The Tipperary U20 footballers had a big win in the Munster championship last night.
The Premier beat Clare in New Inn in their phase 2 encounter on a full time score line of 2-16 to 0-17.
Tipp led by as much as ten points in the first half thanks to a Paddy O’Keeffe goal but the Banner had reduced the deficit to just two points with 20 minutes to go.
However Tipp bounced back with some high fielding from Joe Higgins and corner forward Daithí Hogan scoring the all-important second goal with five minutes of normal time remaining.
Speaking after the game, Tipp manager Niall Fitzgerald said his side did what they had to do but made hard work of it at times.
“The lads started at a rate of knots and we got a good score but we had a really poor second quarter. Credit to Clare they had a bit of a purple patch where they outscored us 8 points to 1 – that was really disappointing. In fairness it could rattle a team losing that kind of a lead but credit to the lads they stuck to their task and got us over the line which is really important.
“They don’t make it easy on you – we’ll be fairly frustrated with some of our play. We were our own worst enemies so we’ve a lot to work on before next week.”
The win for Tipp means next Tuesday’s game against Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh will see the winner progress to the Munster final.
