Diarmuid O’Sullivan: Tipp will need their biggest guns to outshoot Cork

I’m not in Michael Ryan’s shoes, so I don’t know what his reasons were for the media ban after the game with Limerick.

He’s the manager of the Tipperary senior hurling team and he’s entitled to do it. I’m not going to criticise him for it.

Ultimately it made people ask is there something wrong in the Tipp camp, but that was unfair to Limerick for people to focus on this thing.

It just took from their performance last Sunday and it did them a serious injustice because Limerick won the game fairly by six points.

The one thing that incident will do is help Cork avoid complacency. They beat a Clare side that won only one game in the Munster Championship in the last five years. That’s an abysmal record!

From an outsider’s perspective, I’d be more inclined to wonder if there’s issues in the Clare camp rather than Tipp’s.

Cork aren’t in a position to worry about anyone else. They may have won a Munster title and got to an All-Ireland semi-final last year, but they’re after a pretty poor innings in recent times.

So, until Cork gets its own house in order, I don’t think it would be fair for us to go into anyone’s front room and start rattling cages.

I saw a tweet from Tipp GAA saying that training would be from behind closed doors for the first session of the week and they would open by the end of this week. That would suggest they’re preparing to go at it and play the way they know they can in order to get two points on the board.

I absolutely expect them to bring back all their big guns for Sunday. Michael Ryan is going to set his stall out and really go after this because he knows if Tipp win, they are right back in the hunt. If they pull off a victory I’d fancy Tipp to be in the Munster Championship Final.

That’s how much momentum they’ll get from it.

If Cork score a win though, Tipperary are in very dangerous territory then.

There’s a big reward for Cork, but there’s a bigger one for Tipp if they can recover with a win on Sunday.

Speed kills

Speed is king and Cork’s pace will not only worry Tipperary, it will trouble most teams in the Championship.

Sean O’Donoghue is lightening quick, Damien Cahalane is no slouch, Mark Coleman can move and then further up the field you add in Darragh Fitzgibbon, Robbie O’Flynn, Conor Lehane and Seamus Harnedy has a good burst.

Then you have Shane Kingston coming off the bench as well for 20/25 minute. Any team with that kind of pace has a real advantage.

Tipp supporters are as fickle as the Cork fans can be.

If The Rebels can dictate the pace of the game in the first 10 minutes and keep Tipperary on the back foot, there’s a great opportunity to go after them from the start.

I’d encourage Cork to go for the throat here. They’d be foolish not to!

There’s no manager that wouldn’t take them on from the get-go.

Congrats to Rebel Rena

I felt compelled to ring the retiring Rena Buckley the other night to congratulate her on what can only be described as a marvellous career in the red of Cork.

Not only is she a role model on the field – and I told her this – she’s one off the pitch too.

She’ll have a lot to offer in the world of coaching in Ladies Football and Camogie, should she choose to go down that route.

But added to that, Rena would have a lot to offer on the men’s side of the game too if she fancied that challenge.

Her service to Cork has been incredible and you really can’t buy the kind of experience she possesses.