A FEW weeks ago in the pages of the Irish Examiner, before they met Cork in the league down in Nowlan Park, Kilkenny selector Martin Fogarty gave us an insight into the selection policy that governs their decisions as to when to introduce new blood to the team.
“Generally in the league you’re always trying out something but at the same time you’re trying to go out strong, you try to win every match. We do experiment, but you have to be fair to fellas too.
“If you throw in six brand new backs against a team that has most of its first team, you’re not being fair to those guys, but if you can coax in one or two with the rest of the regular players, then you’re seeing them in a clearer light. “You’re looking to nudge a couple of fellas into the team, or at least be fighting for a place, and the best way to see that is to put them in with four or five regulars – that’s what we try to do.”
Given that Martin Fogarty is part of a management team that won four All-Ireland titles in a row, his opinion is surely worthy of respect, and of course it also makes sense.
On Sunday Cork went to Wexford for a game they had to win if they were to have any chance of making the league final. The previous week Cork had drawn with Tipperary, the All-Ireland champions, a game they could have won but for the width of a post with Ben
O’Connor’s last minute 20m free from the right sideline rebounding back into play. With the championship fast approaching, Cork were building a bit of momentum in the league, and a win against Wexford – who hadn’t won a game to date – would set them up nicely for a possible winner-take-all final round game against Dublin in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Bearing in mind the advice of Martin Fogarty, you would think that Denis Walsh and his selectors would have gone for a bit of continuity in their starting line-up; perhaps give Jerry O’Connor and Pa Cronin a full 70 minutes to establish a midfield understanding that looked promising in the second half against Tipperary; give the half-back unit of Johnny Gardiner, Ronan Curran and James Nagle another game to enable them to build what is the probably the most crucial line in the field; try the McCarthys again in the half-forward line, along with Ben O’Connor.
What did we get? Wholesale changes, exactly the kind of thing Martin Fogarty warns against. There was a new keeper; three new guys in the full-back line (alright, Shane O’Neill is a welcome return, and Eoin Cadogan was on football duty, but all three positions?); Ronan Curran on the wing, where he has already failed several times this year (he’s a central player, and one of the finest when on form), newcomer Mark Ellis in the centre with youngster James Nagle alongside him; a new midfield of Tom Kenny and former All Star corner-back Brian Murphy; two changes of personnel in the half-forward line, neither McCarthy starting; two changes in the full-forward line, Michael Cussen the only player retained, and he had been taken off against Tipperary.
What effect does that have on a team, everything thrown up in the air from week to week? How can they develop any kind of confidence about their position, about where they’re going to play? Apart from what it does to your own players, what does it say to the opposition when you make such wholesale changes from a side that has just drawn with the All-Ireland champions. How much more incentive can you give them? I’m sure Colm Bonnar, the Wexford manager, didn’t have much problem motivating his side for this one.
I know that in both soccer and rugby you can have such radical surgery done to starting line-ups from game to game, but that’s very different; they fight on a number of fronts, play far more games than in inter-county hurling.
The championship is the be-all and end-all in the GAA, and the league is used as a stepping-stone, gradually building up to championship. The fact that Cork used an entirely experimental side right through the Waterford Crystal tournament was baffling enough, but to continue it through the league defies logic.
Individually, all those new Cork players are fine, budding stars, but they’ve not been done any favours here.
Wexford made Cork pay the price for their policy, and fair dues to them for that; what price will be paid against Tipperary in May?
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/noR906e4NgM/post.aspx
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