By John Harrington

It was hardly a surprise that Tipperary manager Michael Ryan looked like he’d hurled a match himself after today’s All-Ireland SHC Quarter-Final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

His team put him through an emotional wringer in the closing stages of the contest as they frittered away a seven point lead and allowed Clare to close the gap to the minimum with four minutes of normal time remaining.

But just when it looked like Tipp were teetering on the brink of a disastrous defeat, their players showed some serious resolve to clinch the win by scoring the next five points of the match.

“You are never giving in,” said Ryan afterwards when asked to explain how he felt as he watched Clare's late charge from the sideline. 

“You just can’t do the maths too much to be honest. There was time left to play out. And no different to any other management team, you have to play it until the very end. It ebbs and flows.

“Look, it was anything bar comfortable – six points in-a-row to take it down to one point and all the momentum with Clare.

“But that is the quality of that Clare side. I think they really served it up there today and we are really happy to have come out on the right side of it.

“Even when we got off to a reasonably good start there in the first half, Clare hit us with two super goals, really well taken goals. They showed us exactly the kind of ability they have got in that squad. But look I was very happy with our fellas too.

“We were doing lots of things well, I thought we got into the game from the off. We put up an overall decent tally of points. But look, the overriding feeling here is total relief to have got through.”

Tipperary played some beautiful hurling and their forwards were superb, but once again their full-back line had a difficult day at the office.

An early six-point lead was wiped out in the space of a first-half minute when Aaron Cunningham struck for two late goals that came from nothing more complicated from than long deliveries into the danger-zone.

Cunningham and his full-forward line colleagues Conor McGrath and Shane O’Donnell combined well for the goals, but from a defensive point of view they were poor ones to give away.

“I think it was a bit if both to be honest,” said Ryan. “You’ve got to credit the forwards, the second goal in particular was a super catch by Shane O’Donnell.

“And once you are in control of the sliotar, you have the advantage on your man. By the time Shane came down, he’s very fleet-footed, and he turned in immediately and off-loaded it before it was finished. They were quality goals.

“Does it test the full-back line? Absolutely it does. And it rattles you. It rattles. There is great credit due to those defenders because you have got to pick yourself up.

“It’s not nice to be taken for a goal and to be taken for two in the first half certainly wasn’t in our script.”

By the end of the match Tipperary finished the match with an entirely different full-back line to the one that started last year’s All-Ireland Final as Sean O’Brien came in at corner-back for his senior debut in place of James Barry to line up alongside Donagh Maher and Tomás Hamill.

“A game ebbs and flows,” said Ryan. “I think we were delighted to get Sean O’Brien on the pitch, we really wanted to get that opportunity over the last couple of games but it just didn’t fall like that. But he’s been really good in training.

“We have Mickey Cahill there as well with huge experience. We had healthy cover. That’s the game, we need those guys. The competition within the squad will be all the better for it.”

Tipp will need to be more secure in the final line of their defence if they’re to retain the All-Ireland, but the positives far outweighed the negatives in Ryan’s mind after the match.

The work-ethic that was such a feature of their play last year was evident again today, particularly in the middle third of the field where men like Patrick Maher, Dan McCormack, Brendan Maher, Ronan Maher, and Pádraic Maher really made their presence felt.

“It had to be, this was end-game,” said Ryan. “For whoever lost today their season was over. Nobody wants their season to be over in July. So the prize was massive. The work-rate was very good, even at the end when the third goal was conceded, the boys were out on their feet, they really well.

“There was some heroic defending. I think both teams deserve a huge amount of credit, it was a really good game of hurling.”

Tipperary once had a reputation for fading late in games but today they showed a lot of bottle to find a way to win it despite Clare’s late charge.

One of the key moments of the contest came late in the game when Padraic Maher won a free after a brilliant catch and then his namesake Brendan drove it over the bar from over 90 yards out. It was serious display of leadership from both men.

“Those are precious shots and it takes really good players to do that,” said Ryan.

“Brendan has been plying his trade here with us for years and I don’t think it would have surprised any of us that he would have the courage to look for that ball to take it.

“But the collective Tipp effort here today, I’m very proud of that bunch of players. We are arriving at the right tempo for the All-Ireland series just now.

“We’ll have very sore bodies, we’ll regroup during the week and then make a plan for our next opponents. We’ll have to wait to see who wins on Sunday first.”

The only cloud on Tipp’s horizon as they look towards the All-Ireland Semi-Final was the injury sustained late in the game by the excellent Seamus Callanan, and Ryan admitted he didn’t know how serious or otherwise it was.

“Seamus Callanan has ice on his elbow, to be honest after that I don’t know,” he said.

“The initial news I got on the sideline was that his fingers were in trouble – does that mean broke, I honestly don’t know. The medics will be all over it. We’ll know for sure within 24 hours.”

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