It is an iron rule of team sports that if you relax your grip and the other team comes back at you, it is very difficult to regain your grip again…
There were several similarities between 2005 and last year’s Munster finals (the standard of hurling, the level of drama and the closeness of the finish not being among them). On both occasions Cork played superbly in the first half and picked off a string of super points. They also got a soft goal courtesy of a goalkeeping error. In neither game did they manage another shot on goal.
In the second half of both games, the edge went off Cork’s game. In RTE’s superb documentary on last year’s final, “Final Words”, Donal O’Grady acknowledged that, with Waterford reduced to 14 men and Cork in the lead and playing with the wind, he assumed there could be only one result. However, as John O’Leary told his charges over and over in TG4’s excellent documentary on the Dublin women footballers’ 2004 championship campaign, victories don’t just land in your lap, they have to be earned.
Last year, Cork’s hurling got lazy after Mullane was sent off. Instead of stepping up their running game, to which having a spare man was perfectly suited, they resorted to the long ball out of defence, while the accuracy of their shooting fell away. More importantly, Waterford raised their game considerably and, were it not for even more wayward shooting on their part, they could have ended up with a comfortable win.
Last Sunday’s second half turnaround can be attributed, possibly in equal proportions, to a drop off in the intensity of Cork’s hurling after the change of ends, a greatly improved effort on the part of Tipperary, and the introduction of substantial heft into the Tipp half forward line. So why didn’t Tipp emulate Waterford and rescue an apparently impossible situation? The answer is simple – Tipperary simply don’t have Waterford’s cutting edge. Last year Waterford were only three points behind at half time thanks to two superb goals by Eoin Kelly and Dan Shanahan. And then in the second half we had the Paul Flynn tour de force.
Last Sunday it could be said that Paul Kelly produced a similar tour de force for Tipperary wth his string of marvellous long-range points. But Tipp always needed goals to reel in the Cork lead which was being continuously added to by regular forays into attack. And what this Tipperary team does not have is goalscoring power. Having said that, the result could have been different if Tommy Dunne had been able to capitalise on that golden opportunity with a few minutes left. That he didn’t was characteristic of what was generally a bad day at the office for the great Tipperary veteran, who essayed a series of poor strikes during the course of the game.
An unexpected statistic from the game is that the Cork halfback line actually played more ball in the second half than in the first, with Seán Óg Ó hAilpín thundering into the game to more than compensate for Ronan Curran’s fadeout. On the other flank, while not as spectacular after the interval, John Gardiner (An Moltóir’s man-of-the-match) continued to hurl away to great effect. The big difference was that, whereas in the first half the Cork halfbacks were surging out unchallenged and picking their spot for deliveries to the inside men, after the break they were clearing under pressure, thereby giving the Tipp midfield and halfbacks more of a chance to get into the game. In the first half the Cork full forwards played the ball 18 times, in the second this fell to eight.
The contrast between the first half performances of the respective half back lines could hardly have been more contrasting, with the Tipp men managing just seven plays to Cork’s 21. The big problem for Tipperary was the inability of their half forwards to compete for possession. In the circumstances, taking off David Kennedy was akin to the old junior hurling ploy of taking off the corner forward when you are being beaten out the door further outfield. Once the stranglehold exerted by the Cork halfbacks had been loosened (if not entirely broken) after the change of ends, Tipp’s own halfbacks were able to get more into the game. With Tipp competing more vigorously in both half lines, there was a lot more broken ball around the middle of the field. It was here that the added urgency of the Tipp men and the slackening off by Cork really made a difference. Between them, Jerry O’Connor and Tom Kenny played the ball twelve times in the first half and just five times in the second. Compare this with Paul Kelly’s and Colin Morrissey’s 16 plays after the break.
Elsewhere … Elsewhere, the big result of the hurling weekend was Dublin’s minor hurling victory over Kilkenny. Coming hot on the heels of the Kilmacud Crokes victory in Féile na nGael the previous weekend, this shows that the hurling cause is by no means dead in the national capital. The tragedy is that if the Dublin hurling team had all the best hurlers in the county available, they would probably be able to mix it quite seriously at the top level. Perhaps incoming GAA president Nicky Brennan, a hurling man, should make this a top priority. Dublin’s football management have to be persuaded to take a leaf out of Limerick’s book and allow their dual players to assist the county hurlers, in the interests of not just hurling but of Gaelic games in general in the metropolis. Indeed, the impact of a competitive Dublin hurling team packing them in on the Hill would go far beyond the bounds of the capital.
Meanwhile, on Saturday Limerick completed the ritual flogging of the weaker teams in the All-Ireland qualifer series. While some people argue that the Dublins and Antrims need the experience of playing against the big guns, An Moltóir has his doubts. Even if there are some benefits to these hammerings, it has to be set against the impact on the club scene within all the counties concerned as the chaff is slowly but inevitably separated from the elite.
An Moltóir reckons that 21 games will have been played in the senior hurling championship (not counting the four games in Ulster) by the time the four weak teams are dumped out and the eight serious contenders get down to real business. An Moltóir wonders would these four teams be better off playing in a competition which they have some chance of winning, rather than going through the motions of being routinely slaughtered as at present. This would give a real edge to the Christy Ring championship, which at the moment seems to be slipping by with nobody really noticing.
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