REACTION: 'We’ will be going hard after it to win the league' said Tipp boss Liam Cahill

Tipperary manager Liam Cahill put his cards on the table after the late win over Galway by insisting that the team will be going all guns blazing into the remainder of the league to end a 16-year wait for a league title.

“I get hit with a lot of questions about the league that it’s nearly a dreaded thing now to go and win the league from the way the whole league to championship is structured, but the National League, I’ve always said it is a national title and we in Tipp need to start getting back winning and winning silverware.

“If it’s on offer, you have to go after it and we have a nice panel at the moment that’s building there, and there are players that are hungry to have success.

"So if we do find ourselves in a league semi-final or in the latter stages, we’ll be going hard after it to win the league and put real shape and substance on what we are trying to do for the championship as well.”

The Premier hit purple patches in both halves to open up significant leads but on both occasions, Galway reeled the score back in with points in succession, and Cahill said it is certainly something they are going to try and address going forward, but he was still happy with the character the team had to win the game late on.

“I’d like to get to the stage where we’d kick on in matches – that you confirm your superiority, go on and go five, six and then further out. 

“But look the character when Galway came back and pressed us was great. It’s always good to see that and it's not surprising to me really with the way these fellows are training and putting in the work behind the scenes.

“They’re really trying to build towards that and we know down the road that there’s going to be situations later on in the year that are going to be as intense if not even more intense than what we did today to it was good practice for both sides.”

Speaking about the lapses that allowed Galway back into the game, he said, “It’s a mixture of Galway figuring you out and cutting off options and it’s in areas where we might have switched off and it could be down to the heavy block of training that all teams are doing.

“Fellas are not machines. They can’t stay shooting the lights out for a full 70 minutes. It’s not possible, even though we try to do that.

“So, it’s a combination of a lot of things and you’d just be hoping that when the real business end of the year comes that you will have that perfected; that you wouldn’t be the game wouldn’t be ebbing and flowing up and down like that too often.

A big worry for Cahill and Tipperary supporters is the withdrawals of both Jake Morris and Bryan O’Mara in the first half and the Ballingarry man confirmed that they are both hamstring injuries.

“They’re both hamstring, muscle injuries, I think,” he confirmed.

“Again, that dreaded hamstring when it comes on, it is always a couple of weeks minimum, so that’s it.

“That’s the risk of it at the moment and I think it’s the same with a lot of teams but they are two players who are playing exceptionally well to date, so we’d be hoping that we can get them back onto the field as soon as possible. Hopefully, it’s not too long-term.

There was plenty of variation in the Tipperary play that was very fruitful for large parts of the game and Cahill highlighted that the need to have variation in the play is required and that will benefit from different approaches to solve problems in-game.

“Tipp is known as a traditional county and you move the ball as fast as possible from A to B. We’ve found out I suppose in recent years that teams found you out and they tend to deal with that.

“So what I’m trying to say is we are trying to bring a variation to our play and you saw that today at certain stages where we changed it up quite a bit and we’ll continue to work on that and see can we master it that bit better for later on.”

Gearoid O’Connor impressed once again and despite the workload being placed on the Moyne Templetuohy man, he continues to impress, despite disobeying instructions from the sideline with the last-minute penalty that confirmed the result.

“I think he did his own thing anyway!” Cahill said smiling.

“It was a two-point game at the time so I suppose the sensible thing to do was to go for the point. But look, they’re fine when they go in.”

Tipperary supporters have been on tenterhooks since the league began to see an official panel named for the remainder of the league and championship, and Cahill confirmed that a cull will take place in the next fortnight after the Westmeath game.

“Unfortunately, we have large numbers with us at the moment, but it’s not dragging down our preparation in any way.” he highlighted.

“We have a really good group of players as I’ve said, but it’s not sustainable to bring those kinds of numbers forward with us.

“We’ll have a little bit of a down week this week, we’ll play plenty of in-house matches amongst ourselves and maybe try to get a little bit of work in with the U20s as well and try and prep them a bit, give them a guide and to see where they’re at.

“We’ll see them who puts their hand up for Westmeath the following weekend and after that game, we’ll start to tighten things up for the rest of the league and into the championship,” he concluded.