There is an old story about a farmer in South Kilkenny who loaned his prize bull to a neighbour in order to do what the bull had won so many prizes doing over all the years …

When the bull had not been returned after a few days his concerned owner headed over to the neighbour’s farm to check out what was going on. He was horrified to see his bull hitched to a plough and being driven across a cornfield by the neighbour. "What the hell are you doing?", shouted the bull’s owner from the gate. Came the reply: "I’m showing his boyo there is more to life than just sex and romance!".

Well, last Sunday Waterford’s hurling neophytes discovered that there is more to intercounty hurling than weaving fancy patterns, winning championship matches and carrying home trophies. Not that they would have suspected this in the first twenty minutes as they carried on just as they had finished against Tipperary, carving open the Clare defence and scoring points at will. Then reality checked in. In a game remarkably similar in pattern to Clare’s quarter final win over Galway, Clare raised their game, got the measure of their opponents and then proceeded to squeeze the life out of them.

The Clare formula is simple. If you can’t win possession directly yourself, you use every trick in the book to prevent your direct opponent from doing so. Then, as the ball breaks loose, you use a combination of hunting in packs and physical strength to ensure that the ball is directed in the direction of the opposing goal. Then you raise your eyes to heaven and pray that your forwards will chisel out sufficient scores to get you over the finishing line. In the first twenty minutes last Sunday, Waterford did what they did against Limerick last year – played the best hurling seen all year. Then the wheels began to fall off. By half time they were barely ahead of Clare in terms of the number of times their players had played the ball. In the second half the Banner were way ahead in terms of territorial possession – 77 plays to Waterford’s 57.

Yet at the end of the day, and despite all the hyperbole about the Clare defence, Waterford still had chalked up 17 wides – six more than Clare. And while some of the Clare misses were howlers, An Moltóir reckons that the Déise tally of bad misses was twice as high. These include Paul Flynn’s mishit frees, two straighforward chances from in front of the posts spurned by Eoin McGrath, and at least one of Eoin Kelly’s chances late in the first half. In addition, Waterford conceded several scores to Clare with the kind of unnecessary errors which so exercise Justin McCarthy. These include Stephen Brenner’s second half fumble (gifting a pointed 65 to Sean McMahon), Fergal Hartley’s mysterious first half flick into no man’s land which ended up in a Clare point, and, most important of all, Peter Queally’s flight of fantasy which broke all the basic rules of good defending and led directly to Alan Markham’s lifeline goal. Ironically, the same Queally admitted humbly to similar fatal errors in last year’s Limerick game on the Breaking Ball TV preview last week.

It is clear that the Clare game plan isn’t simply to stop their opponents from getting the ball, but to so unnerve and demoralise them that they become ineffectual even when they have it. This is further borne out by An Moltóir’s "fumble count" – over twice as many for Waterford as for Clare. And when it came to misdirected hand passes, the Déise were in a class apart. Whether Waterford may have relaxed, given the ease with which the opening flurry of scores came, is a moot point. But they simply were not up to the physical challenge presented by Clare, lost the game plan, and became over-reliant on the high ball down the middle – the classic symptom of a team under pressure.

For An Moltóir, despite all the adulation heaped on Brian Lohan, the key performance for Clare came in the second half from Tony Griffin. Virtually anonymous in the first half (just three plays while operating in the half forward line), he was by far the busiest player on the field after the interval with thirteen plays in all in the second half. His total of 16 was matched by Lohan and Colin Lynch, but these were both busier in the first half than the second. Other key inputs came from Gerry Quinn, Niall Gilligan and Alan Markham (who did a lot of hard work out around midfield, apart from his crucial scores just before half-time).

Waterford’s busiest player was Eoin Kelly (17 plays), followed by Fergal Hartley (15), Peter Queally (13) and Andy Moloney (12). However, most of Moloney’s plays were made in the first half, and he virtually disappeared from sight after the restart. Indeed, the obliteration of the Waterford forward line was almost total in the second period. Between them, Flynn, Prendergast and John Mullane played the ball a total of five times in that period. It was surprising that it took the Waterford mentors so long to take action, and the action they took was even more surprising. All three full forwards were withdrawn, but they could argue with some justification that the real problem was the quantity and quality of ball coming in from out the field. Putting Dave Bennett in at corner forward was unlikely to change that.

And given that Eoin McGrath had forced is way into the team on the strength of his midfield displays during the league, one might have expected him to have been given a try in an area where Waterford struggled throughout the second half. A couple of his trademark bursts from midfield could have created the overlaps Waterford’s forwards needed in order to evade the clutches of their markers. It was perhaps even more surprising that Ken McGrath was not shifted to midfield or even to the halfback line in order to get him into the game. Such a bold move by Offaly, when they moved the off-colour Brian Whelahan to full forward, won them the All-Ireland in 1998.

All in all, therefore, fair dues to Clare for the great spirit they have shown in clawing their way back to hurling’s top table. An Moltóir tipped them to win last year’s All-Ireland before the competition began, mainly on the expectation that Niall Gilligan would emerge as the forward of the year (building on his pre-Christmas displays for Sixmilebridge). Gilligan, of course, self-destructed and Clare were left agonisingly short of scoring power against Tipperary. Gilligan has yet to rediscover the form of the late 1990s, but there were glimpses of it in his display against Waterford. If he can sharpen his shooting, An Moltóir might find himself just a year late with his prediction.

The loss of Gerry Quinn, however, is a grievous blow. This column sends him its best wishes for a speedy recovery.

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