By John Harrington

Tipperary know exactly what to expect from Limerick in Sunday’s Munster SHC clash at the Gaelic grounds, but it’s one thing knowing their gameplan and another thing entirely stopping it.

Premier County selector, TJ Ryan, has studied every cog and piston in this Limerick machine, but admits that’s no guarantee you’ll be able to prevent it rolling over you.

“Two things I see in Limerick – they’re a good hurling team and are a big, strong, physical team,” says Ryan.

“It’s a huge advantage. They have a system going and they never change. They just play the same system. No matter who they’re playing, they never change it. They always seem to come out on top at the end.

“Knowing the system is one thing but to break down the system is another thing.

“They’re such a huge, physical team. I didn’t believe it until last year, I walked onto the pitch and they have an awful lot of players who are 6ft4in, 6’5”. Huge. You need physicality to take that on and you also need good hurlers and they have it both ways.

“They’re so used to playing with each other. We played them in ’14 in minor, seven or eight of them, Barry Nash, Cian Lynch, the Morrisseys, they were all on that minor team. Kilkenny beat them in the All-Ireland final but the development when John Kiely took them over changed them inside-out.

“They’re just so used to playing this system they play. It’s unbelievable the way they carry the ball out of defence. It’s just to break it down is the thing. Nobody has come up with the formula yet.”

In recent years in both League and Championship Tipperary have competed very well with Limerick or even bettered them in the first half, but then have been blown away in the second.

So while they clearly have an understanding of how to hurt Limerick, sustaining that performance level for the entirety of the match has so far proven beyond them.

“Every game, if you watch them, you will stay with them for maybe 40, 45 minutes,” says Ryan. “It’s the third quarter where Limerick kick in. It’s probably the physicality and power in them the whole time is just taking the energy out of the other teams.

“They’re a fierce physical team. They have the hurling as well and they have that system and they just stick with it.”

One of the reasons that Clare have consistently done better against Limerick in the last three years than any other team is because they haven’t allowed their half-back line to dominate the contest like they so often do.

Ryan knows that if Tipperary are to pull off a shock on Sunday they also must find a way to stop that line of the Limerick team dictating matters.

“You have to be able to compete there as well. If you give the ball away to them, the chance is they’ll create a score on the other side. They just seem to be able to do that the whole time.

“They have the players inside as well to let the ball in. Their inside forwards are lethal, Aaron Gillane and Flanagan and Peter Casey, they’re all able to take their own scores.”

Tipperary haven’t beaten Limerick since the group phase of the 2019 Munster Senior Hurling Championship. Which begs the question, does this Premier County side really believe they can? Ryan has no doubts.

“Definitely,” he says. “They have won the underage as much as Limerick. Limerick won it ’15 and ’17 at under-21. We came on then and we won the minor in ’16 and the U-21 in 2018 and 2019.

“We’re probably a little bit behind them but definitely they (this generation of Tipperary hurlers) know how to win, which is a huge thing.”