Philly Ryan: 'We're outboxing ourselves at the moment' 

"I've no idea what Waterford football teams have done to referees. We just seem to get frankly bizarre decisions" said Waterford manager Paul Shankey

COMING TOGETHER: Tipperary manager Philly Ryan is happy how his side is coming together despite the loss of a number of players from the squad. Pic: Tyler Miller/Sportsfile

Allianz NFL: Tipperary 1-14 (1-1-12) Waterford 0-9 (0-0-9)

Tipperary football boss Philly Ryan is pleasantly surprised with the progress of his new look team. Full forward Sean O'Connor starred with 1-10 (1-6 from play) in Walsh Park on Sunday as the Premier remained unbeaten in Division 4.

In his first season as bainsteoir, the Clonmel Commercials man lost a glut of experienced players over the winter including All Star attacker Conor Sweeney. Despite the mass exodus, Tipp currently sit second in the table on five points.

"It's great. We wouldn't have expected this transition so quickly. We would have been delighted if we could have been competitive in the league. We're outboxing ourselves at the moment and we're putting ourselves in a good position. The lads would like to believe that they are a better team than Division 4 and we'd like to climb up along but we didn't see it being as rapid."

Promotion hasn't been spoken about in the Premier camp."Not yet. We'll talk about promotion further down the line, maybe at the end of March! It would be lovely to think of promotion but we're pushing it to the back burner. We're a work in progress and we'll be that for a little while."

The only downer was the quad injury to captain Steven O'Brien. He was forced off after just 18 minutes. "We'll have a look at him over the next 24 hours and see where he's at."

O'Connor stepped up in his absence with 1-10, including a ninth minute goal, but Ryan felt that he could have ended up with more. "I thought he left a few scores behind him!"

James Walsh (0-3) and Alan Dunwoody (0-2) threatened in the opening quarter for Waterford but the home side only mustered two second half points. Both teams finished with fourteen as Déise midfielder Joe Booth got a straight red in injury time for a high tackle before Tipp defender Tadhg Condon was shown a black.

"Disappointing," was how manager Paul Shankey summed up Waterford's performance. "We felt like we were in the game. We dominated the first ten or fifteen minutes, didn't get enough scores on the board, and then we gave the opposition oxygen with a soft goal. That was the difference for the whole game. It was a poor game of football to be fair! It was tough for the people who watched it but the best team won."

He was frustrated with a couple of refereeing decisions. The first half ended in confusion as David Hickey blew the whistle just as Dunwoody won an advanced mark in front of goal. "I've no idea what Waterford football teams have done to referees. We just seem to get frankly bizarre decisions. As I said to the group, we're not going to get any support, we don't seem to get on the end of anything 50-50! Some strange stuff but nothing we can do about it. Absolutely zero we can do about it. That wasn't the difference, you have to take all those excuses out of it. We didn't score enough second half and ultimately, didn't look like scoring either."

He questioned the red card for Joe Booth. "Joe was going great there. He has energy and he is good under a high ball. We'll look into the straight red card but it seemed extremely harsh. They're the things that happen to us."

Scorers for Waterford: J Walsh (0-3), C Murray, A Dunwoody (0-2 each), D Fitzgerald (0-1), J Curry (0-1,f).

Scorers for Tipperary: S O'Connor (1-10, 4f), C Smith (0-2, tp), M Russell, S O'Brien (0-1 each).

WATERFORD: P Hunt; L Fennell, Caoimhín Walsh, C Foley; D Ryan, D Ó Cathasaigh, D Fitzgerald; J Booth, R Furlong; James Power, J Curry, T Guiry; C Murray, A Dunwoody, J Walsh.

Subs: J Groves for Furlong (43), Jamie Power for James Power (57), Ciaran Walsh for Dunwoody (66), A Crawford for Fitzgerald (71)

TIPPERARY: S Ryan; M McFadden, J Feehan, J Harney; T Condon, L Boland, M Stokes; C Deeley, M Russell; M Freaney, S O'Brien, B Comerford; C Fahey, S O'Connor, M O'Shea.

Subs: C Smith for O'Brien (18), K Costello for Comerford (HT), D Brennan for Fahey (HT), P Feehan for Russell (64), J O'Neill for Deeley (64).

Referee: D Hickey (Carlow)