Will Derek McGrath get the credit he deserves?
The better team can still be lucky to win
Sounds oxymoronic, yes, but how else to go about describing Tipperary’s victory over Clare? The class of the All-Ireland champions wasn’t in doubt: 0-28, 0-23 of it from play, and a couple of periods when they simply machine-gunned scores into their opponents, including the closing minutes of both halves. Worthy winners? Absolutely. Yet Clare left it behind them on Saturday, equally absolutely. This is inarguable. The 18 wides; the four consecutive wides before Conor McGrath’s disallowed goal; the puckout meltdown approaching half-time, when they had six puckouts between the 33rd minute and the interval and coughed up points on four of them. They even followed Aaron Cunningham’s double-barrelled blast with three wides in a row, while in injury time they might have had three goals.
