'Go out and do your best' - that will be the message to the Thurles Sarsfields players tomorrow according to selector Paddy McCormack.

The Tipperary champions will take on Clare's double champions Cratloe in the Munster SHC semi-final and McCormack has the height of admiration for their opponents.

"Aren't they the real GAA club, playing hurling and football?" McCormack said to The Examiner.

"They are fantastic. The two men down there, Joe McGrath and Colm Collins, have done tremendous work in keeping both codes going. We have been reading their remarkable story long before we knew we were playing them.

"They have a lot of household names - Collins, Chaplin and McInerney. They are on the go every week and you don't hear them complaining. You have to admire what they are doing. They have had time to get over their county final win.

"They got past Ballygunner which is never easy. It is our fifth time in Munster and we have come up against the likes of Newtownshandrum, De La Salle, there is never an easy game."

He continued: "The priority every year in Tipperary is to win the Dan Breen Cup. Dan Breen is always No.1 and there is no heavy burden over the players saying you have to win Munster.

"When we won 10 county championships in 11 years back in the 50s and 60s, there was no Munster championship. The current players are better off for that. God knows the amount of Munster titles that team would have won and the pressure it would have left on all teams after that.

"We are at the end of a long year. We will ask nothing more of the lads than that they do their best."

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