Tribesmen set to trump Tipperary if maintaining form of past few months

SURELY, it’s not possible to close a 16-point gap on your conquerors in little more than three months. It wasn’t any ‘ould’ game either . . .  after all, Galway and Tipperary were trading blows in a national final, only for one of the combatants being repeatedly battered and bullied.

That 3-21 to 0-14 mauling at the Limerick Gaelic Grounds last April shook Tipperary to the core and the scars hadn’t healed ahead of their subsequent fall to resurgent Cork in the Munster championship. In the space of a few weeks, Brendan Maher and his team-mates had fallen off a cliff

It didn’t help morale either that there were all kinds of rumours circulating over a couple of players’ allegedly tangled romantic relationships, while the culling of All Star defender Cathal Barrett from the squad for off-field indiscipline only added to the perception that Tipp were in disarray.

There was no shortage of internal verbal cleansing as the All-Ireland champions tried to pull themselves back from the abyss, but you could see that their confidence was still on the rocks when recording an unimpressive opening round qualifier win over the minnows of Westmeath in Thurles.

They were then a good bit better when blasting six goals past a desperate Dublin at the same venue, but their backs were still very shaky. Tipp’s rehabilitation continued against Clare at revamped Páirc Uí Chaoimh last Saturday week, but they were fortunate that the Banner men proved so wasteful.

Clare exposed the Tipp rearguard for three goals, had another one disallowed, while they also shot 18 wides, some of which were atrocious. If Padraic Maher and his rearguard colleagues cough up a similar number of chances against Galway in Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final (4pm), they could again be beaten out the gate by the men in maroon.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.