Team must 'improve significantly' when facing Cork says Tipperary manager

Tipperary manager Niall Fitzgerald admitted that he wasn’t jumping for joy with his side’s performance against Waterford but was still pleased with the win.

There were positives and negatives as he now prepares the team for a semi-final tilt at Cork, a match that will be played at FBD Semple Stadium at 2pm on Saturday week, April 25.

“Coming to Dungarvan is always very difficult, so we’re delighted to come down here and get the win. Although if you told us before the game that we’d be a point or two down at half-time playing against that wind, you’d think we would be happy, but we weren’t happy really,” he conceded.

The Moyle Rovers man continued - “We didn’t feel that we controlled the game the way we should. We thought it was like we were playing with a shot clock. We were trying to get shots off too quickly there at times. And we gave turnovers that didn’t need to be given. All that was doing was handing opportunities to Waterford to shoot with that breeze. So, we were a bit disappointed with that.

“In the second half, parts of it were good and credit to Waterford. They made it really, really difficult for us. Any time we ran at them, they were quick to get back. We probably thought once or twice we could have got away, but the lads just couldn’t get away from them. It was always going to be tough and we knew Waterford would make it difficult for us.

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“As long as I can remember, it’s a tricky one coming down here to Dungarvan. No matter how well Tipp have been going down through the years, it’s always been hard coming down here”.

Fitzgerald was happy with how his side used the breeze in the second half.

“We did okay. I’m not jumping up with joy at the performance. Far from it. I thought we butchered a lot of chances.

“I thought we did a lot of silly things. But look, we did enough. That’s all that matters”.

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Looking ahead to the semi-final, he said – “Cork are probably the best they’ve been going over the last 10 years. All we can do is look at our performance, look at areas that we can improve on. We know we have to improve significantly”.

He was happy with the performance of his championship debutants.

“Yeah, they did well. I don’t think any of them looked out of place. I thought the workrate was good. I thought we could have maybe brought a bit more energy to it at times. Joe Higgins in the middle of the field gave a display of fielding. I thought he did really well.

“Charlie (King) was excellent, went back, carried an awful lot of ball. So, they all did really well. And, again, coming down here is a big learning curve, because, I don’t know how many times I played here as a player and I hated coming here. It’s obviously a tough place to come to”.

On the injury front, he said it’s still a case of wait and see on some of his key absentees. He was hopeful that Steven O’Brien and Luke Boland would be in contention for the semi-final.

“We’ll have to see. We’re hoping that they’re heading in the right direction at this stage”.