Cork 0-21

Tipperary 0-18

BY DARAGH Ó CONCHÚIR

CORK have taken a giant step closer to the semi-finals of the Glen Dimplex Senior Championship.

One week after beating All-Ireland champions Galway in their Group 1 opener, the Rebels won on the road again, defeating Tipperary by three points at Semple Stadium.

It’s a result that leaves Cork within touching distance of the semi-finals, though they will still need a result in their final group game at home to Waterford to confirm their place.

While all four teams in the group advance to the knockout stages, the top side progresses directly to the last four and bypasses the quarter-finals.

‘We’re absolutely delighted to get over the line and I suppose it’s pleasing in a way that it wasn’t a perfect performance at all but we still ground out the win, so we’ll take a lot from that,’ Laura Hayes said.

‘We knew we were going to be up for a big battle. We had a very positive result the last day against Galway and we wanted to come here and back that up today. That was our main focus and we were delighted to get the result.’

Cork's Daire O'Brien warms up ahead of the match. (Photo: Dan Clohessy/INPHO)

Cork are hitting their stride at the right time, having endured a challenging league campaign and a short Munster championship that ended with defeat to Tipperary at the quarter-final stage.

‘We had a really, really tough league and a really tough Munster and that’s certainly not something we’re used to,’ Hayes added.

‘There was a huge turnover of players, a lot of new faces coming in, and it took all of us time to bed in together.

‘But I honestly think we’ve been working so hard. We’ve been plugging away in training, doing a lot of fitness and a lot of hurling and, by the time we came back, we were really hungry.

‘This is just a group game, though, and there’s a high possibility we’ll meet one of these teams again and it could be a different story, so we won’t be getting ahead of ourselves.’

Eimear McGrath shot nine points, including four from play, and Eimear Heffernan and Grace O’Brien added seven between them, but Cork just had a little more in the tank.

Amy O’Connor matched McGrath’s tally, though with one fewer point from play, while Saoirse McCarthy and Sorcha McCartan split the posts eight times between them.

There were never more than two points in it during the opening half, which finished 0-11 apiece after some excellent attacking play on the fast Thurles surface.

Right from the throw-in, the tempo was high, with Mairéad Eviston producing a brilliant tackle to dispossess McCartan as she drove through on goal for Cork.

O’Connor flashed a ground shot across goal from a tight angle in a frantic start, and the sense that Tipp were up for the fight was heightened when O’Brien gathered a good diagonal ball and opened the scoring to crown a breathless opening minute.

Róisín Howard’s catch and lay-off to set up McGrath, Hayley Ryan’s sweeping strike with her back to goal and Hayes splitting the posts from 60 metres out and just five metres in from the sideline were among the highlights in a first half full of quality.

Tipperary lost momentum somewhat in the third quarter, scoring just one point in 14 minutes, in no small part due to Hayes’ dominance around the middle.

The 2024 Player of the Year was at her brilliant best, moving the sliotar with control and precision to allow O’Connor (0-9, 6f), McCarthy (0-5) and McCartan (0-3) to deliver the scores that secured a second successive victory.

Cork now sit top of Group 1 with two wins from two games and are within touching distance of a semi-final place ahead of their final group outing against Waterford.