Tipp hurlers surge to league crown

By Mark Jones

Tipperary 1-19, Clare 0-17

A tame dress rehearsal for the championship? Another episode in the phony war? Last Sunday’s National Hurling League final had been billed as a game neither team wanted in the build-up to their Munster clash on June 3, but there wasn’t too much poker at the Gaelic Grounds as Tipperary surged clear with a blitz of second-half scores.

OK, this contest mightn’t have had all the blood and thunder of a full-bodied championship showdown. However, it wasn’t as if both counties wanted to lose. Tipp’s attack showed its considerable mettle after Nicky English’s men had trailed by 0-10 to 0-7 at the interval, yet Clare will have gained some solace from the fact that the winners’ goalkeeper, Brendan Cummins, was by far the busier of the two netminders.

If a little simplistic, it was Cummins’s outstanding anticipation and agility that proved to be the difference between the sides. Some of Clare’s shooting was poor, but Tipp’s No. 1 made a series of brilliant saves, while Davy Fitzgerald at the other end had a relatively peaceful afternoon. Only once did Declan Ryan, who was played out of the game by Brian Lohan, get to see the whites of Fitzgerald’s eyes, when just after the restart he finished off a chance created by Liam Cahill with a rasping shot.

That was the catalyst for Tipp to assert their scoring superiority and they finished by far the stronger, bagging seven points in the closing 10 minutes as teenager Lar Corbett, Mark O’Leary and Eoin Kelly all contributed quality points. But for English, who won a league title in his first season in charge, there was no obvious jubiliation.

"Look, lads, Clare created more goal chances; we took ours," he said. "This would be very hollow if we lost on June 3. Hopefully, our players and supporters are smart enough to realize that Clare are from a finished team. They didn’t hit a few 21-yard frees, they had some bad wides and missed four or five goals. We more or less converted everything we had.

"The Clare guys are more experienced than us and a league medal is more valuable to Eoin Kelly and Larry Corbett than to Jamesie O’Connor and Brian Lohan. The Munster championship will be serious game and some of our players now have a taste for what it will be like. That’s useful."

Meanwhile, Clare’s manager, Cyril Lyons, wasn’t in the depths of despair as he contemplated defeat.

"Maybe we should’ve gone eight or nine points up in the first 25 minutes on the basis of our play, but we only had a slender lead and when they were dominant, they got scores," he said. "The stuff about fellas not trying doesn’t apply; if a player says he was holding back, that’s rubbish. We played hard for 70 minutes and we’ll have to better the next day."

Even though Tipp’s John Leahy, a late replacement for the injured John Carroll, begun promisingly, it was Clare who bossed the first half as Ollie Baker and Colin Lynch powered through from midfield to create a host of chances. A combination of wasteful shooting and Cummins’s defiance frustrated Clare, and Tipp were thankful to be hanging on before their attack suddenly clicked with four points in succession from O’Leary (2), Eddie Enright and Corbett.

Still, it was Clare who had a three-point halftime advantage. However, that failure to capitalize on goal chances was to cost them dearly. Declan Ryan put Tipp right back in the contest with his goal and despite the best efforts of Jamesie O’Connor and substitute Alan Markham, Clare were now playing catch-up.

Cummins was on hand to make a couple more important saves from David Forde and the industrious Markham, while Niall Gilligan had a shot cleared off the line by Paul Ormonde, but Tipp had surged clear outscoring their rivals by 0-7 to 0-2 in the closing 12 minutes.

Tipperary: B. Cummins; T. Costello, P. Maher, P. Ormonde; J. Leahy, E. Corcoran, M. Ryan; C. Gleeson, T. Dunne (0-2); M. O’Leary (0-3), E. Enright (0-3), L. Cahill; E. Kelly (0-5), D. Ryan (1-1), L. Corbett (0-4). Subs: B. O’Meara (0-1) for Cahill, 52 mins.; E. O’Neill for D. Ryan, 64 mins.

Clare: D. Fitzgerald; C. Forde, B. Lohan, F. Lohan; L. Doyle, J. Reddan, G. Quinn; O. Baker (0-2), C. Lynch (0-1); T. Griffin, J. O’Connor (0-6), G. Considine; D. Forde (0-1), N. Gilligan (0-3), B. Murphy (0-1). Subs: A. Markham (0-2) for Considine, 32 mins.; S. McMahon (0-1) for Doyle, halftime; P.J. O’Connell for Griffin, 58 mins.

Other games

In Div. 2 of the National Hurling League, Westmeath stayed on top with a convincing 5-16 to 2-9 victory over Carlow at Dr. Cullen Park, while second-place Kerry defeated Wicklow by 1-12 to 1-10 at Arklow. In Div. 3, Mayo were 3-17 to 1-7 winners over Monaghan, and Leitrim beat Longford by 0-16 to 1-11.