PREVIEW: Fine margins will decide an incredibly exciting Tipp senior hurling final this Sunday

I don’t think many people will disagree that the two best clots of cream have risen to the top after the last few months of club action in Tipperary.

These two sides have been very impressive throughout the campaign with the only outlier in the results coming in their match-up in the first round of the championship way back in July as Kiladangan lay down an early marker in that game.

Plenty of water has passed under the bridge since that day in Semple Stadium, in particular, the upturn in Thurles Sarsfield's fortunes and performance levels and with them coming up against a Kiladangan team at the peak of their powers, it really is teed up to be a fantastic final.

“That result was a good while ago now,” said Thurles Sarsfields captain Conor Stakelum at the recent county final launch.

“We’ve kicked on after that game in the meantime, but we’re under no illusions about how strong Kiladangan are.

“They’re a fantastic team and we saw that for ourselves today (against Toomevara). It’s going to be a really tough game. It’s been a heavy few weeks since the first game and we’re really looking forward to the final now,” he remarked.

Padraic Maher’s fingerprints are all over this Thurles team and the influence he has had on his former teammates has been a key factor in the upturn in form after a few underwhelming years in the county championship for the Blues, and Stakelum acknowledged the character and confidence he has brought to the setup.

“The way he was on the pitch is the way he is in the dressing room. He’s really fair, drives us forward all the time and Padraic has brought a lot of freshness to us this year along with the rest of the backroom team as well.

“He’s just a phenomenal leader and we’ve been working hard to try and implement what he has brought to the group this year. We’re very lucky to have someone like Padraic in the management team this year.

“It’s been a mad two years really. That 2021 loss really hurt us a lot and we have been trying to build to get back to this stage now. But we have a huge task again ahead of us in the final.

“It’s great to get there but we have to deliver on the day as well. But look, we’re delighted to be back at this stage because that was the goal at the start of the year. Two teams looking to get into two county finals and that’s where we are now.

The opposition couldn’t be tougher for Sarsfields as they look to overturn a result from earlier in the campaign which would have irreversibly scarred lesser teams, with Kiladangan laden with quality hurlers and are a team hovering around their peak years when you go through their starting 15.

The north club have had to wait for the last 12 months for their shot at redemption after suffering a harrowing county final loss to Kilruane MacDonaghs after a replay in 2022, but Kiladangan captain Alan Flynn remarked that the loss in that game to their neighbours wasn’t their sole motivation heading into this year’s championship.

“I don’t think last year was even a big motivation for us to be honest,” he insisted.

“We just wanted to peel it all back and get together again as a team. We’ve been knocking around here for a lot of years because it is tough going to be competing at this level for such a long time. Especially in the Tipp championship because there are so many good teams in it.

“We came back at the start of this year and felt we could give it another good rattle. We were hurling well early in the campaign, coming out of a really tough group and two tough games against Holycross and Toome. I think that will stand to us so we’ll see what happens in the final.

Despite being in the same position as they were heading into last year’s decider, Kiladangan are hurling far more consistently this term, in relation to where they were at performance-wise in last year’s campaign, and the settled look to the team and the consistency of performance has been stark in comparison to their 2022 form.

“We were not hurling well at all last year and looking back on it I don’t really know how we ended up in a county final, to be honest,” he admitted.

“This year, our main focus was to get back hurling well and a lot of lads have stepped up individually this year in comparison to last year, so I think that’s helped us a lot.

One big factor that Flynn was at pains to highlight was that Ronan Maher will be available to line out for Sarsfields this time around, having missed the group game between the sides and it is fair to say that the Thurles Sarsfields team are a different prospect with the Tipperary stalwart at the heart of the defence.

“We got a big slice of luck the first time we played Thurles because there was no Ronan. He is the main man for them, he keeps them ticking.

“I saw them against Nenagh, Drom & Inch, and against Loughmore; he just mans the whole game and the first day Thurles just seemed to fall asunder without him.

“But he’s back now and it’s going to be a completely different game. They’re absolutely flying it and were extremely impressive again against Loughmore.

“They were a point down at half-time and I don’t know how to be honest, and then just came out in the second half and deserved to win,” he added.

It is a game that is impossible to call considering the group game was a phony war of sorts since Thurles were without their main man on that day.

The form of Maher has lifted all those around him, but what Kiladangan have is an attacking threat that no other club in Tipperary has at the moment, with Billy Seymour, Paul Flynn, and Sean Hayes in top form. But Sarsfields are well primed for this and without a lot of confidence, I think they may find a way to win.