Clare aiming to avenge senior defeat to Tipp in Munster U20 decider

REVENGE: Clare's Diarmuid Stritch and Tipperary's Aaron O'Halloran in action. Pic: Eamon Ward

Three years ago this very week, the Tipperary minor hurlers provided the Premier with a desperately required lift.

After the seniors had lost their opening three games of the Munster round-robin by a combined total of 19 points, the minor class waded through the rampant negativity and fired a flare of hope into the pitch-black Limerick sky.

Three years later, the expectation was that the same Tipp players would again be charged with providing another shot of positivity and another result distracting from senior woe.

Instead, the requirement of a lift lies not with them but with their Banner opponents. Tipp’s senior victory at Ennis last Saturday evening - the county’s first in Munster in 748 days - has given the Premier County a pulse and, in the process, left Clare on the brink.

For those Clare survivors from the 2022 Munster minor final penalty shootout, the challenge is to return to Limerick this evening and mine the positive result that Tipp did at their expense three years ago.

With their seniors in all likelihood on their way out of the championship over the next fortnight, the challenge for the generation of players coming after is to extend the county’s hurling summer beyond mid-May.

A Tipp-Clare Munster U20 final was expected, even if Clare can count themselves fortunate to be part of this evening’s line-up such was their steal of a semi-final victory last Wednesday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

As mentioned, these two contested the corresponding minor final three years ago. Clare mirrored Tipp’s achievements a year later when winning both the Munster and All-Ireland minor titles, while Tipp probably came a year early when dethroning Cork to take provincial U20 honours 12 months ago.

That statement of Tipp coming a year early is backed up by Brendan Cummins’ selection for their 2025 championship opener containing 11 players that featured in the previous year’s provincial final win.

That number would have reached the dozen mark had injury not precluded Paddy McCormack’s involvement last May.

And yet their title defence endured the worst possible start when Limerick stunned them at home by 2-13 to 0-17. The result and performance prompted a redraw. Four changes in personnel for the subsequent visit to Leeside.

A raft of positional switches. No line the same as it was against Limerick. A new centre-back in Jim Ryan, freeing up Tipp senior Sam O’Farrell from the central berth. Their winning margins since have been six, nine, and seven-points strong. The chunkiest of those came against this evening’s opponents.

The team named for this evening is the same as that which scored a 3-21 to 0-21 victory away to Clare in the middle of last month.

It’s a team that, unsurprisingly, shows two changes from their most recent outing against Waterford. Coming back into the line-up are senior pair O’Farrell and Darragh McCarthy. Making way in the half-back and full-forward lines are David Ryan and Senan Butler.

For McCarthy, this evening represents a first outing at either senior or U20 since the draw with Limerick on Sunday, April 20.

We’re not counting his 53 seconds on the field against Cork a week later, his red card there restricting him to the stand last Saturday evening in Ennis.

To the benefit of the Tipp 20s, McCarthy is coming in fresh and itching to make an on-field statement after all the commentary that followed his sending-off at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Tipp are thriving at underage. As well as claiming two of the last three Munster and All-Ireland minor crowns, Tipp schools have owned the Harty Cup the last three springs.

Victory this evening would not only cement a restorative couple of days for the county, but provide further evidence of the promising days ahead.

CLARE: M Sheedy (Sixmilebridge); E Gunning (Broadford), J Cahill (Clooney-Quin), F Ó Braoin (Sixmilebridge); J Moylan (Cratloe), J Hegarty (Inagh-Kilnamona), E McMahon (St. Joseph’s Doora-Barefield); D Costelloe (Ballyea), R Kilroy (Banner); J Organ (Corofin), J O’Neill (Clooney-Quin), F Hegarty (Inagh-Kilnamona); S Boyce (O’Callaghan’s Mills), D Stritch (Clonlara), M Collins (Clonlara).

TIPPERARY: E Horgan (Knockavilla Donaskeigh Kickhams); C O’Reilly (Holycross Ballycahill), A O’Halloran (Carrick Swan), P O’Dwyer (Killenaule); A Ryan (Arravale Rovers), J Ryan (Holycross Ballycahill), S O’Farrell (Nenagh Éire Óg); J Egan (Moycarkey Borris), A Daly (Knockavilla Donaskeigh Kickhams); C English (Fr. Sheehys), C Martin (Cappawhite), D Costigan (Moycarkey Borris); D McCarthy (Toomevara), P McCormack (Borris-Ileigh), O O’Donoghue (Cashel King Cormacs).