Munster SHC: Tipperary 0-17 Clare 1-25Something had to give. Having painted themselves into a corner, Clare produced their best performance since their All-Ireland winning season and stamped on Tipperary’s fingers as they hung to the cliff’s edge. Everything that Clare valued most about themselves and this group had been vandalised in Ennis a fortnight ago. In Thurles on Saturday night they were hell bent on correction.It was a performance of overwhelming authority. Once they took a grip on the game midway through the first half they squeezed and squeezed until the All-Ireland champions were left in a lifeless heap. All over the field it is hard to think of a duel they didn’t win. Clare dictated the match-ups that mattered and brought the game to a volume of intensity that was beyond Tipp’s reach.“When you play as badly as you played against Limerick there is a huge amount of question marks over the whole group,” Brian Lohan said afterwards. “You know, are we wasting our time at this? There was an awful lot at stake for us and we needed a response. Our supporters needed a response and we got that.”Over the last few weeks questions had been raised about Tipp too, but they didn’t come up with answers. This was their fourth double-digit beating in the championship over the last three years. One of those is mitigated by a red card in the first minute against Cork last year and they were reduced to 14 men here too.But they were already nine points down when Willie Connors received a second yellow 16 minutes into the second half and it would be risible to suggest it had any material bearing on the outcome.Clare's John Conlon and David McInerney battle for possession with Tipperary's John McGrath. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Liam Cahill said that Tipp had played “with fear”. He said that players on the ball didn’t have options. In his estimation, Robert Doyle and Bryan O’Mara performed with distinction, but nobody else was granted absolution.“When seven or eight players or nine players go away at the one time, numbers on the scoreboard happen like what happened outside,” said Cahill. “Unfortunately, this particular group have a history of doing this and we know that and we try to address it.”For Tipp, it signals the end of a bankrupt title defence. It is now more than 60 years since they won back-to-back All-Irelands, and in a statistical quirk unearthed by the Over the Bar podcast, they now haven’t beaten Clare in the championship in Thurles since 1985.[ Uneasy lies the Tipperary head that wears a crownOpens in new window ]After such a flaccid performance against Limerick, Clare took refuge in the kind of aggression and wholeheartedness that have characterised all their best days in recent years. A fortnight ago they were slaughtered on turnovers which, in the modern game, is a statistical touchstone for desire and fight. Here, they addressed that deficiency in spectacular fashion and won 27 turnovers in the first half alone.Tipp had no answers. Jake Morris had a purple patch in the second half and finished the game with four points, but otherwise the Tipp forward line was eclipsed. John McGrath forced a brilliant save from Éibhear Quilligan early in the second half when the game was still alive, but that was his only shot from play in the game; Andrew Ormond and Darragh McCarthy had none.Tempers flare during the game between Clare's Tony Kelly and Robert Doyle of Tipperary. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho Unsurprisingly, Clare didn’t stick with the team that was eviscerated by Limerick and made three significant changes to the line-up that was published on Friday. In came David McInerney at full back, John Conlon at No 6 and Diarmuid Stritch at centrefield and, to varying degrees, they all made a difference.Stritch has been flagged as a rising star for a couple of years and on his first championship start he produced a tour de force. In one mesmerising spell at the beginning of the second quarter he scored three points in as many minutes and he finished the game with six points from play. Alongside him in the half-forward line Seán Rynne gave the best performance of his nascent Clare career, flashing over four points.Having been filleted in their opening two games, the Clare defence was stabilised by the presence of Conlon and McInerney at its spine. Their cuteness and experience will not be captured on the statistical dashboards, but it was plain to see. All the players around them must have felt it.Playing with a stiff wind Clare struggled to get away from Tipp in the opening quarter and were a point down after 16 minutes. But then they hit seven unanswered points and could have put the game out of reach by half-time but a spasm of careless wides; they ended the game with 19 misses, which was the game’s only mercy for Tipp.Mark Rodgers didn’t recover from an early frontal charge from Connors but his replacement, Ian Galvin, made a huge impression. Tony Kelly left the field halfway through the second half with an ankle injury and both he and Rodgers must be doubts for the visit to Cork next Sunday when a place in the Munster final will be on the line.The summer stretches out in front of them now.TIPPERARY: R Shelly; M Breen, B O’Mara, R Maher; E Connolly (0-3, 3f), R Doyle, C Morgan; W Connors (0-1), A Tynan (0-1); J Morris (0-4), A Ormond, O O’Donoghue; D McCarthy (0-3, 3f), J McGrath, J Forde (0-3, 1 sl).Subs: D Stakelum for Ormond (h-t); C Stakelum (0-1) for Breen (42 mins); S O’Farrell for Tynan (48); S Tobin (0-1) for McCarthy (51); N McGrath for Forde (57)CLARE: E Quilligan; D Lohan, D McInerney, A Hogan; D Ryan, J Conlon, N O’Farrell (0-1); D Stritch (0-6), R Taylor (0-1); C Malone (0-2), T Kelly (0-5, 4f), S Rynne (0-4); P Duggan (0-4, 2 sl, 1f), S O’Donnell, M Rodgers.Subs: I Galvin (1-2) for Rodgers (25 mins); D Reidy for Taylor (45); D Fitzgerald for Kelly (57); C Cleary for Rynne (62); S Meehan for O’Donnell (65).Referee: Thomas Walsh (Waterford).