Tipp crash by as rivals fail to show

ANOTHER BIG day. Another county team goes missing. Tipperary, who down through the years have been used to nothing but trouble from their neighbours in Limerick, came to Croke Park for an All-Ireland semi-final yesterday and found themselves playing 15 limp, green jerseys.

They scored six goals and advanced in rather surreal circumstances to an All-Ireland final meeting with Kilkenny in three weeks’ time. Kilkenny will be seeking their fourth title in a row. Tipperary will be back in a final for the first time in eight years. As such yesterday’s 24-point cake walk was hardly ideal preparation for the challengers.

“Kilkenny have been there for four years,” said Tipp manager Liam Sheedy afterwards reflecting on the task now at hand. “They set the standard. They are the team. And rightly so. They have earned that. From our point of view we are delighted to get this opportunity. In terms of the development of this squad, in terms of what we want to achieve All-Ireland final day on the 6th of September is where we wanted to be.

“I said to Kilkenny after the league final that if we get to meet you later on in the year I will be pleased. I knew it would be at the business end of the championship.”

The championship doesn’t get much more business like than facing a Kilkenny side on the cusp of history and Tipp will be hoping to continue the incremental progress they have made along the way this season.

They took Kilkenny to extra-time in the league final having been lost to them by 17 points a few weeks previously in regular league play.

That the final will be anything like yesterday’s bizarre mismatch is the remotest of possibilities however. On five minutes, with both sides scoreless, a low delivery from midfield skipped past the Limerick full back Stephen Lucey and into the hands of Eoin Kelly the Tipperary full forward who dispatched to the net without fuss. One of those things?

On 15 minutes Lar Corbett cut in from the right corner, drew the defence and teed up a handpass for young Noel McGrath to bat home. Limerick were beginning to crack. A minute later Pat Kerwick honed in on a loose ball, picked a spot beyond the Limerick goalie Brian Murray and delivered the ball to that spot.

All over. Including the shouting. Limerick exhibited brief signs of a pulse in the second half when they converted a somewhat charitable penalty decision and then completed an almost languid passing movement with a Brian O’Sullivan shot to the Tipp net.

Seldom have two quick goals heralded so little by way of revival. Three minutes after O’Sullivan’s score Lar Corbett scored a goal. Then three minutes later he scored another one. And seven minutes later another one. Then Tipperary took him off because it was looking like he would score every time he touched the ball and the real world isn’t like that.

What is the real world like. It is ruled by stern men in stripey jerseys who don’t concede six goals in a month’s worth of training matches and who will definitely turn up in three weeks’ time. The season’s last chance to redeem itself with an epic.