Sunday March 26

Allianz Hurling League Division 1A

Cork v Tipperary, Pairc Ui Rinn, 3pm

With seven points accumulated from four matches Tipperary’s top spot has been secured ahead of the Allianz Hurling League Quarter-Finals.

Cork’s mission is to stay in the hunt for silverware, though, as a defeat would mean they’d be relying on results elsewhere to advance to the knockout stages.

It has been a strange few months for Cork, who have shown some encouraging signs of improvement especially during wins over Clare and Waterford.

What happened between those triumphs, though, the losses to Dublin and Kilkenny will be enough to focus the minds though ahead of the visit of All Ireland champions Tipperary.

Kieran Kingston is seeking to develop a new and youthful team and the manner in which they hurled when beating Waterford at Walsh Park was impressive.

With a Munster SHC Quarter-Final tussle against Tipperary on May 21, Cork will want to make a statement on home turf.

In Waterford Conor Lehane struck eight points, but the most impressive fact was that Cork had 11 different scorers during the match.

“We are working with a very young panel - we have 13 Under-21s on our panel - and finished the game with five players aged 19 or 20,” manager Kingston said following the Waterford win.

“We do know that integrating them into the team will take a bit of time. You will have blips along the way and we've seen that during the course of this league where we haven't had that consistency of performance within games. You can't get away with that at this level.”

Tipperary are exactly the type of team, who have the pedigree and potential to exploit any inadequacies.

Michael Ryan’s team participated in a gripping match with Kilkenny in their most recent outing as Steven O’Brien rifled over a sweet last gasp point to earn a share of the spoils.

“It would have been awful hard for either team to go home without something from the match,” Ryan commented following the Kilkenny draw. “It gave and gave. Those are the games that give you a really good measure of where you’re at this point.

“It’s a great League, we give out about it at times but it’s a great League.”

Tipp have quietly introduced players during the 2017 instalment and Ryan will be assessing how they fare during the remainder of the competition ahead of what should be an intriguing Championship summer.

TIPPERARY: Darren Gleeson; John Meagher, James Barry, Michael Cahill; Willie Ryan, Tomas Hamill, Padraic Maher; Sean Curran, Kieran Bergin; Dan McCormack, Niall O'Meara, Jason Forde; Tommy Heffernan, John McGrath, Seamus Callanan.