Narrow margin conceals poverty of Limerick's display

Tipperary 3-12 Limerick 1-16: The difference between these teams? Don’t shout all at once. Clear-thinking was an obvious one. Conviction another. Ultimately, though, Tipperary won ugly; Limerick just played it.

For all the genuine questions of Tipperary’s character this last while, they delivered a response yesterday. For over an hour, they had to hurl not just with 14 men but without John O’Dwyer, the best hurler in last year’s Munster championship and one of their scoring pillars. That they made it look like they were the team with the numerical advantage was a fine compliment as much as O’Dwyer will be sorely missed in the confined spaces Waterford will afford them in next month’s final.

List the individual battles and Limerick came out on top in two, at a stretch, three. Grotesque wouldn’t be too strong a word to sum up a lot of what they demonstrated. The only sympathy offered to them came by way of the scoreline. A two-point margin did them more than a service. If it could have told more of a story, it would have given compelling evidence that this performance was worse than their 16-point defeat in last year’s corresponding fixture in the Gaelic Grounds.