MONDAY MORNING AT THE WATER COOLER
UNDER DISCUSSION: The opening round of the Allianz Hurling League
CHATTING WERE: GAA writers Jackie Cahill, John Fogarty, Denis Hurley, Michael Moynihan and Diarmuid O'Flynn
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Diarmuid, you were at Tipp-Kilkenny, was it just six months of celebration catching up with Tipp or are Kilkenny back?
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: ‘They haven’t gone away you know!’ Tipp celebrations obviously took their toll, but truth is Kilkenny were never away.John Fogarty: Tipp supporters shouldn’t be too perturbed by the result or the second-half performance. You could see Tipp were trying something different, hand-passing a lot around the middle (almost Newtownshandrumesque). Having said that, their midfield was mauled and the left flank of defence should have been altered long before it eventually was. When you say midfield was ‘mauled’ John, you’re not thinking of any act in particular?
JOHN FOGARTY: Not at all, Diarmuid. Brendan Maher was in the wars, I know, but the physicality of the Cats was something to admire. The conditions made things look a lot worse than they were in terms of the hits.
JACKIE CAHILL: Kilkenny were never gone away. Tipperary people watching the All-Ireland final again over the winter would have seen that Tipp had to produce arguably their greatest performance of all time to get past Kilkenny, who were still there or thereabouts with ten minutes to go. Michael Fennelly’s switch to midfield turned the game last Saturday night. He’s now, Shefflin apart, Kilkenny’s most influential player in my view.
JOHN FOGARTY: Richie Hogan really stepped up to the plate, didn’t he? Really needs to, really. For all the promise and quality he has, he’s not been getting enough championship games. Expecting him to explode now although it’ll be interesting to see who gets the free-taking duties in Shefflin’s absence — him or Richie Power.
JACKIE CAHILL: Declan Ryan will be anxious to get a win under his belt soon, however. That’s two defeats from two competitive matches, after the loss to Waterford IT in Waterford Crystal Cup. Not many players emerged from last Saturday’s game with huge credit from a Tipperary perspective, and when Kilkenny turned up the heat in the second half, they struggled to cope. What the game also proved is that Tipp badly need Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett to remain fit and injury free for another season.
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: As an aside, how much of a factor was the wind?
JACKIE CAHILL: That and the rain made conditions very difficult, it was coming in from the Town End and blowing across the pitch into the New Stand.
DENIS HURLEY: I know it’s ‘only’ the league and they only had eight of their All-Ireland team, but in the football discussion last week Tony Leen said Cork’s display was ‘look at me, I’m the king of the jungle’, is it not a worry that Tipp couldn’t do similar?
JOHN FOGARTY: Cork footballers know there’s more in them, Denis. Tipp hurlers know they have to improve on one of the greatest All-Ireland final performances of all time. Bigger ask, methinks.
JACKIE CAHILL: If you look at Brian Cody and Kilkenny since 1999, they thrive on revenge missions. No team has ever beaten kilkenny twice in championship hurling in successive matches with Brian Cody in charge.
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: They thrive on winning, period.
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Moving on, the game of the weekend looked like Waterford-Dublin in Walsh Park
JACKIE CAHILL: I thought Dublin were a great bet at 11-8, and it was looking good for them for a while - it’s a far better result for Waterford than Dublin.
JOHN FOGARTY: Waterford won this draw, if that makes sense. Looked out of it with 33 minutes gone and then came out in the second half with all guns blazing. For 27 minutes it was Waterford 2-7 Dublin 0-0, and they won just one puck-out in the second-half - with two minutes to go. What does that say? They worked harder than Dublin but conceding 2-19 for 43 minutes or so of hurling is a glaring statistic.
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: Great comeback by Waterford, but ditto Dublin, with even less time on the clock. Big result for them both.
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Is Keaney as big an asset as we’ve heard?
JACKIE CAHILL: I spoke to DJ Carey recently and he described Keaney as one of the top five hurlers in the country, on top form.
JOHN FOGARTY: Ah, he is, Michael. Was quiet in the third quarter but took some hits at the same time and came back into it at the end when it mattered. Offers a real physical presence and his free-taking was top notch. A real go-to forward.
JACKIE CAHILL: What’s his best position, though?
JOHN FOGARTY: Centre-forward in my mind, Jackie. Ryan O’Dwyer may come back soon but will require surgery and that really puts the onus on Keaney to be the ball-winning half-forward.
DENIS HURLEY: Richie Foley’s comments afterwards were interesting - he said that the established players coming back would have to gel with the team that’s there now rather than vice versa. Is that the truth or is he talking up a Waterford team that’s a long way from what’s required?
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Cork's win over Offaly, then. Did we learn anything about Denis Walsh's side yesterday, Denis?
DENIS HURLEY: Not a whole pile other than that they’re still in the top five or six teams in the country but are highly unlikely to be on the podium in the Hogan Stand in September. What was most interesting was that Brian Murphy played midfield and Tom Kenny was right half-forward, and from the comments afterwards it was clear that they’d been doing this a lot in practice
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: How did Mark Ellis do?
DENIS HURLEY: Very good considering it was his debut, he didn’t do much wrong bar the odd misplaced pass. He has some presence about him.
JOHN FOGARTY: Thought Ellis fared well in the Waterford Crystal final as well. Commanding figure.
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: How disappointing, generally speaking, was Wexford’s destruction by Galway?
JACKIE CAHILL: Major step back for Wexford. Colm Bonnar’s post-match quotes said as much — he wasn’t expecting that.
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: Huge, considering how many Galway were missing, then injuries to their full-forward and centre-forward. Not a good sign, and a huge pity for a great hurling county.
JOHN FOGARTY: Where do Wexford go from here? They can only improve, really. Waterford will stir them up a bit but they need more.
JACKIE CAHILL: On that evidence Wexford will be going back down to Division 2. Diarmuid Lyng is going to be a major loss for them for the coming season.
DENIS HURLEY: Is Wexford’s performance more fodder for those who say that it’s unfair to have an eight-team Division 1?
JOHN FOGARTY: I’m against expanding Division 1 to accommodate more teams and this kind of result illustrates why. The sooner we accept that there is an elite in hurling the better.
JACKIE CAHILL: But Wexford can surely only learn from an experience like this, painful and all as it was? They can react in two ways — go away and sulk about it or take the lessons on board and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
DENIS HURLEY: I agree with John — just because a county won an All-Ireland in the last 15 years doesn’t entitle them to eat at the top table indefinitely.
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: I accept both arguments, but am inclined towards keeping it at eight, which makes the top division more competitive, but gives the second tier teams good action also against the likes of Clare and Limerick.
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: As they’ve been mentioned . . . we’ve focused on Division One, naturally enough, but there’s an obvious interest in the top game yesterday in Division Two for all sorts of reasons. Was anyone really expecting that result between Clare and Limerick?
JACKIE CAHILL: I was - as stated previously, 6/4 for the Limerick win was a steal. I couldn’t believe those odds.
JOHN FOGARTY: Not really, in fairness - how many players does Sparrow have playing Fitzgibbon hurling? A lot, I imagine.
DENIS HURLEY: Very surprising really, not the just the outcome but the score, 2-9 to 0-6 is a bad football match.
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: As with Kilkenny in Division One, Limerick hadn’t gone away either.
JACKIE CAHILL: There’s far too much expectation surrounding Clare. It’s going to take a huge amount of time there, despite the recent underage success. The successful minors and U21s are under far too much pressure to make a quick step up to senior. And look back to the Limerick experience of the three All Ireland U21 winning teams — didn’t exactly lead to senior success, did it? People need to be patient in Clare and the loss of Brian O’Connell is incalculable.
JOHN FOGARTY: A lot of people were surprised just how physically big Clare were last year and were sluggish in the Division 2 final. More of the same? I agree with Jackie, too - BOC is missed terribly.
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: Clare were beyond poor but dug a hole for themselves with some of their decision-making — Darach Honan with an easy point for the taking early on, went for goal but with a weak shot, clearance, goal at the other end. From such little decisions . . .
JACKIE CAHILL: Experience, Diarmuid, or lack of.
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: Instinct, Jackie, or lack of. Darach is a phenomenal talent, but he wasn’t the only one trying to take too much out of the ball for Clare. Simple things, take what’s on offer.
MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: Final thoughts?
DENIS HURLEY: Might just have been like that for those watching on TV, but the colours of Dublin and Waterford looked similar in the sunny weather.
JACKIE CAHILL: Good to see Kilkenny lining out with visible numbers! makes our job a bit easier!
DENIS HURLEY: Amazing what a black outline can do!
DIARMUID O'FLYNN: No-one should read too much into any event of the weekend — conditions were dire and hurling will be a different game in the summer.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/jMOOlrSHfTw/post.aspx
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