Waterford manager Paraic Fanning said all the right things after his side’s narrow defeat to Clare last Sunday.
“We’re far from done,” he insisted. “We’ve lost one game. Win the next three and we’re still in this championship. If we lose, it’s a different story. But we believe in ourselves.”
Privately, he’ll have been desperately disappointed that, after all the justified hoopla that surrounded securing home games at Walsh Park, it was all deflated by a defeat that leaves them very much on the back foot with three games to play.
While there was a clear improvement on their dismal 2018 showing under Fanning in the League as Waterford reached the final, the Clare loss now means that they have gone six Championship games without a win, dating back to the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final against Cork.
Moreover, while the sample size is small with only one year of the current system having been played, the record of teams after losing their opening game doesn’t give cause for encouragement.
Dublin, Offaly, Tipperary and Waterford all lost their first game last year and didn’t win the next one, with Clare the only ones to buck that trend - at Waterford’s expense in Ennis.
Galway, Kilkenny, Wexford, Cork, Limerick all started with wins last year and all avoided defeat in their next outings, so a good start certainly carries momentum. Which brings us to a Tipperary revitalised by Liam Sheedy.
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They had endured a similar winless streak to Waterford in Championship hurling, with an underwhelming League campaign this year to boot, but they found their form with aplomb last Sunday in Cork.
It makes it doubly difficult for Waterford. A Tipperary team in Thurles with form, confidence and momentum is the last thing they need when they’re low on all those counts themselves.
Their meetings in Semple Stadium in the Championship haven’t been all that frequent, though Waterford have lost the last two Munster finals staged there between the counties in 2009 and ‘15.
The previous meeting there was in 1995 when they still operated a home and away arrangement before Walsh Park was phased out of hosting major Championship games and they largely reverted to neutral Pairc Ui Chaoimh, where Waterford scored landmark victories in 1998, 2002 and ‘04.
Waterford were too reactive to Clare last Sunday, though they nearly saved themselves in the end, and a better display can be expected here given what’s at stake.
But while Tipperary will probably dip at some stage, the good vibes engendered by their performance last Sunday ensure that they should be just as formidable tomorrow, if not more so.
VERDICT: Tipperary
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