Clare Unable to Punish Kilkenny's First Half Profligacy
While the closeness of the final score may appear to justify Clare's tactics against Kilkenny last Saturday, the fact is that the Cats should have been out of sight by halftime, such was their dominance of the first half proceedings...
The idea of playing a sweeper behind the halfback line is simple and can be effective, as we saw in Croke Park the previous Sunday. With a sweeper behind you, all the halfback has to do is prevent his opposite number from gaining possession and allow the ball run through to the sweeper. A good sweeper can also play a key role in preventing the speedy Kilkenny forwards from mopping up breaking ball, and Alan Markham played that role to perfection in the drawn game.
Two factors prevented the Clare strategy from being anywhere near as effective in Thurles. Firstly, Kilkenny changed the spare man at the other end of the field and also used him to sweep across the line. They also employed him to great effect, mainly in sending short passes to the midfield and half forwards, but also when the occasion allowed it, sending long balls over the sweeper and into the full forwards. And this is where the second factor, which really undid the Banner, came into effect. In order to accommodate Brian Lohan, Anthony Daly disrupted the defence which had performed so well the previous day, with Frank Lohan at wing back and Gerry Quinn up in the forwards. Things became even more confused when the elder Lohan went off, as nobody seemed to know who was marking whom.
This combination of factors gave the Cats almost total domination of play in the first half, during which period they played the ball 95 times to just 58 for Clare. The fact that Tony Griffin only played the ball once and Ger O'Grady not at all is a sure testimony to how out of touch the Banner were in that period. Yet for all their territorial dominance, Kilkenny were still only five points ahead at halftime. There were two chief reasons for this - Henry Sheflin's untypically off-key performance and Eddie Brennan's insistence on going looking for goals when easy tap-over points were available. It may be that Kilkenny wanted to kill off the Clare challenge in the first half so they could coast along after the interval. Well, if this was the case, it certainly backfired, and in the end they found themselves having to do what they least wanted to do i.e. grind out victory in a tough physical battle in the second half.
The Clare sweeper strategy worked much better after the change of ends. With Frank Lohan and Gerry Quinn back in their best positions, their defence tightened considerably, with corner backs Brian Quinn and Ger O'Grady putting in much more effective performances. With Tony Griffin and Niall Gilligan coming much more into the game (17 plays between them in the second half compared with just five in the first), the Kilkenny defence was under more pressure and the quality of ball up to their forwards fell away. This allowed the Clare sweeper (David Forde at this stage) to come much more into the game and add to the pressure on the Cats' defence.
The figures speak for themselves: in the first half, between them, Martin Comerford, John Hoyne, Eddie Brennan and Cha Fitzpatrick played the ball a total of 33 times. In the second period this fell to 10. All-in-all, Kilkenny played the ball 61 times after the change of ends, compared with 56 for Clare. In other words, territorially things were very evenly balanced in that period, as reflected in the parity of scoring (or, more accurately, non-scoring). If Clare had managed a goal, the result could have been different, but they didn't have the penetration to create even one clear goal-scoring chance, apart from Niall Gilligan's overhead pull in the first minute.
Clearly the kinds of scores Kilkenny put up in both games against Clare would not do against Waterford who, even without John Mullane, possess much more firepower than the Banner. It is noteworthy that four of the six forwards picked on the Munster All-Stars team were from the Déise, and these did not include Paul Flynn. Midfielders Eoin Kelly and Dave Bennett have also been known to land their share of long-range points, not to mention Ken McGrath. Waterford probably have even more need of the sweeper system, given the apparent fragility of their last line of defence. However, at the moment they probably feel that such negative thinking is beneath them and that they are capable of taking on the Cats on their own terms. It should be quite a day.
As for the Henry Sheflin incident, the key aspect as far as An Moltóir is concerned is that Gerry Quinn - unlike Sheflin who had his hand up for the ball - had both hands on his hurley when he struck Sheflin. It was only after Sheflin began to fall back following the blow that Quinn put up his hand to catch the ball. And whether or not Quinn intended to inflict damage on Sheflin is irrelevant - what he did was both dangerous and irresponsible.
And while all the public attention has focused on the incident involving Gerry Quinn, something should also be done about Brian Lohan's assault on Sheflin in the opening minutes of the game. As An Moltóir saw it, this was an unprovoked piece of aggression on Lohan's part. If this was intended to upset Sheflin, then it certainly appeared to work, as he was only a shadow of his normal self for the rest of the game. Good forwards like Sheflin, Cloonan, Kelly and Mullane are the lifeblood of hurling, and need to be protected against both strong-arm and underhand tactics. The idea that the GAC will only take video evidence into account for events not covered in referees' reports is absolutely ridiculous. It would be interesting - and no doubt instructive - to have a camera trained on these players for the entire duration of the games in which they play. Hearing devices which could pick up the constant abuse to which they are subjected by defenders would also be very useful. Between them, they would make quite a horror show only suitable for viewing after the women and children have gone to bed
Go to Top
