COLUMN: Goals will be key if Tipperary are to overcome the odds in the Gaelic Grounds

When Mark Rodgers raised his second green flag of the match for Clare in Cusack Park last Sunday, it was unimaginable that there would be anything less than a Tipp buoyancy going into their Munster Championship opener against Limerick this Sunday.

That Rodgers score put Clare into a scarcely believable 1-15 to 0-9 lead, and it was a lead that was more than warranted as Limerick looked to be running out of ideas in Ennis, with the recently crowned National League champions - going with the run of play - as likely to run up a big total as allow Limerick back into the game.

For the first time in a long time watching this Limerick juggernaut, there was a sense that that air of invincibility was slowly dissipating. I was never as certain that they would lose the game as they were taking on water in all sectors.

Their half-back line were struggling to deal with Peter Duggan. Their midfield was badly missing the presence of Darragh O’Donovan while Will O’Donoghue played what must be his least effective game ever in a Limerick jersey. Their usually deadly inside duo of Aaron Gillane and Seamus Flanagan were being kept under wraps by Conor Cleary and Adam Hogan, and the sight of Diarmaid Byrnes rifling free after free off-target was unusual, to say the least.

And so, it begs the question….. how the hell did Limerick manage to win that game when they were taking on water on so many departments, and is this a good or a bad thing for Tipperary looking ahead to their meeting with the five-in-a-row chasing All-Ireland champions?

You can look at it through two prisms. Firstly, the overall consensus in the aftermath was that only Limerick could be so dysfunctional against the next-best team in Ireland and still manage to come from nine points in arrears in the final quarter and win by three points.

There was a big acceptance that Clare gifted them their route back into the game and Kiely and Kinnerk on the sideline made the necessary tactical tweaks to help restore the balance to their team, and the confidence they have built over the last six or seven years and their muscle memory of winning games eventually seen them over the line; albeit against a Clare team that wilted badly when the ball started to roll away from them.

Secondly - and you would hope for this to be the case from a Tipperary perspective - Clare did just that, in that they received a concentrated and lethal dose of white-line fever and didn’t know how to see out the game with such a comfortable margin halfway through the second half.

It wasn’t Limerick who turned the screw and finally clicked into gear of their own accord, rather it was Clare who completely collapsed, gifting Limerick three goals which was the difference between the teams.

You could say that all three goals had a huge element of luck to them along with some atrocious moments of goalkeeping and defensive errors, and we have seen - for the very first time in my memory - two poor performances in back-to-back games from Limerick.

So is there reason to be hopeful? I would say there is judging by how Limerick played in the league semi-final and again last Sunday.

But then again, there is also reason to be fearful regardless of their performance in that they have beaten their biggest challengers in Clare despite playing at a fraction of the level they can reach.

For Tipperary, it is as difficult a start to a championship as you can get in visiting the Gaelic Grounds and there has not been a peep from the setup since the loss to Clare in the league semi-final at the start of the month, and with the training camp in Portugal under the belt, that is usually a good sign from a Tipperary perspective.

I am always reluctant to read into league form and that was well and truly confirmed in recent weekends with three of the four divisional league winners losing their opening provincial games in the football championship, while Clare also came a cropper after winning their fourth title two weekends ago.

That will be what Tipp fans will clutch onto now and with personnel starting to find their way back to fitness, the hope will be that Liam Cahill will be able to play his strongest and most in-form hand.

Cathal Barrett finally looks unlikely to feature, while Mark Kehoe has shrugged off his injury and his return will be key for Tipperary; the Kilsheelan Kilcash man, along with his former underage teammate Jake Morris may be the big weapon Tipp uses to exploit Limerick. John Kiely will be hugely concerned about the number of goal chances that his side coughed up against Clare, with at least three goal chances left behind by the Banner over the course of the game, and with the pace of the aforementioned Tipp duo in an inside line, it could be an area Tipperary can exploit greatly. And it will have to if Tipp are to upset the odds here.

Cahill and his management team will have done their homework in that regard and after the league meeting between the teams back in March will have shown, Tipp have the capability to do damage with green flags and they need Kehoe and Morris to come of age together and lead the forward line.

There are still plenty of questions to be answered going into this game personnel-wise, like what will be the makeup of the defence and more accurately, who will be at centre back? What will be the midfield pairing? Who will be hitting the frees? Who starts with goals?

Tipp have just as many questions to answer and you would hope that a lot of those wrinkles were ironed out in the heat of Portugal in recent weeks.

This season does not hinge on getting a win against Limerick on Sunday, but what is an absolute must here from a Tipperary viewpoint is a full 70-minute performance, and the confidence that would bring to the group going into the rest of the championship.