Liam Cahill is hoping that Tipperary can 'sneak into' All-Ireland final with win over Kilkenny

“Today was about getting the job done. It wasn’t pretty at times. I suppose we showed snippets of what we’ve been capable of doing all year, but there’s plenty to work on and a real opportunity now for us to go after it and see if we can sneak into a final”.

That was the reaction of Tipperary manager Liam Cahill after his team beat Galway in Saturday’s All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship quarter-final in Limerick.

He admitted that his team “could have been caught for two or three goals minimum in the first half, absolutely. Having said that, we left two or three chances ourselves after us.

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“I think our match-ups, we were thrown a little bit at the start with the three different changes for Galway. We left a little bit of passing on of one or two players in particular that hurt us and created little overlaps. In fairness to these fellas, I’ve always said that when we get to a stage where they start fixing it themselves, we’re in a good place in Tipperary.

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"At half-time these players got together, a little bit of guidance from the coaching team and ourselves and fixed a few areas that they needed to go after. So we’re very proud of them in that regard and very happy that we were able to nullify those threats in the second half”.

Of the move that led to Oisín O’Donoghue’s goal, he said “We practised that as much as we can in training. I think there was a save before that with Jake (Morris) as well that we should be converting and we will need to be converting those chances when we go to Croke Park for the last four.

“It was a difficult day as regards weather. It was very humid out there. The warm-up was tough. The game really didn’t get into its flow as often as we’d like it to from our perspective and again, I was probably a little bit disappointed at half-time in some parts of our play. But they’re the expectations I have of these players and the standards that I feel they can come to.

“That would be the only reason that I felt I would have been a little bit animated maybe at half-time going in was that those standards, maybe our expectations of players, wasn’t where it should be. As I said, credit to the players, they fixed it again at half-time and got about their business well in the second half, so I’m happy with that”.

He said it was difficult to have patience in the last few years waiting for his team to have reached this stage.

“The players that I suppose were on our radar are now starting to come of age. They’re still very young. I still think that the mix of the more experienced cohort that are still with us are really bringing brilliant culture and standards to the set-up.

“It’s a really nice mix. It’ll be a big challenge in two weeks’ time to go to Croke Park with a group of players that a high percentage of them won’t have played there. That will probably more than likely hand us the tag of being real underdogs, to be fair, and rightly so.

“It’s a new experience for a high percentage, as I said, of our players, but it’s one that we’ll relish and it’s one that we have to go through as we try to progress. I suppose, if you’re to call it straight, we’re probably a little bit more advanced than we thought we would be in relation to our progression. So, let’s go in two weeks’ time and have a right cut off it and see where it takes us.

“There’ll be no margin for error up there in that place (Croke Park). It’s unforgiving up there, isn’t it? Kilkenny know that (place) like the back of their hand, they’re playing day in, day out in it. We won’t use that as an excuse, obviously, we’re not, but we have to highlight that it is a concern.

“But, when you take the field in a Tipperary jersey, you always like to think you have a chance”.

With just four teams left in the championship, does he think that the race for the McCarthy Cup is wide open?

“Cork are still raging hot favourites. I’d say there's only one man smiling tonight, and that’s Pat Ryan. We have to prepare and fix a few things that we need to go after after today for two weeks’ time and try and embrace the huge challenge.

“But, it’s an exciting time in Tipperary, it’s brilliant to see the huge volume of Tipperary supporters on the field, the kids, boys and girls there. It does your heart good really to see it and it’s something that I’ve always longed to see happening under my own watch here with this group of players.

"Please God it will continue in two weeks’ time with more green shoots, hopefully”.