By Shane Brophy
Tipperary manager Liam Cahill admitted he was delighted to get at least a point from the game against Cork, despite the feeling that his side had left the second point behind them.
“Delighted to get a point. Delighted to get something out of the game,” he began.
“I’d say it was a roller coaster to look at. It definitely was on the line anyway trying to keep track of what was going on. An exciting game, a game with a lot of skill in it but also a lot of errors I suppose and that contributed to such drama. I’m very proud of how the Tipperary players responded to every sucker blow that came at Cork.
“Cork were exceptional as well; they never went away. We kicked on at certain stages and you could say we were nearly there. But really when you’re playing Cork you’re never there. You have that feeling on the side-line that you could be hit with something.
“Look, when you give away four goals you probably don’t deserve to win a game either. I’m glad to get the draw and a point gained that’s the way we’re thinking.”
He added: “There is a feeling that we had the game under control three times throughout that match and that is a credit to Cork for bringing it back into where they brought it right down to the death but we would feel we had the game in our grasp for a couple of stages throughout the game, especially in the second half so we have to work on that to make sure we close games out.
“It is concentration but is also testament to the Cork movement as well, they are exceptionally quick players, but we will go back and look at it. We did seem to get cut open once or twice in the second half, but this is early for us as regards getting our handle on that. We have improved some bit from Ennis in that regard so we will have to build on that more leading into the last two games.”
While the concession of goals is a major concern in the early going in this year’s championship, seven in the first two games, at the other end, scoring isn’t too much of a problem with Tipp surpassing the thirty point mark for the second game in a row with ten different scorers. However, when the pressure came on, the midfield and much-maligned half forward line really stood tall.
“That’s the key line now on every team that has success the half forward line,” Cahill added.
“That’s the big, massive engine area of every team. I’m really delighted with the way we battled it right to the end.
“We have a lot of reflection to do again. We came down with the real emphasis of having a good defensive performance and I thought we were very good defensively for certain parts of the game but then got caught with mistakes I think for the first two (goals) anyway, just little errors. I’d have to look back at the last two. The whole thing opened up for forwards to get a run at you. Good learnings again from it today and it could be a valuable point before the year is out.”
Saturday’s game announced the arrival of Alan Tynan on the inter-county scene, but his performance was no surprise to Cahill who worked with the Roscrea man in the 2015 minor campaign when Tipp reached both All-Ireland hurling and football finals with Tynan involved in both, before switching his focus to rugby for a number of years and that experience stood to him in this game.
Cahill said: “Everybody knows his background as to where he was for the last couple of years as regards chasing the rugby dream. He came from a professional environment, and you can see that by the way he is conditioned and the way he trains, and obviously the way he was able to respond to pressure today, so I am really delighted for him.
“He is really excelling since we got him in with us last November, after having a great run with his club Roscrea right through the club championship and is continuing that through so I am delighted for him the way he is going.”
