Dunne captain cautious ahead of Antrim match

AS the meeting of Clare and Galway in the final series of All-Ireland qualifiers dominates column inches and radio waves, the other game, Tipperary and Antrim, is all but forgotten, a mere adjunct to the main event.

But less hype means no easing of planning and preparation for all concerned, according to Tipperary captain Tommy Dunne. "Yeah, that's the way it is," he says. "There's an element of that, but we can't very well forget about it."

The reason of course is that Tipperary, as reigning All-Ireland champions, are expected to give the Ulster champions a bit of a hammering, and in most books are already pencilled in for a semi-final meeting with Kilkenny.

But and there is always a but. If Tommy and his team-mates need any reminding of the vagaries of sport, they need look no further back than a couple of weeks and the shock generated nationwide when their own unfancied footballers drew with Cork in the Munster final.

"Cork were as hotly favoured going into that game as we are for this one, but a lot of things can happen in sport. The pity is that they didn't win that first day because when you're underdogs going into a game you usually get only one shot at it. And if you don't take your chance the first day the probability is always there that you'll be blown out of it the next day," he said.

"That's what happened. And it's very cruel, in a way, because Tipp are not as bad as they were made to look in the replay. People might say they aren't as good as they looked the first day, but they gave a tremendous display. They were just unfortunate the way things worked out.

"But that game showed it's not always clear-cut and things can work out very differently to what people expect that's why the game is played. We just have to be very careful about it. Antrim have put in just as much of an effort as we have, they're not coming down just to hand this game to us."

Dunne is an honest man, a straight shooter who fully accepts the reasons why people expect only one result this Sunday. But his concern is genuine.

"We're red-hot favourites, and it's up to ourselves to be able to deal with that. Being realistic, we know that if we play to our potential we should win, we're not foolish enough to think otherwise.

"We were expected to beat Waterford too, in the Munster final, and that didn't happen. We can't be disrespectful and we're approaching this game like it was Galway or Clare we were playing."

Another reason for caution is that Tipperary know very little about this Antrim side. For decades, Antrim were the only real hurling power in Ulster, but lately they've been usurped, first by Down and more recently by Derry so competition between Tipperary and Antrim has been at a minimum.

"That's right, we'd have played Derry in the league, Down as well, so we'd be more familiar with either of those than we are with Antrim. Because of that, we have to be very cautious about it.

" But they'll know plenty about us. Dinny Cahill (former Tipperary minor and under-21 manager, from the Kilruane-McDonaghs club) has been up there since last year, and the word is that they're putting in a huge effort."

A nod towards caution then from Dunne, reasons to be careful. And yet, also, there is the crushing evidence of the past, of the previous four championship meetings between these two sides: 1925, 12-9 to 2-3; 1945, 5-9 to 1-6; 1949, 6-18 to 1-4, all in All-Ireland semi-finals.

Then there was the 1989 All-Ireland final after Antrim had performed wonders to overcome Offaly in the semi-final; 4-24 to 3-9, and a virtuoso performance by current manager Nicky English, selector Ken Hogan in the goals. Four-zip to Tipperary, aggregate score of 27-60 to 7-22 more goals for the Munstermen than Antrim have points.

Yes, Dunne and Tipperary have to be prudent and to approach this with absolute conviction. But, hard to argue for anything other than the most predictable outcome. Tipp, convincingly.