Liam Kearns concedes that Tipperary's stock has fallen sharply since their surprise run to the All-Ireland SFC semi-final in 2016.

Relegation to Division 3 of the Allianz League in March was followed by a shock Munster SFC first round loss to Limerick in Thurles on Saturday evening.

“I still have a lot of faith in that panel, but certainly, we’ve taken steps backwards in the last two years and this year in particular," the Tipp manager said in the Irish Examiner.

“We just have to have a long hard look at it now, but that has to be after the year is finished. Certainly, we seem to be behind at underage level. The county board and everybody will have to look at that.”

Reflecting on the 1-10 to 3-11 defeat to Limerick, the Tralee man admitted: “It was a really disappointing performance and a real low point for us.

“The championship was where we wanted to perform. Now, the year has gone disastrously badly for us in regards to injuries. You saw out there, there’s three or four guys playing their first competitive matches today and we just didn’t get away with it.

“This is the second year in-a-row now, Cork last year, our preparations weren’t right and if you’re not right going into championship matches, you’re going to get found out. We hoped last year that we’d be able to get by, but we didn’t. We hoped this year that we would, and we weren’t.”

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