PREVIEW: History proves that fine margins will decide Tipp versus Galway this Saturday

A familiar fixture looks set to give us another chapter this Saturday as Tipperary and Galway will meet in their fifth ever All Ireland quarter-final clash in Limerick.

Leaving the Offaly game from last weekend aside, both teams come into this game with a lot to prove having fallen short in games in which they were expected to win - or in Galway’s case - they should have won after suffering a late, late Leinster final defeat to Kilkenny two weeks ago.

It will be the latest edition of what has been a pretty familiar relationship between the two counties in knockout hurling, and with Galway holding the upperhand in last eight clashes, Tipperary will be incredibly wary of the threat they pose.

The county’s have met four times before at this stage of the All Ireland series, with Galway winning three of those in 2000, 2005, and more recently in an empty Gaelic Grounds back in the winter of the 2020; Tipp’s only win coming with a last gasp Lar Corbett point in Croke Park back in 2010 before the Premier went on to win the All-Ireland.

More recently, Galway have marginally had the measure of Tipperary in knockout hurling overall with the famous trilogy of All-Ireland semi-finals to date between 2015 and 2017 and that group of matches tells a tale of how little there tends to be between the sides.

In fixtures between the teams in the 21st century the sides have met ten times and have an equal split with five wins apiece.
If we delve even deeper into the stats of the fixture, there has only been an average of 2.3 points of a margin of victory in the matches - the only outlier being the 2014 qualifier in Semple Stadium which required a huge second half comeback from Tipperary.

Once again, it will be fine margins that will see one of these teams over the line, and from a Tipperary perspective it would be foolish to expect Galway’s form lines to hold in this game, with their patchy performances throughout the Leinster championship campaign being highlighted by all and sundry over the past week.

What is always certain when Galway run out onto the pitch and see Tipperary facing them, is a ravenous want to win as there is so much history between the counties over the last 30 plus years and it has bred a real hatred and bitter relationship on the field.

Only this week on Off The Ball’s Hurling Podcast, pundit James Skehill was at pains to describe how much the men from the west hate Tipperary hurling, and that in essence will tell you everything about the Galway psyche heading into this game. They can’t and shouldn’t be underestimated in any way.

With a humdinger and a tight game expected here, it will be interesting to see how the teams line up with Galway in particular less settled than Tipperary going into this match. There are still a lot of question marks over Henry Shefflin’s style of play with his team, and they rely heavily on Conor Whelan from play and Evan Niland from frees up front.

They haven’t put in a full 70 minute performance yet this year, requiring bursts of good play in the recent games against Dublin and Kilkenny where they trailed by big margins at different stages, and had to show huge character to get themselves back into the play.

Like Tipperary, they have a cohort of players that have been operating at this level for well over a decade with the likes of Conor and Joseph Cooney, Daithi Burke, Gearoid McInerney, Padraic Mannion, and his brother Cathal, and there is still a huge reliance on these producing top performances in games to see them through.

The placement of Cathal Mannion in midfield is perplexing given his ability to score and with Brian Concannon and Evan Niland being sporadic in their contributions, we may see Mannion operate further up the field this time around.

Coming into the game from such a late, and heartbreaking defeat to that last gasp Cillian Buckley goal a fortnight ago is less than ideal, and the Galway players looked absolutely shattered in the closing stages, and this is where Tipperary may have the benefit of the longer break and an easy tune up game against Offaly last Saturday.

Liam Cahill and his management team will have seen the leaky nature of the Galway full back line in that Leinster final, and they will be trying to get Mark Kehoe and Jake Morris on the ball as much as possible, with the pair in brilliant form currently.

Selection may become a slight headache for Cahill with the return of Cathal Barrett, Conor Bowe, Patrick Maher, and Gearoid O’Connor, and it will be interesting to see if he will persist with Seamus Callanan at full forward.

The Drom & Inch man bagged the 40th goal of his intercounty career on Saturday, and Cahill may be tempted to keep him in the line up considering he is the top scorer in the history of this fixture with 7-31 to his name and has tended to be a thorn in the side of the Tribesmen in the past.

Cathal Barrett will almost certainly return to the starting line up and pick up Conor Whelan, while Craig Morgan’s withdrawal the last day placing doubt on his inclusion from the start this weekend, but it speaks to the depth of the panel that Cahill and co have developed over the course of the year, that there is real firepower to come in off the bench regardless of the starting line up selected.

This game will be tight going down the home stretch if history is anything to go by. Form tends to go out the window when the blue and gold meets the maroon and white, but the more consistent nature of Tipperary’s performances in 2023 against a Galway team - in contrast - who haven’t reached the heights required to win big games may be enough to see Tipperary into the last four of the championship.