Tipperary star John McGrath says the Premier men are eager to return to winning ways after their “reality check” against Limerick two weeks ago.

Liam Cahill’s men fell to a 15-point defeat at the hands of the Shannonsiders in Thurles last Saturday week, having won two of their three outings in Division 1A of the Allianz Hurling League before that.

Speaking to GAA.ie ahead of the All-Ireland champions’ clash with Waterford on Sunday (3.15pm), McGrath described the top tier of the league competition as being “very unforgiving”.

“It'll probably give a reality check to what can happen, I suppose, not that you obviously don't want that as such,” he said.

“It just goes to show, if you are that little bit off it, teams are going to punish you. It's very unforgiving, I suppose.

“We need to make sure in our last couple of games now that we can say that that's a once-off, but you kind of have to back that up. If you have a couple of those performances, it's a real worry.

“Whereas one of them you can say, OK, ‘certain things went wrong’ but you just can't let a pattern develop.”

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