Shane Dowling says Tipperary were ‘miles off it’ in second half against Limerick

Shane Dowling says the score-line flattered Tipperary in their one point loss to Limerick on Saturday night.

Indeed, it will surely be a concern for Liam Cahill that the Premier have not won a second half against John Kiely's team in 13 meetings, and while their first half score difference for those games is +26, after half-time it's -74.

Limerick lined out with strongest selection of the National League to date, with both Cian Lynch and Peter Casey making their first starts of the campaign, with Aaron Gillane also in the Starting XV.

The magical Lynch aside, John Kiely's side were a little rusty starting off with the likes of Jason Forde and Gearoid O'Connor handing Tipperary the early initiative.

A Forde goal had Tipperary three up before the break but Limerick fought back to trail by just one at the break, with Lynch prominent.

That was a sign of things to come with Limerick taking over the game after the break. The deadly Donncha O Dálaigh showed his class with three sharp points from play while Gearoid Hegarty and Colin Coughlan also made their presence felt on the score-board.

A brilliant Patrick Maher goal brought Tipperary back into the game but it was against the run of play and Limerick lengthened their stride once more before a late salvo from Jake Morris put some gloss on the score-board for Tipperary, with the final scoreline 0-26 to 3-16.

Afterwards, speaking on RTÉ's Satrurday GAA live, Shane Dowling said Tipp were flattered by the score-board.

"If someone didn't watch the game tonight and went to the shop in the morning and picked up a newspaper, they'd see 'oh a one point game, it must have been a good game.,' it wasn't.

"Yeah they (Tipperary) did respond, but that was just a complete unforced error by Tom Morrissey for the goal. Limerick were miles better than them," he said.

"The scoreline was not a fair reflection of how the game panned out.

"Tipp stuck at it, don't get me wrong. And I thought they looked very good in the first half, but to me they looked miles off it in the second half.

"They didn't squeeze up at all. Limerick were tip tapping around the place like they always do and I thought they were much better," he added.

Liam Sheedy agreed that Limerick had 'miles' the better of it in the second half, and said the Tipperary had 'no answers' for their opponents.

"Well I think miles better in the second half, I think Tipp had the better in the first half, playing into a stiffish breeze too but when Limerick get moving and into their flow, it's very hard to break them and Tipp had no answer to a lot of their play in the second half."