PREVIEW: Tipperary ready to face Rebel renaissance in Pairc Ui Chaoimh

The oldest rivalry in Munster hurling is gearing up for yet another edition as two teams with wins in their respective opening Munster round robin games lock horns in Pairc Ui Chaoimh this Saturday night.

Tipperary had the luxury of sitting pretty on their two points gained away to Clare, and watch Cork face Waterford in their first game and size up what to bring south across the border, but it was certainly far from the expected fare many would have predicted with Cork coasting to an easy home win.

Neither team will be lacking for motivation in this one, with the sight of the blue and gold jerseys pouring towards the banks of the River Lee always going to get the blood and bandage pulses and energy going, but Liam Cahill and his players will have added incentive after been torn apart in the last round of the Munster championship.

The crowds so far at each game have been hovering around the 30,000 mark and with that number likely to be exceeded on Saturday night, it bodes well for a cracking game and speaking ahead of the match, Tipperary manager Liam Cahill expects that there will be a really intense atmosphere against a good opponent when his team take to the field.

“Cork are always going to be contenders,” Cahill remarked.

“It’s always difficult to write off Cork at any stage, they have massive pace, brilliant hurlers, big players around the field in key areas and obviously gave Waterford a lot of trouble and we just have to be 100 percent right to have a chance on Saturday.

I said it prior to the start of the Munster championship that hurling needs a couple of big games, big spectacles to rejuvenate hurling people around the country and we certainly got that last Saturday night between Clare and Limerick.

“It was a phenomenal game and the atmosphere at the game certainly contributes to that when there’s big crowds and there will no doubt be a big crowd in Cork on Saturday night and that should contribute to a good, tense and exciting game of hurling.

“Home advantage is a big plus for Cork because they have a good history down there which makes it a massive task for us but it’s one we are looking forward to,” he said.

Like Tipperary, Cork have a first year manager in charge this year in the form of Sarsfields man Pat Ryan and despite finishing an encouraging league campaign with a tough loss to Kilkenny in the league semi-final, they bounced back well after the break in the win over Waterford last weekend.

Ryan is basically a Rebel replica of Cahill having won it all with underage teams in Cork in the past five years, and has approached his panel selection in a similar vein, holding onto experienced heads in the likes of Patrick Horgan, Seamus Harnedy, Conor Lehane, and Damien Cahalane all starting against Waterford, with young players like Brian Roche, Tommy O’Connell, and Shane Barrett all favourites of Ryan from his underage days.

Despite just how poor Waterford were on the day, Ryan and his management team won’t be too bothered by the level of opposition they faced with two points now in the back pocket and he spoke ahead of Saturday’s clash about how important the opening two fixtures of the round robin are to them.

“We have two home games and it was vital to get off to a good start and it gives us a small bit of momentum.
“But we’re faced with Tipperary now on Saturday night and they’re after a fantastic win against Clare so it’ll be a huge task for us but we’ll be looking to put our best foot forward,” he said.

Speaking about the Tipperary victory in Ennis, Ryan said, “It was a fantastic game and you could see how good Clare were as well despite giving away two soft goals.

“It looked at half time like Clare might come back into it but in fairness to Tipp I thought they hung on very well and played some great hurling in the second half.

“Look, the Munster championship is very tight this year so we’ll be hopeful of getting another good result again in Saturday night,” he finished.

The likely pattern of this game will be expected to head into shootout territory once again, as in the history of the three matches played so far between Tipp and Cork has seen an average overall scoring total of just shy of 60 points.

Tipp will be keenly aware of the amount of space they afforded Clare’s pacey forwards to run at goal in Ennis two weekends ago, and with three goals conceded it is an area that will have to be addressed as Cork have lightning pace themselves across the board and are well capable of raising green flags.

The return of Darragh Fitzgibbon will have been a big boost to Cork, with the Charleville man scoring 0-4 from play, so it will be interesting to see how his influence could be stifled by Tipp.

Tipperary are still waiting for the return of several players ahead of Saturday night’s game, and Tipp boss Cahill admitted that this fixture will likely come too soon for experienced players Niall O’Meara and Seamus Callanan.

“The injury list isn’t too bad thankfully,” Cahill remarked happily.

“Everyone is in fairly good fettle from the last game.

“It might be a bit soon for a few players who were on the injury list prior to the Clare game but you could see the emergence of one or two on the panel for Saturday that will feature later on as we progress in the championship.

“It’s certainly a bit soon for Niall O’Meara yet but we’ll be hoping that if we get through the match on Saturday without any injuries that we’ll have a full deck to choose from in two weeks time,” he revealed.

With that in mind it throws up some interesting dilemma’s for Cahill with several players making good impacts off the bench in Ennis, with Conor Stakelum, Mark Kehoe, Sean Ryan and Conor Bowe all putting their hand up for selection.

The make up of the Tipp half back line was criticised in some quarters for their lack of recovery pace when Clare broke in behind, and a shake up in this area could be on the cards to counter the pacey Cork attack.

Whatever the line up come Saturday night, Cahill is a man who knows how difficult finding wins in the Munster championship can be and he is under no illusions of the challenge coming their way.

“It’s Munster championship hurling. It’s helter skelter. It’s a very unforgiving championship if you don’t pick up your points with each passing game, you just don’t know what way it’s going to go.

The championship is very much alive with Clare beating Limerick on Saturday night and that really throws the championship wide open, but we’ve a big task on Saturday going to Pairc Ui Chaoimh for our second away game and we’ll be looking to get something there to make our task a bit easier to come out of Munster,” he concluded.