Tipperary to look for early kill

GAELIC GAMES/Tipperary v Antrim:DUE RESPECT will be given to Antrim this afternoon but the Ulster champions would be better served by the opposite occurring. If Tipperary don't take them seriously, it would make this experience less traumatic. They need the Munster champions to come up to O'Connor Park expecting to win without leaving second gear.

If Tipp repeat the form that took them past Cork and Clare then Antrim will be humiliated.

Granted, Antrim have decent hurlers, like Cormac Donnelly and PJ O’Connell, who were involved in the shock senior defeat of Dublin at Croke Park earlier this season. But a look through their opponents’ team makes it impossible to predict anything but a heavy beating. Captain Pádraic Maher, Michael Cahill, Brendan Maher, Noel McGrath, Patrick Maher and Brian O’Meara are tasked with denying the great Kilkenny team the five-in-a-row in two weeks’ time.

That this match is scheduled so close to the All-Ireland final has to be a major concern for senior manager Liam Sheedy. What if one of these hugely important men gets crocked today? The battlefield appears to have been levelled by Kilkenny losing Henry Shefflin but Tipperary people would lose a lot of hope should McGrath or a Maher been laid low here.

McGrath is back at midfield despite being reinvented as a centre forward in the recent defeat of Waterford.

The priority will be to kill this contest off early so a few of the senior players can be hauled off.

This should serve Antrim well, as it is hardly the attitude to be taking into an All-Ireland semi-final. Well, it is what they hope Tipp are thinking.

TIPPERARY: J Logue; K OGorman, J Coghlan, M Cahill; J Barry, Padraic Maher (Captain), B Maher; S Hennessy, N McGrath, S Carey, Patrick Maher, B O’Meara; M Heffernan, P Murphy, J ODwyer.

ANTRIM: TBA.

Referee: T Carroll (Offaly).