Not like a Cat to lace it into Tipperary at any given opportunity.
The All-Ireland champions were well and truly put back in their box Sunday by a very, very impressive Galway side.
While Michael Ryan admitted that was Tipperary’s worst performance under his stewardship, the quality of Galway’s play cannot be underestimated.
Their defence held Tipperary to nine points from play and their attack, with Joe Canning ably supported by Jason Flynn, Conor Whelan and Cathal Mannion, laid waste to Tipperary’s backs.
It was one team playing at an unbelievable pitch coming up against another who hit an inexplicable slump at the worst possible time.
Tipperary had averaged 28 points in the league before Sunday’s final in Limerick but, despite hitting 5-17 against Wexford seven days earlier, they looked listless and blunt without the injured Seamus Callanan.
On RTÉ’s League Sunday, their 2010 All-Ireland winning manager Liam Sheedy did not try to sugarcoat the defeat.
“They lost all the individual battles. I would say the 6 forwards, the score was Galway 6 Tipp 0. All the Galway backs were on top,” said Sheedy. “Tipp were seen as the team to beat and Galway have clearly shown that this is more than a one horse race.”
Since last summer all and sundry have been praising the terrifying Tipperary half-back line of Seamus Kennedy and the Maher brothers, Padraic and Ronan, which makes Henry Shefflin’s analysis all the more cutting.
“They were very flat. They went back to their old days – they were cleaned out of it in their half-back and half-forward lines, the middle third, just that whole area, Galway swallowed them up,” said the 10-time All-Ireland winner.
Unsurprisingly, Cyril Farrell was keen to emphasise the positives in his native Galway, rather than focussing on Tipperary’s problems.
“This team has come of age, they are together 6-7 years, strength and conditioning, they are as tuned up as they can be,” he said. “It is there for them to win. If they get their game right, they have the pieces, the jigsaw is coming together. I really believe they can go the whole way.”
When it came to naming their predicted All-Ireland champions, Sheedy stumped for his native Tipperary.
And Shefflin? Tipp too. He knows form is temporary and class is permanent.
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