Goals powered Tipperary to defining win - now they seek to maintain progress
LIAM CAHILL ALLUDED to the importance of victory in Ennis post-match last Saturday night.
For Tipperary. For the players. And for his tenure as manager.
The Ballingarry man was appointed for a three-year term in 2022. The path forward, he admitted, has been difficult to navigate.
He has threaded the needle between a declining golden generation and a coming influx of underage talent. But wins were necessary to knit it all together.
Since the opening-day triumph over Clare in 2023, there hadn’t been any more joy in Munster. Not that they had been far away either. Four draws were dotted among the five losses. But in year three, the fruits of progress had to be seen.
“Today was probably a defining game for our season. For me as well, it was important through my term at the moment, that the green shoots continued to prosper today,” said Cahill.
Tipp are in no way back, Cahill insisted, after their draw with Limerick. And they have plenty of issues that remain a work in progress. Still, winning in Clare showed signs of rediscovering their identity.
The way in which Cahill signalled to his forwards to keep going for goals echoed Eamon O’Shea’s exhortation of ‘Attack! Attack! Attack!’ before the 2010 All-Ireland final.
In his debut year, Cahill was in the happy position of fielding a clutch of media queries about his goal-hungry attack. It was something they practised, he said.
Something they needed to reach the 30-point barrier required for victory. Something for spectators, too, breaking the monotony of distance shooting.
In 2019, his U20 All-Ireland champions machine-gunned 19 goals in four games. In his debut year with the seniors, they raised 29 green flags across league and championship, averaging 2.4 per game.
In the following year’s championship, however, Tipp netted just twice in four games. Something was broken.
Their deliveries weren’t getting through. The conditioning required for their running game didn’t seem right. Their forwards weren’t playing close enough to goal.
John McGrath hadn’t started for Tipp since that five-goal blitz against Clare in ‘23. He has been reborn in 2025 with braces against Limerick and the Banner.
That provided a lifejacket against the Treaty. John Kiely’s men had shut out Tipp in the 2023 league semi-final and both of their previous round-robin meetings. McGrath’s well-timed goals warded off the trademark second-half onslaught.
In Cahill’s three championship wins (over Clare, twice, and Offaly), they have netted 16 times. In the 10 games they haven’t won, they have raised just seven green flags.
The way in which Tipp ground out victory in Ennis was equally encouraging. The All-Ireland champions had wiped out a 12-point lead and introduced All-Stars in Shane O’Donnell, David Fitzgerald, and John Conlon. It was one-way traffic. Yet Tipp reversed the flow with four clutch points in succession.
Tipp’s green-flag balance sheet still needs some addressing. They conceded two goals per game in the 2023 championship. In 2024, it ticked up to 2.5 goals per game. So far in 2025, it’s risen to 2.67 goals per game.
Their main remedy in Ennis was fouling Banner runners. They racked up four yellow cards by half-time but escaped with just one more in the second half. Clare scored 1-14 from placed balls. It proved a sacrifice worth making, this time at least.
In his rookie year, Robert Doyle has become their go-to man-marker. After holding David Reidy scoreless, the Clonoulty clubman was a surprise match for Alan Connolly on Leeside. The Corkman tapped in his customary goal but further damage was mitigated.
In Ennis, he took on Tony Kelly and held him scoreless from play, despite an early booking and Kelly’s second-half resurgence.
Can this win be a turning point for Cahill’s Tipperary?
Evidence shows they haven’t always adapted well to weeklong turnarounds. In 2023, they drew with Limerick in Thurles but seven days later, lost to a Waterford side with nothing to play for. Later that summer, after thrashing Offaly, they limped out of championship to Galway one week later.
That improved somewhat in ‘24. After their hammerings to Limerick and Cork, Tipp did see a necessary bounce in drawing with Waterford and a creditable dead-rubber defeat to Clare.
This year, their Limerick draw was followed by a heavy Cork defeat, marred by Darragh McCarthy’s first-minute red card.
Waterford had Clare lined up for a fall after their seven-day turnaround. They intend to do just the same in Thurles. Those extra two days will be a valuable commodity for Cahill.
Tipp will be boosted by the return of Toomevara teenager McCarthy. Alongside Doyle and Sam O’Farrell, he’s part of a youthful reinvigoration which renders some of those past experiences to history.
They won’t mind that Tipp are aiming to put together back-to-back championship victories for the first time since their 2019 All-Ireland success.
Equally, the Premier will take courage from recent performances. They have faced the two teams to climb the Hogan Stand steps since they did so. Neither have prevailed against them. That much is progress.
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