Ladies Gaelic Football

ladiesgaelic.ie // 15 TIPPS 2018 DISAPPOINTMENT Volume 14 | Issue No 3 | PEIL Autumn leather really. We had no answer for them really. Everything we tried didn't work, it wasn't our day at all. " There was nothing major between them tactically. Tipp didn't bring their performance, Waterford brought theirs. Mistakes came back to bite them, the Déise got a goal at the end and pulled away. This was it then. Cavan. Winner takes all, loser goes down. Tipperary came out all guns blazing and by half time, they had powered into an eight-point lead. They pretty much blitzed the Breffni, they did everything right. The put pressure on them, won kick-outs, launched attacks and took their scores. Cavan staged a superb comeback in the second half though and finished 2-14 to 1-14 winners. Some decisions did go against Tipp it must be said. "Some of the way things went wasn't our fault," she says. "I think maybe we should have had a bit of composure when things did go against us. Things just seemed to fall apart really. "They took advantage of it, they did well. They pushed up on our kick-outs and the goals were a killer really for us. 13 players on the pitch, it was kind of a lost battle trying to fight back. We tried until the end." Cavan counteracted their kick-outs and pushed up, forcing Tipp to panic. They should have cooled the heads more, held onto the ball and made use of possession. It's all about composure. That's a huge aspect of senior football: you're under more pressure, have less time on the ball but you have to keep the head. It's a massive step up. "The physicality," she agrees. "The speed of the game, transitioning from backs with the ball into the forwards on the counter- attack. It needs to be a lot quicker than it is at intermediate and even Division 2 level. "Everything's about precision, it's quicker, faster, you've less time on the ball, less time to think." McCarthy adds: "It's a pity we didn't get to find our feet. But look, we've learned a lot through the year. We just have to digest it, take the positives and work on them. "It was obviously a bitter end to the year, it's a setback. We're going to have to aim to win an intermediate All-Ireland next year, that's going to be a straight goal when we regroup. There's no way we can stay down, we need to get back up there. It's going to be one big aim." It may be jumping the gun a small bit, she concludes, but they have to be real. Division 1 football will be a good platform from January, but she realises it won't be all rosy. But they'll get there. "I think we're a senior team, we deserve to be up in senior. We're going to have to show the rest of the country that we're not an intermediate team. "It might sound someway negative about being intermediate but I think we can compete with the best in the country, we need to get back up there again." Bring on the challenge ! us, we're just going to have to be a bit cuter with our game management," she adds, noting that knowing to slow down a game is something they hadn't had to be aware of before. Next up was Donegal. Team morale was down she admits, but this was do-or-die. "Tactically, everything worked out really well," McCarthy continues. "In the Ulster final, they scored nine goals, but we kept them goal-less. That was obviously a positive for us but another defeat." Knocked out of the chase for the Brendan Martin Cup, left fighting for their senior status in the play-offs, they were pitted against Waterford. Their 'bogey team,' as she puts it. They always raise their game for Tipperary no matter what. "They just brought their A game really, we didn't really deal with it at all," she says. "I'm not quite sure what went wrong in that match. I just know that they gave hell for "THEY'RE THE KIND OF MARGINS AT THAT LEVEL THAT YOU GET PUNISHED FOR. IF YOU DON'T TAKE YOUR CHANCES, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE IN WITH A SHOUT." Aishling Moloney of Tipperary scores a goal against Cork Aisling McCarthy of Tipperary during the TG4 Munster Senior Ladies Football Championship semi-final between Tipperary and Cork

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