On the face of it, last Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final between Tipperary and Waterford was an evenly-balanced contest which the Déise managed to shade in the closing stages. Both sides got a goal each; Waterford got 20 points to Tipp’s 18; Tipp shot nine wides to Waterford’s eight; both teams were awarded 13 frees each.

Yet, the count of individual plays shows a very different story. In all of Waterford’s championship games this year (including their defeat to Clare), they played a lot more ball than the opposition, and last Sunday was no exception. In fact, the extent of Waterford’s domination of this aspect of play was extraordinary – 92-57 in the first half and 96-64 in the second half for an overall total of 188 to just 121 for Tipperary.

To an extent, this dominance in the number of plays was down to Waterford’s much higher handpass count – 39 in all to just 15 for Tipperary. This pattern has also been observed in previous games, although last Sunday a lot of Waterford’s handpasses were forced on them by the harrying of the Tipp players which made it impossible for Waterford players to strike the ball in tight situations. It may be that Waterford’s ability to retain possession in situations such as these is a reflection of their great experience, although one of their leading employers of the handpass is their young 'find' of the year, Jamie Nagle.

Waterford’s dominance of plays can also be explained to a considerable degree by their ability to win possession on puckouts. Normally at this level, the defending team wins the bulk of the opposition puckouts, and this was certainly the case with the Tipperary puckout last Sunday, of which the Déise won 60% compared with 29% for Tipperary (the remaining puckouts not being clearly won by either side). However, Waterford also won the majority of their own puckouts (52% to Tipp’s 37%). They, therefore, were able to win the bulk of primary possession from restarts.

If Waterford were able to repeat this puckout-winning ratio in the final, it would go a long way towards negating what was a key source of Kilkenny’s dominance over Cork in the other semi-final. At the same time, the question has to be asked: how come they are not able to turn this superiority in the number of plays into corresponding scoring superiority? Part of the answer may be that Waterford are attempting to play a more measured game, involving moving the ball to loose players in a position to send good ball into the forwards rather than lobbing in the 'Hail Mary' missiles which were their stock in trade in the Justin McCarthy era. To the extent that they have won all their games so far under the new system, one can hardly argue against this, but one wonders how successful it will be against the all-embracing phalanx which they will come up against in the final.

For a brief period in the second half, Waterford looked as though they were reverting to old ways, when both Nagle and Stephen Molumphy shot wides from way out the field, but they quickly reverted to their focus on sending in low ball. Nagle and Brick Walsh did land long-distance points in the closing stages, but these were both from good positions in front of goal and not under pressure.

While both teams had a similar number of bad misses (eight for Tipp and six for Waterford), there was a major difference between the teams in the nature of these misses. Most of Waterford’s bad misses came in the first half and resulted from good attacking play which created the openings. All but one of Tipp’s bad misses came in the second half when the pressure was mounting and mainly involved low-percentage efforts from way out the field. Many of these involved players who were either playing poorly (Hugh Moloney, John O’Brien) and/or whose positions on the team are insecure (the previous two plus Pat Kerwick), and who may have been trying to secure their positions by performing heroic deeds. It was noticeable in the Munster semi-final against Cork how the other players immediately reacted to the introduction of Mícheál Webster by changing the game plan to hitting in high balls to the edge of the square. Last Sunday, Webster could only look on in frustration as ball after ball sailed over his head and wide of the goal.

This points to another key difference between the sides last Sunday – experience. In the general rush by the media pundits to champion the cause of Tipperary before last Sunday’s game, they failed to factor in the fact that most of their team never played at this level before, whereas at this stage, most of the Waterford team have squatters’ rights in Croke Park on semi-final day. In the last ten minutes in particular, that experience, reinforced by an iron will to win, exerted a decisive influence on the ultimate outcome.

A further key factor in Tipperary’s defeat was the virtual no-show of Eamon Corcoran, normally their strongest performer. Last Sunday he was largely invisible, especially in the second half, and fair dues to Davy Fitzgerald for exploiting this weakness with his inspired introduction of Jack Kennedy. Kennedy is not the most physical of players, and normally would be easy meat for Corcoran’s driving style. However, by the time of Kennedy’s entrance, Corcoran was a spent force and unable to track the Waterford substitute who played the ball six times, to great effect, during the 20 minutes he was on the field.

As usual, the RTÉ pundits generally got it wrong in their assessment of individual performances in this game. Several congratulated Declan Prendergast on having an excellent game, yet the Waterford full back only played the ball twice during the whole game – a first half flick and his block on Webster’s late shot on goal. Interestingly, the Tipperary full back Paul Curran also only played the ball twice during the course of the game. However, a real key to the result of the game was the performance of their opposite numbers. Seamus Butler only managed two innocuous plays before being substituted early in the second half while his replacement, Webster, got in one more. By contrast, apart from frees, Waterford’s Eoin Kelly played the ball eleven times in all (although a couple of these occurred when he was operating on the wing).

RTÉ (and the print media) awarded the man-of-the-match accolade to the latter Kelly, but in terms of the overall trend of the game, two players stood out above all else. For Tipperary, Shane McGrath again performed heroically and played the ball 19 times to garner 34 quality points (under this column’s system of awarding one point for a basic play, two for a good play, three for an excellent play and four for a superb play). He must still be in pole position for Hurler of the Year.

However, even McGrath’s performance was surpassed by a Waterford player who did win Hurler of the Year as a midfielder, even though his team also lost at the semi-final stage of the championship in the year in question (1998). This is Tony Browne, who played the ball an amazing 22 times during the course of the game (12-10 between halves) for a quality points total of 36. While Browne did produce some high-visibility plays on Sunday, his real work is done in tight, winning possession on the ground and then unloading handpasses to better-placed colleagues. This kind of engine-room work may not win matches, but it helps win championships.

No other players from either side topped 30 quality points, but it is notable that only two Tipperary players made it into the twenties, compared with no less than nine Déise men. The two Tipp players were, predictably, Shane Maher (24 from 12 plays) and Conor O’Mahony (22 from 13) who turned in sterling performances in the half back line. The Déise men were Ken McGrath (29 from 17), Eoin Murphy (26 from 16), Jamie Nagle and Brick Walsh (both 22 from 13, with Walsh turning in a strong second half performance), Eoin McGrath and Eoin Kelly (both 21 from 1