Munster SHC round 4: Tipperary 1-30 Waterford 1-21
A couple of minutes before the end, Liam Cahill threw his hands in the air at the latest mini-injustice visited upon his side by referee Seán Stack. He spun on his heel and turned to the crowd, chuntering away to himself and to nobody, only stopping when his consigliere Mikey Bevans patted him on the belly. The pair of them fell into a smile. A sure sign the job was done.
They were superior to Waterford here, probably even more so than the nine-point margin suggests. Certainly, they felt the pointier end of Stack’s stick on occasion and could have had two penalties. Even Waterford manager Peter Queally more or less conceded as much afterwards. “We rode our luck with black cards and penalties,” he said.
Regardless, Tipperary have achieved escape velocity and are the first team qualified from Munster. Incredibly, this was their first championship win in Thurles since 2019. It was their first back-to-back win in Munster since that summer too. Also, this snaps a four-game winless streak against Waterford, the longest such stretch in this fixture since the counties first met in 1902.
It was badly needed, in other words. Afterwards, Cahill talked about the embarrassment he felt last year as the Tipp minors won their All-Ireland, the sting of watching a group of 16- and 17-year-olds fight on their backs in a way he felt his group hadn’t.
“We just didn’t represent that jersey correctly last year. We just didn’t,” he said.
“The reality of it is that there are big standards here in Tipperary. Always have been. And when you don’t adhere to them, there’s consequences. Yes, we’re in a transition period here in Tipperary and we’re rebuilding but we won’t be able to play that card forever.
“And I’ll be the first to admit that there’ll come a stage where I stand in front of you fellas, please God, and be able to say the transition is over and it’s time to deliver now. But we’re finding it again. There’s green shoots coming all the time.”
They had to overcome a slow start, after coughing up a goal to Stephen Bennett after just 12 seconds. Jamie Barron’s shot dropped in the Tipp square and with Mickey Breen caught the wrong side, Waterford‘s record scorer turned and buried his finish. Waterford were relentless in that opening phase, rattling off a score a minute to lead 1-3 to 0-1 with just four minutes on the clock. Bennett missed his first three frees as well, otherwise it would have been more.
But there’s a resilience to this iteration of Tipperary that has been lacking for the past while. Over the rest of the opening half, they outscored Waterford by 0-15 to 0-7. Their defence, led by Bryan O’Mara and Ronan Maher, started to contaminate any ball that came into the Waterford attack. Up front, Andrew Ormond and Jake Morris were eddying around the place unbound. Jason Forde split the posts with sideline cuts from both wings. Waterford had nothing like that kind of chutzpah in their ranks.
Tipp led by 0-16 to 1-10 at the break and proceeded to ease clear after the restart. Darragh McCarthy was faultless on the frees all day and when he did drop one short, Eoghan Connolly took over from distance and landed a mile of points. Ten minutes into the second half, Cahill’s side were six points up and apparently cruising.
But then, out of nowhere, Waterford mustered a challenge. They reeled off six points in a row – two of them from the only throw balls called by the referee all day. The Tipp crowd did not love that. They were even less appreciative on 54 minutes, when McCarthy was straight through on goal and got pulled down by Ian Kenny.
What looked like a clearcut black card and penalty only resulted in a free and a yellow. The only leeway you could maybe give the referee was that McCarthy had lost his hurley and was 20 metres from goal, so perhaps it wasn’t a clearcut goalscoring opportunity. But it looked for all the world a stonewall example of why the rule was brought in.
Either way, Tipp were starting to turn the screw again. Waterford‘s six-on-the-spin had drawn them level with just over a quarter of an hour to go but Cahill’s side knuckled down from there and saw it out.
Noel McGrath came off the bench to whip a score, Forde got the whole place on its feet with a sublime point over his shoulder, McCarthy kept paying the bills from dead ball. When substitute Oisín O’Donoghue found the bottom corner of the Waterford net with his first touch on 67 minutes, the day was done.
TIPPERARY: Rhys Shelly; Robert Doyle, Eoghan Connolly (0-3, 2f), Michael Breen; Sam O’Farrell (0-1), Ronan Maher, Bryan O’Mara; Willie Connors, Craig Morgan; Conor Stakelum, Andrew Ormond (0-3), Jake Morris (0-4); Darragh McCarthy (0-11, 11f), John McGrath (0-2), Jason Forde (0-3, 0-2 sl).
Subs: Darragh Stakelum for Connors (blood, 47-52 mins); Noel McGrath (0-1) for C Stakelum, D Stakelum for O’Farrell (both 51); Seán Kenneally (0-1) for J McGrath (57); Oisín O’Donoghue (1-1) for Forde (68); Séamus Kennedy for Morgan (70).
WATERFORD: Billy Nolan; Ian Kenny, Conor Prunty, Iarlaith Daly; Mark Fitzgerald, Tadhg De Búrca, Gavin Fives; Paddy Leavey (0-1), Darragh Lyons (0-1, sl); Stephen Bennett (1-9, 7f), Kevin Mahony (0-1), Jamie Barron (0-4); Jack Prendergast, Mikey Kiely (0-2), Dessie Hutchinson (0-1).
Subs: Patrick Fitzgerald (0-1) for Mahony (46 mins); Shane Bennett for Fives (56); Patrick Curran for Kiely (61); Seán Walsh (0-1) for Hutchinson (66); Tom Barron for Daly (71).
Referee: Seán Stack (Dublin).
