PREVIEW: Nowlan Park has become a happy hunting ground for Tipperary underage teams

O'Neill's.com All-Ireland U20 Hurling Championship Final

Tipperary vs Kilkenny in UPMC Nowlan Park, Saturday, May 31 @ 3pm

UPMC Nowlan Park has become a familiar haunt for Tipperary’s underage hurlers in recent years. The historic home and away agreement has fallen in Kilkenny’s favour for this Saturday’s highly anticipated All-Ireland U20 hurling decider, but it won’t be as big of an advantage for the Cats that it may have been pre-Covid, for instance.

READ NEXT: Family Business! Tipperary brothers create unique GAA history in officiating of league final

This will be the fourth final in four years at the Kilkenny City venue for a Tipperary team. The 2022 minor All-Ireland final smash-and-grab victory over Offaly, last year’s equally dramatic minor All-Ireland decider against Kilkenny, and the U20 All-Ireland final loss to Offaly all took place in Kilkenny.

When you take into consideration that fact, it probably isn’t the worst time to face Kilkenny, and it is certainly the best group of players to be sending forward into the fray, considering their experience of playing big-occasion finals in the venue.

It is much akin to the perceived disadvantage that the Tipperary senior hurling team suffers in their home games during the round robin campaign year in, year out, and so, there is very little in the way of extreme home advantage from a Kilkenny perspective.

Alas, it represents a shot at redemption for Brendan Cummins’ charges after what was a flat and very underwhelming performance in the final loss to Offaly twelve months ago; a game where Offaly dominated and played on their own terms. Tipperary, by contrast, never got to the pitch of the game at any point, and the Faithful made hay to win without much concern.

That will be the main wrong to right and while the opposition will be different on this occasion, there is seldom a lack of motivation in the Tipperary psyche going in against a Kilkenny team in an All-Ireland final; especially so with the likes of Adam Ryan, David Ryan, and Cathal O’Reilly who all tasted success against the odds in last year’s minor final against the Cats.

Gradually, Tipperary have come close to the boil after the opening championship loss in Munster to Limerick, but you couldn’t say that the group have hit their straps in a meaningful way, or to the heights that we know they can.

The performance in Sixmilebridge against Clare in round 3 of the Munster campaign was probably the closest we have come to seeing that deliverance, but there is no denying that there is plenty of room for improvement on the evidence of the Munster final defeat of the Banner a few weeks ago.

The harsh reality for a lot of U20 management groups the country over is that - particularly when you have talent that is already involved with a senior panel - you can never play your best cards at all times and it has been a juggling act between Brendan Cummins and Liam Cahill to get the best out of marquee players in Darragh McCarthy and Sam O’Farrell who have played a huge part in the Tipperary seniors progression from Munster in their first year.

As a result, you would imagine that the progression from Munster for the seniors, while missing out on a Munster final, will be a happy medium for both management teams as it will allow McCarthy, O’Farrell and Oisin O’Donoghue to concentrate on this game and will give the U20 management access to a full squad for a few weeks; something that hasn’t happened at all this year.

That should be a big help for Tipperary, and they will need that time as a unit to get their best version out for this game, because by contrast, Kilkenny have been very settled in their setup all year with their manager Mark Dowling in place for his third year at the helm.

They have no players operating on Derek Lyng’s senior squad this year, and that is a benefit in terms of the consistency of performance they have delivered, and Dowling’s selection this year has lent itself to a physical approach with big players dotted around the field for the Cats. Ed McDermott and Marty Murphy are two big targets for them up top.

They are well complemented with pace to go with the size, they have speed in Rory Glynn and Aaron McEvoy, and in all reality, they have had little trouble in getting to this point, topping their group with wins over Wexford and Dublin before demolishing Laois in a semi-final and, ultimately, easing past Dublin for a second time in last week’s Leinster final.

There’s no denying that they have benefited from the kinder side of the draw, and with Dublin doing a lot of grunt work in knocking out reigning champions Offaly and a fancied Galway outfit, they took full advantage of their absence in defeating the Dubs.

Tipperary will be favourites for this game - and rightly so - but there will have to be a better overall performance put out on Saturday to win this game all the same, especially for a Kilkenny outfit that the Kilkenny support base will be looking to to balance out the dismal result of the mnor All-Ireland in 2024.

What will be an advantage to Tipp, you would imagine, is that Kilkenny will likely set up in the traditional formation with no extra padding at the back. Tipperary were guilty of not delivering enough first-time balls into Oisin O’Donoghue and company in the Munster final when every ball looked like doing damage.

The U20 hurlers are in their fourth year of the Brendan Cummins reign and they will not set up differently all of a sudden, but what they can do is lessen the overplaying around the middle that we witnessed in Limerick, feeding quicker ball into O’Donoghue, McCormack and McCarthy who are all capable ball winners and finishers in their own right.

Kilkenny will bring this into a physical dogfight, especially early on, and will no doubt try to overpower Tipperary in the middle third to break even and stop that supply of ball into the dangerous Tipperary forward division.

But what can’t be argued with regarding Tipperary’s much maligned management team is the workrate and ability to win the physical exchanges. Tipperary are pulling together a formidable record at this level under Brendan Cummins; the Ballybacon Grange man has registered 13 wins out of a possible 20 matches with six losses and a draw to go with it.

One record that Cummins is not breaking even is the record in All-Ireland finals and with a bit of luck, he will be breaking that duck on Saturday afternoon.

READ NEXT: Borris-Ileigh always in control to claim Division 1 league title in final victory over Brackens