English calls for vast improvement after second wake-up call

Somewhere between a laugh and a shake of the head Nicky English sums up the state of play after yesterday's win over Antrim. The reward of a semi-final with Kilkenny was always the intention, but the troublesome ride against Antrim wasn't, writes Ian O'Riordan

"Well I thought Antrim played superbly on the day," he says. "Their first touch and their general hurling seemed to be way quicker than ours. At half-time I would have taken any kind of a victory. I suppose we set the game up for Antrim, and made it very difficult for ourselves to win it after that. And we did well to knuckle in there and get the result, but we'll have to improve an awful lot on that to have any realistic chance the next day."

Not that English was surprised by Antrim's standard of hurling: "From what I'd seen in the Ulster final they were capable of playing very fast hurling. They had nothing to lose, and when a team is in that situation they'll always be difficult to beat. I'd say as well there was a natural complacency about some of our fellows."

But English felt the win was always within Tipperary's grasp. "Well it was a strange kind of game. We got a good start, and after that we just seemed to slow down, and were second to the ball in many, many areas. After half-time we picked it up, and there is hope for improvement. I would have thought we got the wake-up call against Waterford.

"It's going to be a massive battle with Kilkenny, and on that form we'd have very little chance. But when the questions were asked in the second half our lads responded. It's not easy to turn a game like that, but they showed good heart and determination. It's just the quality of our play wasn't up to standard."

Dinny Cahill walks out of the Tipperary dressing-room after finishing his congratulations, and begind to praise his Antrim side. "I know the work these players have done since last January. We knew nothing would be easy, but we knew we were ready too. I suppose we weren't prepared for a team that could just change a gear the way Tipperary changed gear in the second half. They were in top gear and we just couldn't cope with that.

"They were powering out from that half-back line in particular, and we had no way of dealing with that. But I'd still be very pleased with that performance. The team is very young, and they can only get better. I still feel we can beat any of the southern teams. I'm not driving 250 miles every Friday night to lose. I was doing that because I knew this team could win."