Tipperary to open up football league campaign today away to Limerick

Another footballing year begins for Tipperary on Saturday next when they travel to face Limerick at the LIT Gaelic Grounds in a Division 3 South National League encounter that has a 5pm throw-in.
For Tipperary football, 2020 was a year like none other when firstly a pandemic lockdown interrupted the National League programme with an eight months delay, before Tipperary could eventually return to the playing fields. From that enforced break Tipperary would go on to win the Munster senior football championship for the first time in 85 years in November. Two weeks later that euphoria soon disappeared in the December fog of Croke Park against Mayo.
On Saturday next it is back to the bread and butter of life in the lower echelons of the national league where Tipp find themselves in the mix of a four-team group that also includes Wicklow and Offaly whose games will follow on successive weekends.
Tipperary manager David Power knows exactly the course that his side must now take in order to progress up the rankings in order to compete with the top teams. He knows exactly where he wants his team to go.
“I think where we can go after last year is to get out of division three and that’s our aim for now with the league. It will be a tough one to start with (against Limerick) but I honestly feel that if we perform we are capable of winning these games. If we could manage to top that group it would put us up against the second placed team on the other side. So if we can win our first four games we will be promoted,” he said.
Tipp have been back training now a few weeks but the shorter run-up to the commencement of the campaign isn’t ideal, with Limerick first up, a team their manager remembers well from the championship game last November when Tipperary had to come from seven points down at the break to win in extra-time.
“It looked really bad for us for a long while that day and it looked particularly bad at half-time. But the comeback just showed everyone that there was a great fight in the team, even though we weren’t playing particularly well” he added.
Tipperary must now forget about the Munster final win against Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, about the disappointing defeat in Croke Park against Mayo, it’s all back to basics now. A win on Saturday would be welcome but it will be hard won.