Liam Cahill admits that Tipperary hurlers got 'an awful hammering' from Waterford

“We got rightly beaten today, we got an awful hammering today”.

That was Tipperary manager Liam Cahill’s frank assessment of his team’s six-points defeat by Waterford in last Sunday’s Munster Senior Hurling Championship game.

“That’s something that we have to try and sort out, it will test me as a manager and test our players’ resilience. We have a big job of work over the next couple of weeks.

“We’re still alive, that’s the main thing. The heart mightn’t be great but we’re still alive, and once we’re alive and the heart is thumping we have a chance.

“We were very, very fortunate today, we didn’t deserve to get anything from that game from an early stage, as we looked to be off it just that little fraction. We’re very fortunate to still be in the championship”.

When asked if the drawn game against Limerick seven days previously had taken a lot out of the team, he said “I don’t think the Limerick game took anything out of us, it didn’t take anything out of Limerick today, from what I’m led to believe.

“That’s not something that we’ll accept. If that comes from any player when I go down to the dressing room or over the course of the week, well, then they’re in the wrong place.

“We looked really sharp during the week, we looked very well here on Friday night in our last bit of work. I don’t know. It’s just something that happens, and when it happens it’s very hard to stem and Waterford, to be fair to them, really asked questions of us today. They ran hard, they broke the tackle and only for a few more shooting errors they could have been well out, they had a good few wides”.

Was there any element of complacency in the Tipperary ranks?

“From a management perspective we were driving this all week. I know how dangerous these Waterford players are, I know that better than anybody.

“These Waterford players don’t use excuses, the narrative around Waterford over the last couple of months was that there is emotional baggage with that team. That’s the one thing that disappoints me about the whole thing, to me that statement about emotional baggage was unfair. Waterford showed no emotional baggage today”.

When asked about the injury that forced Gearoid O’Connor to depart after 25 minutes, he said, “Gearoid rolled his ankle, again, that’s unfortunate. We lost Cathal Barrett before the game, Jason Forde from the week before, Jake Morris, they’re all big hits, when the thing is coming as fast as it’s coming at us here. So we’ve a big job of work now to get all these fellows back on the field for the preliminary quarter-final against Offaly in three weeks time”.

He said that Craig Morgan “is making great progress and an extra week won’t do him any harm whatsoever. We hope that three weeks will be enough to get everybody back on the field, I think more so it’s about getting their heads around our under-performance today. We’re really disappointed, that dressing room is really on a low down there, it’s like a major, major defeat.

“I suppose the main disappointment is that we all felt we let down the Tipperary public who came here today in big numbers, and that’s something that’s weighing heaviest of all on us at the moment”.

Tipperary conceded possession to Waterford on the puckouts, and he said "We’re disappointed in that regard as well. We had spoken about it, we were happy to leave Ronan (Maher) free at the back to make sure that we weren’t giving away any green flags because we know the speed of this Waterford team, obviously.

"We probably didn’t abandon it early enough either, to go after the game. That’s disappointing on our side as a management team, that we didn’t maybe just throw caution to the wind and just push up and take our chances. But look, hindsight is great once the door closes after the horse is bolted".

Is he confident that he will be able to get the team back up and running again in the next three weeks?

“These are quality players that I have, they’re really good players, that’s not them today. All credit to Waterford, they didn’t allow us to play, we only showed little snippets of what we’re capable of. There were a couple of occasions there when we looked like the team that has progressed so well through this championship.

“I can't stress enough how disappointed we are for the Tipperary public today, to witness a lot of basic errors on our behalf. That’s something that myself, Mikey (Bevans, the coach) and the management team and these players are really going to have to man up and get sorted out before we can say that we’re serious All-Ireland contenders.

“Offaly, no more than ourselves, are probably licking their wounds after the defeat yesterday (in the Joe McDonagh Cup final against Carlow). They did enough to win that game, with the opportunities they squandered and they created a lot of chances, so they’ll be dangerous enough up there on their home ground in a couple of weeks time and we’ll have to be ready”.