The road to the McCarthy Cup got under way in earnest last weekend with games in all three provincial championships.

We almost had the first shock of the year in New York with Antrim requiring extra time to see off the locals. Perhaps the Glensmen didn’t travel well – or perhaps they travelled too well! However, Down’s pretensions to being the top Ulster hurling county weren’t helped by their failure to overcome Derry. The loss of their top forward Paul Braniff once again to long-term injury has been a major blow. At the same time, Derry had been showing some good recent form. They were the first team to beat Carlow this year, and fell just one point short of replacing the Barrowsiders in the National Hurling League Division 2 final.

Dublin’s destruction by Laois was as sad as it was predictable, and I imagine the midlanders would have welcomed a more searching test prior to meeting Wexford. The pity is that if Dublin had all their best players available, they would probably be vying to be the second best team in Leinster. Indeed, one wonders, if every county had its best hurlers playing on the county team, how much higher would the general standard of intercounty hurling be? Perhaps incoming GAA president Nicky Brennan might ponder this question.

Meanwhile, down in Munster the business end of the hurling championship produced two more excellent encounters. The Limerick-Tipperary replay was an enthralling contest which went right down to the wire. In terms of territorial possession and chances created, Limerick should not have lost this game. Having recovered from a slow start, they fell just short of Tipperary (76-78) in their number of first half plays, dominated the second half (82 plays to 70) and even more so extra time (52-38) for an overall tally of 210 to Tipp’s 186.

However, their inability to put scores on the board eventually proved their undoing. On the evidence of these two games, neither Conor Fitzgerald nor Donie Ryan offer much of a scoring threat. Last Saturday Niall Moran had a complete off-day, and TJ Ryan was totally dominated by Philip Maher. Tipperary are not much better off in the forwards department, but crucially they have, in Tommy Dunne, a player who is able to get into the right positions and is clinical in his finishing.

Over the two games, An Moltóir was particularly impressed by the Limerick midfield pairing of Paul and Donal O’Grady, in terms of their ability to get on the ball and their strong running with it. Last Saturday this duo played the ball a phenomenal 51 times between them, with Donal leading the way with 29. Ollie Moran, who provided inspiring leadership, had 20 plays, followed by Mark Foley (17) and Brian Geary and Stephen Lucey (16 each). Geary and Lucey may have their detractors, but they both played very effective games here.

Paul Kelly (20 plays) was Tipp’s most active player, followed by Diarmuid Fitzgerald (17), David Kennedy and Colin Morrissey (16 each) and Paul Curran (15). Kelly did a lot to counteract the O’Grady domination of midfield, while Kennedy is another much-criticised player who stood up last Saturday when it counted. Once again Eamon Corcoran was a rather marginal figure, and Tipp will surely have to get him up to speed if they wish to be serious championship contenders.

Two other observations from this game. Referee Aodán Mac Suibhne made his usual quota of bad decisions/errors. An Moltóir recorded seven in particular, five of which went in favour of Tipperary. These included Evan Sweeney’s decisive goal, which should have been disallowed, and the unpunished trip on Mark Foley in the last minute of extra time which led to Tipperary shooting a wide when the ball should have been down at the other end of the field. The other observation relates to the urgent need for the GAA to replace the throw-in with a more satisfactory alternative. At the same time, if Mac Suibhne insisted on the application of the rules (only two players involved and hurleys on the ground), we would have been spared the unseemly scenes to which we were exposed last Saturday night.

The following day in Thurles, Cork and Waterford served up better hurling, but a less gripping contest than in Limerick the previous evening. The Sunday Tribune (note citation) reported on how the combined scores of both teams in their previous six league and championship encounters were identical, so another close finish was little surprise. Indeed, these two counties now appear to be taking it in turns to win the games between them. The tally of plays appears to indicate territorial domination by Cork (156 to Waterford’s 141), but is probably more attributable to Cork’s heavy use of the handpass. An Moltóir counted 46 completed short passes by the Rebels, compared with just 24 by the Déise.

Some critics have complained about what they see as Cork’s overuse of this tactic, but there is little doubt that it gives them the space to set up plays for their colleagues. In this respect, An Moltóir counted 13 cases of long completed passes delivered by Cork, as against just four by Waterford. Indeed, in general, Cork made more astute use of the ball, in terms of low deliveries into the forwards, whereas Waterford seemed more content to blast high balls in the general direction of the Cork goal.

Despite Justin McCarthy’s reputation as a hurling coach, there was little evidence of a well thought out plan of action by his charges last Sunday. Whereas Cork were able to find Joe Deane repeatedly with well-delivered balls, the Déise never seem to have developed a similar mechanism for getting ball to Paul Flynn, who generally depends on breaking balls for his scoring opportunities. An Moltóir also noticed that, whereas the Tipperary, Limerick and Cork goalkeepers vary their puckouts a lot, and frequently attempt to find particular players, the Waterford approach invariably is to hit puckouts high and long. Thus, discounting puckouts which were indecisive or otherwise didn’t count, last Sunday Waterford only managed to get possession from six out of 22 puckouts. Cork, by contrast, managed to keep eleven of 24 puckouts. This was mainly due to the fact that nine of Donal Óg Cusack’s puckouts were attempted passes, six of which were completed. In a tight game, such differences can be crucial.

Last year, An Moltóir pointed to the key – and generally unheralded - role Jerry O’Connor plays in Cork’s running game. Again last Sunday he was way ahead of his colleagues in terms of the number of plays made (23). In this he was undoubtedly assisted by the non-show of Dave Bennett, who struck the ball once in the throw-in, and never again before being replaced after 25 minutes. Next in line were Pat Mulcahy (15), Seán Óg Ó hAilpín (14) and Ronan Curran (13). For Waterford, Eoin Kelly was also way ahead with 21 plays, followed by Tony Browne (14) and Feeney, Hartley, Ken McGrath, Walsh and Prendergast (11 each).

While Cork appeared to be a bit more controlled in their play, in the end this game could have gone either way. If Hartley hadn’t lost the ball in Cork’s first attack, if the referee had noticed the clear trip on Paul O’Brien in front of goal when Waterford were five points up, if Paul Flynn hadn’t missed that simple free, if Stephen Brenner had stood up to Brian Corcoran’s shot from an impossible angle, there might have been a different result. One could also ask why Dan Shanahan was never tried in the wing forward position where he prospered last year, or why Brian Phelan (who did well when he came on) did not start, or what Paul Flynn was doing out around the middle of the field in the closing minutes as Cork crowded their goal area with defenders.

The story coming out of Waterford is that their training programme this year is geared to reaching peak condition when the knockout stages of the championship are reached in July/August. Apparently they feel that last year’s M