their back-up troops are more problematic for Derek Lyng. Over the past few years, he’s been trying and retrying a cohort of players who promise and then don’t fully deliver.

Still, Kilkenny are in the hunt for this championship and won’t be easily dismissed. Limerick have a score to settle with them since 2019. Now, wouldn’t that be a tasty semi-final – and a very likely one too.

So, much to anticipate in a championship that is really revving up as we enter the final phase.