Improved Tipperary can guard against another upset

There is far more of a sense of Groundhog Day about Sunday's semi-final than last week's.

Just like 12 months ago, Tipperary have won Munster and face a Galway side, which successfully rehabilitated itself in the All-Ireland quarter-finals after a second-half fade-out against Kilkenny.

On the face of it Tipperary deserve to be favourites.

The team has improved this year with the addition of some serious operators throughout the field: Séamus Kennedy might experience speculative pangs when he sees the footballers contest next week’s football semi-final but he has been a great addition to the hurlers’ half-back line.

Michael Breen's battering ram presence at centrefield has been complemented by a prolific scoring habit and with captain Brendan Maher relocated to his best position alongside him, the Munster champions have a formidable pairing.

In attack John McGrath’s arrival has provided another scoring point in a set of forwards, which already had a cutting edge – nowhere more obvious than in Séamus Callanan’s record of having scored 3-9 and 3-8 in the past two championship meetings with Galway.

The efforts – or lack of them – to stop Callanan last year were a talking point but Galway took the view that they could absorb the goals and still score sufficient points to stay afloat.

McGrath offers a new threat after his Munster final hat-trick but John O'Dwyer starts on the bench after serving suspension, an understandable expression of concern by manager Michael Ryan at the player's reckless red card against Limerick leaving Tipp down to 14 for the best part of an hour – a deficiency that would cost dearly in either of the remaining matches in this year's championship.

Tipperary’s impressive progress does however have to be placed in the context of a startlingly poor Munster championship.

Cork were well beaten, Limerick were in touch at the end courtesy of a late goal and O'Dwyer having reduced the playing strength to 14 and most curiously of all Waterford showed up is distracted form and proceeded to vacate the field, mentally if not physically.

Vibrant challenge

Their display was nothing compared to the vibrant challenge put up to Kilkenny last week. As a result do we really know where Tipperary are? Do Tipperary themselves?

Might they be vulnerable to early signs that the match isn’t going their way any more than it did last season?

For their part, Galway came into this season under the massive pressure of having ousted their manager.

The much-denounced performance in the second half of the Leinster final didn't suggest that there had been a paradigm shift under new manager Micheál Donoghue but in the quarter-finals he did an excellent job of setting up the team to beat Clare.

He's unlikely to use Johnny Coen at centrefield again given the physicality of Maher and Breen but he also has the frequently mentioned advantage of having worked in the Tipperary camp with former manager Eamon O'Shea.

The big match-up will be the one with Callanan and speculation is that Daithí Burke – who was exceptional against Clare – will be given the task even though that will take him away from the more general sweeping role in which he was so effective.

Range

It’s unlikely in this book however that Tipp’s goal threat can be completely defused and if it isn’t can Galway find the sort of range that yielded five points for both

Cathal Mannion

and

Jason Flynn

even though the latter isn’t in great form to date.

Joe Canning can tighten up on his accuracy from last year but the verdict may come down to which side can score more goals against the other's defence.

This will be an acid test for the Munster champions, who have been suspect in tight finishes and who are battling a record that hasn’t seen any Minster champions reach an All-Ireland final since 2006.

But Tipperary are also forewarned after what happened in 2015. Their tangible improvement in the meantime can take care of the rest.