Clinical Tipperary complete first task

Tipperary 2-17 Waterford 0-16: THE BARE maths of the closing verdict says that this was the most one-sided encounter in this year's Munster championship and in a season when no other game was decided by more than four, the seven-point margin does look pretty damning.

Truth be told though, the scoreline tells a story that wouldn’t stand up under any kind of stiff questioning. Tipperary deserved their 41st Munster title, Waterford deserved better than to be an afterthought.

For most of the afternoon, they were anything but. The sides were level seven times and it wasn’t until Tipp substitute Shane Bourke swept home a cat-burglar’s goal in the 53rd minute than any great distance was put between the sides. It cracked the game open and gave Tipp a five-point lead, drawing a line that Waterford were never able to cross for the rest of the game.

Afterwards, Declan Ryan accentuated the recurring positive of being able to finish out the game better than Tipp’s opponents. Against both Limerick and Cork, they went in behind at the break and won the second half by five points. Yesterday they went in level and won by seven.

They made the slower start here, Waterford turning the scoreboard three times in the early stages before Tipp could manage it once. Shane Walsh and John Mullane put the Tipp full-back line back on their heels from opening bell and Pauric Mahony flicked over a score that made a promise the rest of his afternoon sadly failed to keep. All Tipp could find in reply was a Brian O’Meara point – not unlike Mahony, O’Meara’s day fizzled the further it went.

By contrast, John O’Brien’s goal on 10 minutes served notice of a significant afternoon’s work from the Tipp full forward. As Bonner Maher collected and moved menacingly towards goal, O’Brien peeled off to the left and found a dangerous angle. Maher’s offload was perfect, O’Brien’s finish low. Draw game, 1-1 to 0-4.

The Tipp half-back line got into its groove for the next while, Thomas Stapleton and Pádraic Maher mopping up just about every available ball as well as a few that didn’t look to be.

Tipp managed to stride three clear by the 20th minute but the sure striking of Maurice Shanahan from frees (two) and a 65 reeled them back in as the half progressed.

Shanahan was quietly having one of the days Waterford people having been expecting from him. His was the last score of the half, a towering point from distance that sent the sides in level and left him with a personal haul for the half of five points.

He’d even been a mite unlucky not to raise a green flag, a mazy run on 25 minutes eventually more crowded out than saved by Brendan Cummins. Had he repeated the dose in the second period, Waterford would have been closer come the end. But he was another who faded as time ticked on, eventually taking himself off the Waterford frees in favour of sub Eoin Kelly.

There was nothing between the sides in that opening to the second half. Stephen Molumphy put Waterford ahead, O’Meara brought Tipp level. Shanahan knifed a free, Noel McGrath replied in kind. Even when O’Brien took his tally for the day to 1-3 and Mick Cahill got forward for a point of his own, Shanahan kept Waterford in touch with his seventh of the match.

Cue Shane Bourke’s intervention. Lar Corbett was becoming a force in the game by this stage, roving around midfield looking for bother and causing it when he couldn’t find it. He sent a series of snappy, raking balls in low to the full-forward line as though he was making everyone aware of the kind he’d like to receive himself if he’s ever stationed back in there.

He was making Waterford jumpy out around the middle and when referee Cathal McAllister bit on a foul on Brendan Maher, it brought Eoin Kelly out for a free from just beyond the 65.

Kelly’s free dropped short and caused panic in the Waterford square. Both goalkeeper Stephen O’Keeffe and full back Liam Lawlor went for the ball but succeeded only in swatting it into space. Bourke was onto it like the law and the net danced, putting Tipp 2-13 to 0-14 ahead.

If Waterford were to hang on in there any longer, they needed the next score. But instead they spilled three bad wides, two from Shanahan frees. They also found Cummins too sturdy a roadblock, twice firing shots at him that he swatted away. When Noel McGrath followed up with his third point, Tipp were six clear and feeling no need for nerves.

They saw it out with relative ease, surviving a close-in Eoin Kelly free – Cummins again – and never looking like they were going to give it up. Four Munster titles in five years will do that for a team.

Now to make it two All-Irelands in three. Anything less will feel like half a loaf.

TIPPERARY:B Cummins; C O'Brien, P Curran, M Cahill (0-1); T Stapleton, C O'Mahony, Pádraic Maher (0-1); B Maher, S McGrath (0-1); P Bourke (0-2, both frees), Patrick Maher, Lar Corbett; B O'Meara (0-2), J O'Brien (1-3), N McGrath (0-3). Subs: E Kelly (0-3, two frees) for Bourke (34 mins); S Bourke (1-1) for O'Meara (52 mins); D Maher for Stapleton (64 mins); S Callanan for McGrath (66 mins).

WATERFORD:S O'Keeffe; N Connors, L Lawlor, S Daniels; T Browne, M Walsh, K Moran; S Molumphy (0-1), Philip Mahony; Pauric Mahony (0-1), S Prendergast, M Shanahan (0-8, five frees, one 65); J Mullane (0-3), S Walsh (0-2), G O'Brien. Subs: E Kelly (0-1) for O'Brien (45 mins); P O'Brien for Pauric Mahony (45 mins); M O'Neill for S Walsh (61 mins); J Nagle for Browne (62 mins).

Referee: C McAllister (Cork).