Tipperary have done it again – won a game which, on the basis of scoring chances created, they probably should have lost. This has been a recurring feature of their championship games over the last two years.

This year, they have found a new ingredient of success – goals gifted by the opposition. What proved to be the winning goal against Cork came via a defensive mix-up and a fortuitous deflection. Against Clare, naïve defending let them in for two goals. Last Sunday, the killer fourth goal was an absolute gift; the second goal came following another defensive mix-up while poor defending let Lar Corbett in for the third goal.

Tipperary did play some superb hurling last Sunday in Thurles. The pace of their play can be exhilarating, while their ability to find colleagues from a distance can be devastating. However, most of their good play was condensed into the twenty minutes before half time. In the first fifteen minutes, Waterford gave as good as they got, while, with wind assistance, they created far more chances than their opponents in the second half. In that period, they made 25 scoring attempts (converting twelve) compared with just thirteen for Tipp (five of which were converted).

However, the big problem for Waterford (apart from the concession of soft goals) was their poor shooting. One the basis of what one might reasonably expect from top class intercounty players, we counted sixteen bad wides for Waterford as against just eight for Tipperary. These include four shots which dropped short and terrible misses from in front of goal by Dan Shanahan, John Mullane and Seamus Prendergast.

We haven’t included in this count three long-distance frees lobbed into the Tipperary goal area in the second half by Eoin Kelly which could all have been driven over the bar had Kelly attempted to do so. If two of these had been converted we could have had a grandstand finish. But one wonders what Kelly was doing taking these frees if he wasn’t going to go for scores for them. As Waterford’s leading goals corer over the last 12 months, surely he should have been at the end of these frees rather than taking them?

It has been suggested that Tipperary simply relaxed in the second half last Sunday after their fourth goal appeared to put them out of sight. However, they were put to the pin of their collars in their previous two games following similar (if shorter) downtime periods, and things would have been the same last Sunday if Waterford had got even a reasonable return from their scoring chances. They should take a look at the way Galway kept driving on against Clare on Saturday night, even when the game appeared to be safely in the bag. They will never beat Kilkenny if they keep switching off in the way which has become their wont.

A key factor in the on-off pattern of Tipperary’s play would appear to be the wind direction. When playing with the wind, Brendan Cummins is able to place good low-trajectory ball into space for the forwards to run on to. The loss of twenty yards distance against the wind closes this off to a large extent. Last Sunday, Tipperary won the majority of their own puck outs when playing with the wind in the first half; in the second half this ratio fell to just one third. Similarly, Waterford lost the majority of their puck outs in the first half and won the majority in the second.

That Tipperary managed to survive at all in the second half can be put down to two crucial factors. The first of these was the much greater contribution made by their substitutes. Benny Dunne had an excellent second half when replacing the ineffectual James Woodlock while Brendan Maher also put in a lot of good work when brought on in place of Paul Curran. By contrast, the Waterford substitutes had minimal impact. Richie Foley spent twenty-eight minutes in midfield and played the ball once. Dunne was on the field for a similar length of time and managed nine plays in that period. Dan Shanahan and Eoin McGrath only confirmed how much their form has declined. Maurice Shanahan got three good possessions but was unable to make use of any of them.

The second crucial factor in Tipp’s victory was Waterford’s abandonment of any semblance of a game plan in the second half. For much of the first half, and in the win against Limerick, they had played good low and well-directed ball into the forwards, and particularly to John Mullane. In a repeat of their All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Limerick in 2007, Waterford resorted to the high ball into the Tipperary goal area in the second half, with similar results. Waterford did this thirteen times and on eleven occasions, Tipperary cleared the ball away.

There are other aspects of Waterford’s tactical approach that Davy Fitzgerald needs to work on. In the second half, when Waterford appeared to be getting a head of steam up, Tipperary players started going down like ninepins to disrupt the flow. As Davy has already publicly acknowledged, Waterford didn’t have the guile to do this when Tipp were in full flow in the first half.

Playing against the wind in the first half, Waterford needed to deploy an extra defender to stop the Tipperary players running at them. Instead, they allowed themselves to be dragged out the field, thus creating plenty of open space inside. Tipp’s first goal is a case in point. Waterford left half back Aidan Kearney was out at midfield following Pat Kerwick when Shane McGrath drove a long ball in behind corner back Noel Connors who was out near the 45 metre line. Lar Corbett was onto the ball in a flash and fifteen seconds later the ball was in the Waterford net.

There were some interesting pointers in this game on how to score – and not to score – goals, especially on a wet surface. When Waterford’s Eoin Kelly broke through in the fourth minute, his shot was two feet off the ground, giving Brendan Cummins the vital split second to effect an excellent save. In an identical situation in the 22nd minute, John Mullane’s shot hit the ground before crossing the line, giving Cummins no chance.

When Kelly scored his goal from the free in the sixth minute, the ball again hit the ground in front of Cummins and squirted into the net. Yet when Kelly had another go from a free in the 29th minute, he blasted the ball knee high at the wall and it was stopped by Cummins. In the earlier minor match, John O’Dwyer made a similar attempt from a penalty with similar results, yet when he hit a later free along the ground, it ended up in the net. In the same game, Waterford keeper Stephen O’Keeffe made two great saves, but in both cases the ball was well off the ground, making the save possible. The lesson is obvious: if you want to score a goal against good goalkeepers, hit the ball along the ground or into the ground (see Seamus Callinan’s shot for Tipp’s first goal). One wonders how many coaches work on this aspect of forward play.

In terms of the overall number of plays, the teams were dead even in the first half at 78 apiece, with Waterford just shading the second half 94-92 (despite their apparent territorial dominance). In terms of quality points (awarded on a range of 1-5), Tipperary had a clear edge (390/370). However, the distribution of quality points between sectors and halves was most interesting. In the first half, the Tipp forwards garnered 105 quality points, but this fell to just 64 after the change of ends. However, both the midfield (in particular) and the backs upped the quality of their performances in the second half (26/48 and 69/78, respectively). By contrast, both the Waterford backs and forwards increased their quality points total after halftime (77/98 and 68/77, respectively). However, the Waterford midfield performance fell back after halftime (27/23). Over the course of the game, therefore, the Tipp midfield totalled 74 quality points to just 50 for Waterford. Ultimately, this may be where the game was w