'I thought we were goosed' - Kelly admits Tipp enjoyed slice of fortune

Tipperary's Clodagh McIntyre with Kilkenny's Danielle Quigley. Pic: Tom O’Hanlon, Inpho

All-Ireland camogie quarter-final: Tipperary 1-22 Kilkenny 0-19 AET

Six points was the winning margin at the final whistle, just as it had been when Tipperary beat Kilkenny by 0-17 to 1-8 back in March in the league. But there wasn’t a soul in Croke Park who felt that there was anything more than a whisker between the sides in yesterday’s Glen Dimplex All-Ireland senior quarter-final.

After 80 minutes, the game had been decided by the two moments where the ball hit the net – Clodagh McIntyre’s stunning strike just before half-time in extra-time, and Caoimhe Keher Murtagh’s one-handed sweep that wasn’t allowed, as it came just after referee Ray Kelly blew his whistle for a foul on the Kilkenny sub, and a penalty.

Laura Leenane saved Aoife Prendergast’s penalty, and Tipp never looked back.

“I'll definitely be sending Ray a Christmas card for that one!” quipped Tipperary manager Denis Kelly afterwards, praising Leenane for her immense contribution since taking over the number one jersey this year.

“Look, they fall for you at times. I thought we were possibly goosed if that went in.

“Laura's been a huge find. We lost Nicole Walsh (who retired) so we needed someone to fill the boots and she's definitely done that. That was a huge save, as was Mairéad’s,” he added, referring to Mairéad Eviston’s block on a Keher Murtagh goal effort midway through the first half.

“All these things add up at the end of it, it's another game of inches.” 

It was a game of inches because of how Kilkenny put the shackles on a freescoring Tipp attack, holding the Premier County to 0-16 in the hour. Much of this was down to Tommy Shefflin deploying Maria Brennan as an extra defender, with Katie Power and Laura Murphy doing the work of three players to compensate at the other end.

“We brought Maria back as sweeper and just encouraged them to use the ball,” Shefflin said.

“When you’re playing with five forwards you have to have good ball going in and in fairness to Katie Power, she got three wonderful scores in the first half when she was outnumbered.

“It’s not a traditional thing for Kilkenny to play with a sweeper so we went against the curve with that. But we didn’t want to come up here and leave ourselves wide open, maybe going a goal or two down after five or ten minutes. We wanted to stay in the match as long as we could to take belief from that, then to push up and attack the game with a few minutes to go to try and win it.” 

On paper, it’s another quarter-final exit for Kilkenny but the mood in the Marble County will be very different to that on this day 12 months ago, when they were knocked out by Dublin in this fixture.

“We asked them for one thing – to give us something on the line that we can jump up and down, encourage each other, and to give the crowd something as well,” said Shefflin.

“The hooks, the blocks, the turnovers, at half-time we had 29 turnovers so that tells its own story. We couldn’t have asked for any more." 

Kelly acknowledged that Kilkenny’s set-up caused them some headaches, and noted that it was only after they were able to make adjustments at half-time that they found their feet.

“They were clever about it, to be fair. We were putting up big scores, they're a young team, they've a few experienced women but there's a lot of young players there. So I suppose they decided to put the sweeper there.

“At half time, we restructured that and we just decided to switch sides and get people into space a little bit more, pushing Karen (Kennedy) to centre-forward. While she wasn't having as much possessions as she normally has, she really drew them in around her."

As for Jean Kelly, the Éire Óg Annacarty player was crucial to the win with three points after being introduced as a sub.

“Jean is so good off the bench. She's a little wizard there, she comes in and she gets her scores and she's zipping around. She gives us such impact off the bench.” 

Scorers for Tipperary: G O’Brien 0-9 (8fs); C McIntyre 1-0; C McCarthy, C Hennessy 0-2, J Kelly 0-3 each; M Burke, R Howard, C Maher, C Hennessy 0-1 each.

Scorers for Kilkenny: A Prendergast 0-7 (4fs); L Murphy 0-5; K Power 0-4; L Greene 0-2; S Barcoe 0-1.

TIPPERARY: L Leenane; M Eviston, K Blair, E Loughman; N Costigan, C McCarthy, S Corcoran; K Kennedy, C Maher; R Howard, M Burke, E Heffernan; C McIntyre, C Hennessy, G O’Brien.

Subs: J Bourke for Costigan (23); J Kelly for Burke (46); L Purcell for McIntyre (48); N Cunneen for Howard (60+2); McIntyre for Purcell (full-time); Howard for Heffernan (79); E Cunneen for Hennessy (80).

KILKENNY: A Norris; M Teehan, T Fitzgerald, D Quigley; K Doyle, N Deely, C Dowling; A O’Gorman, L Greene; S Fitzgerald, L Murphy, M O’Connell; A Prendergast, K Power, M Brennan.

Subs: C Keher Murtagh for O’Connell (half-time); S Barcoe for O’Gorman (50); S Holden for Doyle (58); K Nolan for Brennan (67); S O’Dwyer for Power (74).

Referee: Ray Kelly (Kildare).