Tipp on that upward curve now

ALL-IRELAND SHC SEMI-FINAL:OVERALL a case of job well done for Tipperary. What they were really looking for here was to step up a bit from the quarter-final win over Galway, and they certainly delivered on that.

And the reality is Tipperary won comfortably here, possibly could have won even more comfortably.

Their graph is on the upward curve, and that’s definitely where you want it to be going into an All-Ireland final – and it’s certainly encouraging from a Tipp perspective.

Questions were asked of Tipp’s defence after the Galway game, and if they were conceding goals too easy. Paul Curran answered that in the positive sense with an outstanding display at full back, and Declan Fanning and Pádraic Maher also impressed at wing back.

Same with the forwards, who raised their tempo yet again. Lar Corbett had a fine game, Noel McGrath was back to his very best, and Eoin Kelly did well also, even though he was carrying the back injury. John O’Brien chipped in too with some fine scores.

Really, Tipp were comfortably on top in most positions, and from the word go, you always felt they were the more dangerous team.

So they’re going back into the All-Ireland final now, and one that they’ll relish.

The All-Ireland final has traditionally brought out the best in Tipp. And given all the hype that will be surrounding Kilkenny’s drive for the five in a row, Tipp have nothing to lose, really.

The fear for Waterford here was that they’d be over-reliant on John Mullane, and indeed so it proved.

He did his very best and, to be fair, tried valiantly, and forced one great save from Brendan Cummins, but he really was their only threat, and without much support, that was never going to be good enough.

Eoin Kelly was played out of it, was really off his game, and ultimately replaced. He missed a couple of frees and was never a factor, when Waterford really needed him to be.

Kevin Moran and Stephen Molumphy showed up for a bit of ball, but didn’t win nearly enough, didn’t really contribute in the hurling sense, and were well marked out of it.

Actually, I think Waterford will be disappointed themselves at the way they played.

Defensively I though Michael “Brick” Walsh and Noel Conners did well, but otherwise they were under great pressure practically throughout.

At midfield too Shane McGrath and Brendan Maher were totally dominant for Tipp.

The only slight concern for Tipp was the first 10 or 15 minutes of the second half, when they seemed to let Waterford back into it. They weren’t winning as much ball in the half-forward line, seemed to falter a little, while Waterford fought hard.

But Tipp recovered.

Ultimately Eoin Kelly’s first goal sealed the deal for them. Noel McGrath was superb at centre forward, but then that position suits him. He reads the game very well, he’s very clinical at finishing whatever chances he gets, and he’s able to orchestrate a lot of the play from there as well.

It was a smart selection, and Tipp were smart too in that they didn’t try to take on Brick Walsh man-to-man. They let McGrath drift around him, find the space he needed. Combined with Brendan Cummins’s short puck outs that was a tactic that worked very well for Tipp. They actually showed quite a bit of invention on the day.

To be fair, I thought Ken McGrath did well enough for Waterford when he came on, ended up taking some frees that he probably didn’t expect.

Unfortunately for them the introduction of Dan Shanahan was a futile move, really, because in some ways the game was over at half-time.

Not as conclusively as Kilkenny-Cork last weekend, but still the writing was on the wall that Tipp were well in charge. They were only five points up, but it could easily have been a lot more such was their dominance.

All through the second half Waterford badly needed a goal, and yet that never came, not until the late consolation effort for Eoin McGrath.

But I wouldn’t say that this is the end of the line for Waterford. They’re still young enough, bar the obvious veterans such as Tony Browne. And of course Tony Browne has been written off many times before.

They can still look back on quite a positive year, winning the Munster title.

The bottom line is Tipperary have emerged as the team with the greatest potential to trouble Kilkenny in the final, the team that pose the most dangerous threat to their five-in-a-row ambitions.

That’s the way it looked at the very start of the year, and even though it’s taken a while for Tipp to get back to that point, that’s they way it has panned out.

Of course they’ll need to improve again for the final, but they’re on that upward curve now, approaching the form they showed in last year’s final, when, don’t forget, they came very close to beating Kilkenny on the day.

The spirit is good and they’ve got their best guys hurling very well. Right now that’s all they could ask for. They are back where they wanted to be after last September’s heartbreaking final defeat.