TIPPERARY ARE ON the brink of an early championship exit and their struggles to replicate the form that swept them to All-Ireland honours last summer, have left manager Liam Cahill at a loss to make sense of it.
The Premier boss admitted that fluctuating form is something this Tipperary side have struggled with and believes there was an element of fear in their play as they fell to a comprehensive 11-point defeat against Clare tonight in Thurles.
“There’s huge disappointment in that dressing room, so difficult to try and make sense of the whole thing.
“Only sense we can make of it is that that Clare came fully ready to go to war and fair play to them. They put their bodies on the line and they deserve to win.
“You can live with one or two, three players maybe, going bad at a particular time or struggling, and you do your best, fix it on the line.
“I don’t want to make it any worse than it already is, but with the exception of maybe Robert Doyle and Bryan O’Mara today, where else would you go to say that the rest of the players could say that they were up to a level, that they’d be happy with themselves.
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“To be fair, I’m not keeping all the blame here at the players’ feet either. I’m genuinely not. I know that I can speak freely enough because they know me well enough to say that they know when seven or eight players or nine players go away at the one time, numbers on the scoreboard happen like what happened outside.
“Unfortunately this particular group have a history of doing this and we know that and we try to address it and we go about it really well on the training field and hope that we bring it to the match day.
“But when we start hurling in fear, not being able to hurl that ball out and putting our hand out looking for it and making sure that we’re given options to the men and the ball, we’re a really moderate team.”
Cahill had been encouraged by their preparations over the last three weeks ahead of this test but admitted they were physically dominated by their Clare opponents.
“We’ve tried our best to address it, training was really good the last three weeks.
“It’s just incredible the way it just didn’t transpire onto the big arena when you wanted to. Even up to half-time, not hurling really well, six points down, we said we’re not in a bad place here.
“Suddenly you’re caught for a goal right at the start of the second half and it’s all downhill after that. It’s just chasing the game, just a really difficult place to be as a player and definitely as a manager and coach looking in at it.
“All our metrics, all our numbers are exactly where they need to be versus where they were this time last year. But it’s about bringing it to the big arena on the day and be prepared to put your body on the line. Today physically Clare really dominated, the swarm tackle, Clare were there in numbers.
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“They were hunting in packs and they smelled blood and they went after it. We just didn’t get to the pitch that’s required to get success at this level.”
Tipperary need a major favour from Waterford tomorrow to maintain their championship hopes when they face Limerick next Sunday, a game that has a daunting look to it now.
“We try your best to go after it and fix it and hopefully come with something better over the next seven days,” admitted Cahill.
“We have to go away and have a really good look at ourselves individually and collectively to see what we can do to try and make some sense of it.
“It’s really difficult. You go down to Limerick, one of the greatest teams over the last decade, just have to get in behind the lads now as best we can for the next couple of days and try and go to Limerick and really try and redeem our name and our identity of some sort because today it’s really disappointing.”
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Liam Cahill: 'Huge disappointment, difficult to try and make sense of the whole thing'
TIPPERARY ARE ON the brink of an early championship exit and their struggles to replicate the form that swept them to All-Ireland honours last summer, have left manager Liam Cahill at a loss to make sense of it.
The Premier boss admitted that fluctuating form is something this Tipperary side have struggled with and believes there was an element of fear in their play as they fell to a comprehensive 11-point defeat against Clare tonight in Thurles.
“There’s huge disappointment in that dressing room, so difficult to try and make sense of the whole thing.
“Only sense we can make of it is that that Clare came fully ready to go to war and fair play to them. They put their bodies on the line and they deserve to win.
“You can live with one or two, three players maybe, going bad at a particular time or struggling, and you do your best, fix it on the line.
“I don’t want to make it any worse than it already is, but with the exception of maybe Robert Doyle and Bryan O’Mara today, where else would you go to say that the rest of the players could say that they were up to a level, that they’d be happy with themselves.
“To be fair, I’m not keeping all the blame here at the players’ feet either. I’m genuinely not. I know that I can speak freely enough because they know me well enough to say that they know when seven or eight players or nine players go away at the one time, numbers on the scoreboard happen like what happened outside.
“Unfortunately this particular group have a history of doing this and we know that and we try to address it and we go about it really well on the training field and hope that we bring it to the match day.
“But when we start hurling in fear, not being able to hurl that ball out and putting our hand out looking for it and making sure that we’re given options to the men and the ball, we’re a really moderate team.”
Cahill had been encouraged by their preparations over the last three weeks ahead of this test but admitted they were physically dominated by their Clare opponents.
“We’ve tried our best to address it, training was really good the last three weeks.
“It’s just incredible the way it just didn’t transpire onto the big arena when you wanted to. Even up to half-time, not hurling really well, six points down, we said we’re not in a bad place here.
“Suddenly you’re caught for a goal right at the start of the second half and it’s all downhill after that. It’s just chasing the game, just a really difficult place to be as a player and definitely as a manager and coach looking in at it.
“All our metrics, all our numbers are exactly where they need to be versus where they were this time last year. But it’s about bringing it to the big arena on the day and be prepared to put your body on the line. Today physically Clare really dominated, the swarm tackle, Clare were there in numbers.
“They were hunting in packs and they smelled blood and they went after it. We just didn’t get to the pitch that’s required to get success at this level.”
Tipperary need a major favour from Waterford tomorrow to maintain their championship hopes when they face Limerick next Sunday, a game that has a daunting look to it now.
“We try your best to go after it and fix it and hopefully come with something better over the next seven days,” admitted Cahill.
“We have to go away and have a really good look at ourselves individually and collectively to see what we can do to try and make some sense of it.
“It’s really difficult. You go down to Limerick, one of the greatest teams over the last decade, just have to get in behind the lads now as best we can for the next couple of days and try and go to Limerick and really try and redeem our name and our identity of some sort because today it’s really disappointing.”
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GAA Hurling Liam Cahill Reaction Tipperary