Saturday’s win in Ennis was only Tipperary’s third in the province since winning the 2019 All-Ireland. During that time, the county has played 18 matches in the Munster championship, winning three, drawing four and losing 11.
This is the sixth round-robin provincial championship. To date Tipp have qualified only twice.
For manager Liam Cahill, the 4-18 to 2-21 victory over All-Ireland champions Clare marked a turning point after a difficult opening couple of weeks in the campaign.
An encouraging draw against Limerick gave way to the trauma in Cork where they lost their exciting young forward Darragh McCarthy to a red card in the first minute and were beaten by 15 points – by far the worst defeat in this year’s Munster championship.
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When Tipp beat Kilkenny in March, Cahill acknowledged the perception he would be battling.
“People say Tipperary under Liam Cahill will win matches in the spring, but can they do it in the summer? We have to prepare in the spring to make sure that we give ourselves a fighting chance in the summer.”
[ Nicky English: Subduing the champions is a big step forward for TipperaryOpens in new window ]
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Even when he led the county out of Munster two years ago, it was an anti-climax, as the final-day loss to Waterford stopped them reaching a first provincial final since 2019. The same opponents are next on the list.
After two frustrating years, he has started to introduce younger players into the team and panel. That process looked stalled when Cork beat them easily in April’s league final. Afterwards, he sounded a bit out of ideas given how comprehensively they had been defeated.
But two good performances out of three has raised the prospects of progressing again to the All-Ireland series.
Asked about the emotional release of winning on Saturday, the manager opened up on the pressures of rebuilding and the satisfaction of getting a good result.
There’s still a lot of work to be done from a management point of view and a navigation point of view
— Liam Cahill
“Absolutely. It’s been difficult enough, to be honest, to navigate over the last 2½ years. There’s been little bits of progression, the introduction of new players, but it takes time and it’s still very early for a lot of these guys.
“We had a nice mix of youth and experience. It’s still very much a case of this squad and our flagship team in Tipp finding its way. There’s still a lot of work to be done from a management point of view and a navigation point of view to try and get to the real levels that are required to compete at the very top over a period of time. We’re going in the right direction.
“I’m really proud of the way all players in Tipperary put their shoulder to the wheel, kept their nerve, continued to make good decisions on the ball and grind out a really important result for us to keep the championship hopes alive.
“The challenge now is to recover well and pick ourselves back up for a really formidable Waterford side that are full of energy coming to Thurles next Sunday, so the tasks just get bigger and bigger.”
