TIPPERARY may not yet fully appreciate it but Dublin could have done them a huge favour by running them so close in last Sunday's second All-Ireland Hurling Championship semi-final at Croke Park.
It finished 1-19 to 0-18 in Tipperary's favor after a tightly fought and engaging contest in front of a crowd of 43,562. The bookies odds, which had Tipperary at 1/16, were made to look farcical.
Dublin, as National League holders, deserved a lot more respect. Had it not been for the concession of a soft early goal to the ever elert Lar Corbett, they might even have pulled off the shock of the season.
Dublin produced a remarkable performance, one which marks them down as a real power among hurling's elite. The fact that they had to go into Sunday's contest without four injured players shows they have sufficient strength in depth.
The high intensity physical hurling upset Tipperary for long periods. This was far removed from Tipp's Munster campaign which saw them rattle seven goals past Waterford in their last outing.
That the reigning All-Ireland champions survived was down mainly to their extra bit of class. Corbett is the perfect example.
Although deprived of anything like normal service and not quite at his best, he still managed to contribute 1-3. But Padraic Maher, at wing-back was probably Tipperary's main contributor, giving an outstanding defensive performance and also scoring two crucial points.
Noel McGrath (0-3) also had a really good second half. But, for the most part, this was a Tiperary team struggling to find their best form, simply because of the intensity that Dublin brought to the contest.
Huge credit must go to the Dublin manager Anthony Daly. To say that he had his team well prepared is something of an understatement.
If they were in any way vulnerable mentally, they surely would have gone downhill after such a disastrous start. Within three minutes, Corbett has ghosted in to avail of a mistake by Dublin's Peter Kelly to score the opening goal.
Many Dublin supporters would have feared the worst, both for their team and for Kelly. Instead, the team and Kelly simply got stronger with the Dublin defender going on to have a cracker of a game.
Initially, he was totally at odds with trying to keep tabs on Corbett but, as the game progressed, he got increasingly better. By the finish, his catching and fielding was one of the talking points of the afternoon.
So was the entire effort of the Dublin defence. Daly's policy of keeping an extra man back meant that the Tipperary attack was never allowed the room which saw them cause such carnage in the Munster campaign.
The flip side was that Dublin didn't have the required numbers up front. Even so, they only took four minutes to cancel out Corbett's goal with points from Alan McCrabbe, Liam Rushe and Paul Ryan.
It was tit-for-tat for the remainder of the half with the sides still level 0-11 to 1-8 at the interval. In many ways, Dublin were entitled to feel disappointed that they weren't a few points clear as they had unquestionably made most of the running in the opening period.
They were even more disappointed when Tipperary shot three unanswered points at the start of the second half but, once again, the Dubs hit back to level. And it could have been even better had a shot from substitute Maurice O'Brien not gone just over the bar instead of just under.
It was only as the game entered the final quarter that Tipperary managed to get an edge against tiring opposition. They tightened up considerably defensively with Maher a key figure, along with Conor O'Mahony, while Shane McGrath began to have a bigger influence in midfield.
Noel McGrath and Eoin Kelly also came into the game. Kelly finished with six points , three of them coming from well struck 65's.
But Dublin weren't going away. Paul Ryan's free-taking was superb throughout. He was the game's leading scorer with 0-9, with two of his points coming from play.
But, as the contest went into the dying minutes, Tipp had moved four points clear. The game ended with the defending champions defending desperately as the Dubs went in search of a goal, and perhaps even a point to draw level yet again.
They never came but the Dubs can feel proud of their efforts. They had made a nonsense of the pre-match hype which suggested that Tipperary were going to coast through Sunday's encounter.
To be fair to Corbett and other members of the Tipp team, they always rated Dublin. The problem is that sometimes it is impossible to ignore the hype. Now at least Tipperary can go into the final against Kilkenny on September 4 without any foolish ideas about themselves. They will appreciate that it is a 50/50 match, although many of the pundits may have them as favourites.
Corbett summed it up by stressing that Tipp have an awful lot of work to do before the final. He added: "Many of our difficulties today were down to Dublin's work rate. It was the most physical challenge that we have had all year.
"You have to credit Dublin for how far they have come, and the next time we come to Corke Park to play them, people at home won't be saying that it's an easy challenge."
Unquestionably, there was an element of frustration within the Tipperary camp that people had taken the game for granted. Manager Declan Ryan, who has done such a good job since taking over from Liam Sheedy, is impressively pragmatic.
Importantly, he wanted to give credit to Dublin rather than talk of complacency. "Sure, they was a lot of talk outside the camp and that may have had some influence but I don't want to take anything away from Dublin because their attitute and commitment was savage," Ryan said.
"You don't expect anything else from a team prepared by Anthony Daly. Dublin showed that they are not only a a physical team, they are a very competitive team. And they are well able to hurl as well, they got some lovely points out there."
As for Daly, he admitted to being both pleased and disappointed. At least his side had proved that that people were totally wrong to completely dismiss their chances.
"You know, we're League champions, Walsh Cup champions, and there's great pride in the boys. The only time we didn't perform this year was in the Leinster final.
"We were disappointed that day and we promised ourselves we would perform today. I certainly believe we did that but the defeat is still hard to take.
"I'm very disappointed to come so close and not get there, but awful proud of the boys. They stuck to the task and probably a bit of poor decision making at times cost us. Tipperary were that bit more economical."
Dub minors advance
DUBLIN supporters were provided with some consolation for the narrow defeat of the senior team when the minor side reached the All-Ireland final by beating Waterford by 6-19 to 5-13.
It was a quite remarkable semi-final and another indication of just how well Dublin hurling if progressing. By half-time Dublin had scored four of their goals and were 17 points (4-12 to 0-7) clear.
But Waterford, to their credit, refused to lie down and hit back with four goals of their own in a hugely entertaining match. In the end Dublin were deserving nine points winners.
They will now contest their first .All-Ireland minor final since 1983 against Galway. Everyone did their bit, but none more so than Cormac Costello, son of Dublin GAA chief John, who gave a magnificent performance to finish with 4-2.
Wexford, Galway for camogie final
WEXFORD and Galway have made it through to the All-Ireland Camogie final after hard fought semi-final successes over Cork and Kilkenny respectively.
The Wexford ladies got the better of Cork by 2-11 to 1-9, while Galway saw off Kilkenny by 2-13 to 2-7. Both games took place at Nowlan Park.
Defending champions Wexford struggled to find their form for most of their first half but Ursula Jacob hit 1-1 to give them a one point lead at the interval. From there on, they never looked back.
Although they had six points to spare at the finish, Galway were made to fight very hard by Kilkenny. Indeed, the game hung in the balance until Tara Ruttledge scored Galway's second goal two minutes from time.
