History of sorts was made in Kilkenny on Sunday. It was the first meeting of the county with abiding rivals Tipperary in the presence of two new managers since Brian Cody’s team overcame a 10-point half-time deficit in March 1999.
All of 24 years later, Derek Lyng took his first home match in the league and found himself 12 points behind Liam Cahill’s Tipperary at half-time. Any allegories of similar recovery failed to materialise, as, despite giving it a decent rattle, the margin was too big for turning.
It gave the visitors a first win at the venue since 2008.
“It is quite some time,” said winning manager Liam Cahill. “We came down with good teams but Kilkenny pride themselves on winning down here and that’s always the way.
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“I’m sure tonight Derek and the boys won’t read too much into this come April when the championship starts. It’s just a bit of work in progress for both sides under new managers, really.”
Had he been concerned by the Kilkenny comeback?
“You’d be worried alright but I said to Mikey [Bevans, coach] beside me that it’s a great challenge to see how the players react between the lines and see how they figure it out.
“They fought away and clutched at straws and got a couple of scores against the run of play and it just kept the scoreboard ticking over. I’d be hopeful as the year progresses, we will find ourselves in situations like that more often and the more often we do, hopefully it’s the better we’ll get.”
Lyng got a sense of the scale of his task in a pedestrian first half in which Tipp’s lead expanded before the break to 1-13 to 0-7 after 1-1 from Jake Morris just before the whistle.
A good attendance of 10,458 came out to have a look at where the teams were at the early stages of a fast-moving season.
Tipperary were well served by some of their more experienced troops and Jason Forde ended the day with the match-winning contribution of 1-15. There was also an opportunity for some of the younger generation to get involved. The highly rated Bryan O’Mara made an appearance off the bench in the second half, having travelled last year and missed the season.
Kilkenny still have some of the Ballyhale players to return after their All-Ireland club success and Lyng didn’t appear too crestfallen as he conceded that varying the team’s tactical approach would take time, as they try to master aspects of a short game that always appeared something of a culture war under the previous management.
“For sure, there were some things though, the basic stuff. You can’t allow too much space, stand off players – things like that, we wouldn’t have been happy with. I said to the players, trying to work on different things, trying to be more comfortable on the ball, made life very hard on ourselves, particularly in the first half.
“We don’t want to favour one style over another but we have to get better at making those decisions on the field and mixing it up more. Most disappointing from the first half was giving them too much space.
“I said to the players I don’t mind mistakes. We are going to have to break a few eggs and that’s the reality of it ... we have to keep working at it and get better at it.”
The teams will meet again in a week’s time to honour Dillon Quirke, the Tipperary hurler who died suddenly last summer playing for his club Clonoulty-Rossmore in the county championship.
“Next Sunday we’ll do it all again, in Thurles this time,” said Cahill. “A different occasion. We’ll remember our fallen comrade in Dillon Quirke. It will bring on a different array of emotions, especially for us in the Tipperary dressingroom. It’s one that’s very close to us, very important.”
Lyng said that he was hoping for a big turnout.
“Definitely, it’s an important game for us and the lads who didn’t feature today will get an opportunity next week. From that we’ll have to look at the panel again and cut it down a little bit more.
“But first of all, it’s for a great cause and I hope there’s a great turnout for it. The game is in the spirit of the Dillon Quirke Foundation and hopefully, it gets the required support.”
