Bumper crowd for Tipperary and Clare clash expected to hit 20-year high

Waterford captain Mark Fitzgerald will be free to play for the county against Limerick, meanwhile.

DO OR DIE: Tipperary manager Liam Cahill is preparing his sode for a crunch game this weekend. INPHO

Saturday’s crucial Munster SHC Round 4 clash between Tipperary and Clare in Thurles is set to attract the counties’ highest championship crowd in almost 20 years.

Over 30,000 are set to converge on FBD Semple Stadium where a defeat for the hosts and Liam MacCarthy Cup holders would leave them perilously close to exiting the championship.

Last year, 20,685 took in the Clare-Tipperary Round 3 fixture in Ennis while there were 19,418 at the provincial game in Thurles the season before. The highest number in the round-robin era was 20,782 in Semple Stadium in 2018.

Their 2008 Munster final drew a crowd of 48,077. In 2017, 28,567 took in their All-Ireland quarter-final, which was part of a double-header in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

An attendance of 20,000-plus is expected to be recorded for the following day’s Round 4 clash between Limerick and Waterford in TUS Gaelic Grounds.

After three rounds, total attendances are up over 10,000 from last year, 150,241 from 140,168. For the concluding four round games in 2025, a combined 145,549 was recorded.

Meanwhile, Waterford captain Mark Fitzgerald will be free to play for the county against Limerick. Fitzgerald picked up his third black card of the season in the defeat to Cork last Saturday but as none of them led to a dismissal he is clear to line out.

While the punishment exists in football (a one-match ban for accumulation of three ordering-offs for cynical behaviour in the same year), it doesn’t in hurling. For Fitzgerald to have been suspended, he would have had to be shown a red card twice for any combination of two yellow or black card offences.

Stephen Bennett is seeking further medical advice on his injured knee having had scans done on Tuesday.

Bennett, who had been in red hot form with 4-22 scored in Waterford’s first two Munster SHC games, damaged his right knee in the first half against Cork in Azzurri Walsh Park and had to be helped off the field.

Bennett, 30, has suffered from chronic hip injuries in recent years and earlier this year damaged a hamstring. “I actually broke a bone in my shin in a club game last August, so I was out for a good few months,” he revealed last week. “And then I came back late. Then I'd get impatient and want to play all the league games.

“You don't play for six months, you go out and play two league games and then I tore my hamstring. I think I did the other hamstring two years ago.”