Allianz NFL Division Three final: Louth v Tipperary (today, Croke Park, 5pm, live on TG4)
WHATEVER happens in Croke Park this evening, Tipperary manager Liam Kearns says his side have already reached their goal for their National League campaign in gaining promotion to Division Two. Anything else is a bonus.
And Kearns’ side certainly got there the hard way. Losing in Thurles to promotion rivals Louth meant they travelled to Armagh on the final day needing a win to go up. Armagh needed only a draw to take that promotion spot. Four minutes into added-time at the Athletic Grounds, Tipp were staying in Division Three. Enter Michael Quinlivan to secure the Premier county’s promotion spot and cap off a hat-trick of majors in the process.
“We’re down an awful lot of players, we’ve a lot of injuries and we’ve to try to get to Croke Park now in six days’ time,” said Kearns in the aftermath of that last-gasp victory.
“Michael Quinlivan was outstanding. He’s an outstanding player. I thought we’d blown it last Sunday in our own backyard. But we kept going right to the bitter end and if you keep at and keep at it, you’ll find a way out of it.”
Kearns was particularly pleased to make tonight’s final and, more importantly, Division Two despite the absence of so many key players.
“It means progress. It means we’ve stepped up again, and without Peter Acheson and without Ciarán McDonald – two of the best players to ever wear a Tipperary jersey – they didn’t kick a ball for us this year,” he added.
“That [game against Armagh] was Colm O’Shaughnessy’s first game this year. We were missing Peter Maher, missing Jason Lonergan, we were missing Jimmy Feehan, we were missing Philip Austin – his pace was a big loss for us – they’re all big, big players for us and we still found a way to win.
“We brought 17 new players into the panel this year. We’re trying to get them game time and trying to still be competitive.”
Competitive is something Tipperary certainly have been over the last 12 months, but Kearns is keen not to talk up their chances in this evening’s final.
“We’ve reached our goal,” he said emphatically.
“We’ve got promotion and that is huge. The final is a bonus. It’s our fifth week in-a-row playing football. There’ll be a lot of tired bodies, but we’ll go up there and give an account of ourselves.”
As for Louth, that win in Thurles meant they were promoted to Division Two with a game to spare, allowing them the luxury of resting a number of players for last week’s dead rubber defeat to Sligo.
Anthony Williams and his fellow full-back Patrick Reilly are the only survivors from that 0-17 to 1-11 loss in Drogheda, with manager Colin Kelly drafting in the majority of the side who beat Tipperary a fortnight ago.
Anthony Williams, who missed the round six success at Semple Stadium through suspension, returns at left corner-back as Kurt Murphy makes way while, in attack, Ryan Burns replaces Sam Mulroy.
While Tipperary hadn’t named at the time of writing, Kearns had talked up the chances of Jimmy Feehan being available for the clash at Headquarters.
It may take more than that for the Premier to survive the challenge of a rested and fresh Louth side.
Louth: C Lynch; P Rath, P Reilly, A Williams; D Maguire, J Bingham, J Stewart; T Durnin, A McDonnell; D Byrne, P Smith, B Duffy; A Reid, E O'Connor, R Burns
