Peter Casey’s injury places a real downer on Limerick’s mood despite win over Tipperary in Munster

Peter Casey, who had been in sparkling form for 55 minutes, suffered what appeared to be a broken ankle in the act of scoring Limerick’s second goal at the TUS Gaelic Grounds.

The Na Piarsaigh man’s distress was immediately apparent, as he signalled with his arms as he lay prostrate on the ground. After a lengthy hold-up, he was stretchered off, and the game petered out to its inevitable conclusion, Casey’s injury placing a real downer on the mood even as the four-in-a-row All-Ireland kingpins strolled to a 15-point win.

Even though this was Tipperary’s maiden outing in the Munster round-robin, the crushing nature of this 15-point defeat places the team and manager Liam Cahill firmly on the back foot ahead of next Saturday’s suddenly must-win clash away to Waterford.

At half-time, trailing by 0-12 to 0-7 but with wind advantage to come, Tipp looked poised to at least make a decent contest of it.

Instead, as Limerick so often do in the second half, they upped the intensity and pulverised their opponents.

In the first 20 minutes after half-time, right up to Casey’s goal and its unfortunate aftermath, they outscored the flagging Premier by 2-10 to 0-6.

Tipp had briefly rallied to within four points, via points from veteran subs Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher and Noel McGrath, before Aaron Gillane pounced for their opening goal on 44 minutes.

It stemmed from a fizzing Diarmaid Byrnes free that landed short; the ball broke off corner-back Johnny Ryan and David Reidy and, in an instant, Gillane picked up the break and buried a superb shot from around 20 metres.

That goal effectively broke Tipp’s resolve, and they had seven of the next nine points before Casey broke onto a ball over the top, steadied and then fired home a brilliant finish … but, unfortunately, an accidental coming together in the aftermath left him stricken and in real distress.

Tipp responded with the next four points, only for Limerick sub Adam English to reply in kind with 0-4 from play on either side of another Byrnes free.

After the frenzied excitement of earlier events on Leeside, the first half on Shannonside struggled to reach any close to the same levels, with both sides guilty of multiple mistakes and some errant shooting.

Playing with a fresh wind, Limerick ‘won’ the first half wide count – seven to four – but even this failed to reflect some of Tipp’s struggles. Three times in the opening quarter, Jake Morris had point attempts half-blocked – twice by Kyle Hayes and once by Dan Morrissey.

The first two interventions led to ‘65s’ – but Jason Forde squandered both, pushing the first to the right and the second to the left.

There was also early controversy when Hayes was punished for a pick-up to the preamble to a goal finished off by Peter Casey – TV replays clearly showed that the sliotar was hopping when Hayes gathered it.

Hayes was also unwittingly involved in Tipp’s one clear goal chance of the half. His short pass out of defence was pounced on by the visitors before Alan Tynan offloaded to Seán Hayes, but Nickie Quaid raced from his line to smother his 22nd-minute attempt.

Tipp trailed by 0-6 to 0-5 at the time, but a Forde free levelled matters three minutes later.

Then, belatedly, the four-in-a-row All-Ireland champions got into their flow, rattling off six unanswered points (three Aaron Gillane frees and another Gillane point after Craig Morgan was turned over coming out of defence, a monster Diarmaid Byrnes free from inside his own ‘45’ and a Casey score) before Forde’s injury-time free offered some respite.

That left Limerick 0-12 to 0-7 ahead on the change of ends.

SCORERS – Limerick: A Gillane 1-8 (0-7f), P Casey 1-2, A English 0-4, C O’Neill, T Morrissey 0-3 each, D Byrnes (2f), D Reidy 0-2 each, K Hayes, W O’Donoghue, D Ó Dálaigh 0-1 each. Tipperary: J Forde 0-9 (8f), G O’Connor (1f), M Kehoe 0-2 each, E Connolly, A Tynan, P Maher, N McGrath, J Ryan 0-1 each.

LIMERICK: N Quaid; S Finn, D Morrissey, B Nash; D Byrnes, D Hannon, K Hayes; W O’Donoghue, C Lynch; G Hegarty, C O’Neill, T Morrissey; A Gillane, P Casey, D Reidy. Subs: D Ó Dálaigh for Hegarty (52), G Mulcahy for Casey (inj 59), A English for Lynch (61), C Coughlan for Hayes (65), C Boylan for Reidy (69).

TIPPERARY: B Hogan; J Ryan, C Morgan, R Maher; C Bowe, B O’Mara, M Breen; W Connors, E Connolly; A Tynan, G O’Connor, J Forde; S Hayes, J Morris, M Kehoe. Subs: N McGrath for Hayes (ht), P Maher for Kehoe (42), A Ormond for Connors (50), D Stakelum for Morris (59), S Kenneally for Forde (69).

REFEREE: L Gordon (Galway)