*Tipperary manager Liam Cahill with Clare manager Brian Lohan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
REIGNING All-Ireland winning manager Brian Lohan says Sunday’s final between the “traditional superpowers” Cork and Tipperary is too hard to call.
Cork and Tipperary meet in the All-Ireland SHC final for the first time when they face off in Croke Park on Sunday at 15:30.
Both sides have clashed with Clare on their run to the final, Cork hanging off after the Banner made a memorable comeback in the first round of the Munster SHC when it finished 3-21 2-24 in Cusack Park back in April.
Zimmer Biomet Páirc Ciosóg was again the venue when it was Clare versus Tipperary but on this occasion the Premier County ran out 4-18 2-21 winners on a day which marked the return to action of Shane O’Donnell following a shoulder injury on May 10th.
Looking ahead to Sunday’s final, Clare manager Lohan admitted, “It’s a very difficult one to call, we know both teams very well, we’ve seen a lot of Cork with what happened last year and obviously in Clare we’ve seen an awful lot of Tipperary particularly those younger players who have come on and made such an impact for Tipp this year. You have that new freshness with the Tipp lads that are learning more and more out themselves every day they go out and jumping every single hurdle in front of them and they jumped a fair hurdle the last day, they’ll be coming into the game with massive confidence.
“Cork after losing last year after extra time, Pat Ryan made reference to the fact that you have to have everything right to win an All-Ireland final and maybe they didn’t have everything right, now I obviously don’t know what they didn’t have everything right, our players came to that game and really came on a mission, they weren’t going to leave that behind, we got no free in the second half of that game and regardless of if we got no free in the first half or extra time, we had a bunch of players that were just prepared to do whatever had to be done to get over the line, we could stay talking about 2024 for the rest of our lives, we still have that in our back pocket that we have that group of players, we’ve great belief in that group of players”.
Speaking during an exclusive interview with Scariff Bay Community Radio following his reappointment for an additional three years as Clare boss, Brian said, “I see it as a very tight game, I would not be betting on the game, I know Cork are favourites in a lot of people’s eyes but I wouldn’t see it that way, it could go either way and I wouldn’t be able to call it to be honest. I couldn’t call it either way, you’d have to be very impressed with how both teams have handled themselves for the last couple of months, how Pat Ryan has been able to get his charges going again after a really poor defeat against Limerick, respond with that Munster championship win on the back of a league win already, they are looking to win all three which is a great achievement for Pat, his group of players and the whole county of Cork. You look at Liam Cahill, they’ve had to deal with setbacks during the year, some bad defeats but they kept their heads down, kept working hard and when it was put up to them last Sunday they responded really well and got their win, they are now in an All-Ireland final which is a great position for both counties”.
