Saturday 7 June 2008

Tradition will carry Rebels through

Tipp are travelling to Páirc Uí Chaoimh tomorrow trying to get an 85-year-old monkey off their back.
Buoyed up by winning the National League and with some of the young players like Shane McGrath showing a new maturity and hunger this is Tipp's best chance to defeat the Rebels at home since 1923.
All bad runs have to come to an end sometime and the Premier men must feel like they are the team on the up while Cork are still backboned by a core of players who saw great success earlier in the decade, playing in four All-Ireland finals in a row in the process.
Tradition shouldn't mean anything in a game like this but I believe that the Cork vets will just about hold on tomorrow spurred on by a big local support and determined not to be remembered as the Rebel side which lost to Tipp at home.
I am still confident that both these sides will end up in the latter stages of the All Ireland regardless of tomorrow's result but I think Tipp will have to wait another year on Munster success.
However, if Cork were to fall tomorrow on their home patch and go out of Munster at the semi final stage for the second year running it would be a huge shift in a province which has been dominated by Cork and Waterford for the last six seasons.

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