Iâm on the case, pal.
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Daring Model plan almost produced perfect coup
Wexfordâs Lee Chin battles for possession with Tipperaryâs Brendan Maher during last Sundayâs All-Ireland semi-final. Wexfordâs high-octane game of running from deep started to wane. It was a magnetic performance for 45 minutes but they just came up short. PHOTOGRAPH: TOMMY DICKSON/INPHO
JACKIE TYRRELL
I have to say, itâs a long time since I watched something happening tactically on a hurling field that got me thinking as much as Wexfordâs first 50 minutes last Sunday.
Joining the lads on the The Irish Times âs Added Time podcast on Monday morning, I described it as being beautiful to watch. So fluid, so free-flowing, so much off-the-shoulder running. It reminded me at times of the Dublin football team, the way they used the width of the pitch, creating space and making chance after chance.
Iâve said plenty of times, here and elsewhere, that Iâm not a fan of the sweeper system. But this made me think again. If youâre not reassessing what you think about hurling after watching that, I think youâre too set in your ways.
Okay, Wexford didnât win but I came away feeling that there must be a future in that way of playing. I couldnât wait to sit down and pick through the video to see how it all worked.
There was nothing too surprising in the way they started the game. After 14 seconds, Paudie Foley planted his foot in the ground and launched a monster of a point from just inside his own half. On watching it back, itâs noticeable while the ball is sailing over the bar, it passes over the heads of wing-back Shaun Murphy and corner-back Simon Donoghue, both of whom have got ahead of him as running options.
Thatâs natural enough, in fairness. Weâve seen it from Wexford before and if theyâre ever going to do it, the start of the game is the time. Adrenaline can take you places you wouldnât normally go and thereâs never more adrenaline than just after throw-in. You donât want to be there waiting on the game to come to you.
But the really striking thing about Wexford on Sunday was that time and time and time again, especially for the rest of that first half, their defenders showed a massive level of commitment to attacking. This wasnât just chancing it the odd time when the ball broke loose. This was systematic, deliberate and relentless. And an absolute joy to watch.
Watching it back, there were times when I was honestly shocked at the bravery of it. Remember, they werenât just playing anyone here. They were playing Tipperary and they were marking â or were supposed to be marking â the best set of forwards in the game. Murphy was on Bubbles OâDwyer, Donoghue was on Niall OâMeara. But there was no sense of battening down the hatches and keeping things tight until the game settled itself.
New level
Instead, here they were, in their first All-Ireland semi-final, bombing on any time they got the chance. Okay, they had a safety blanket in Kevin Foley that allowed them go for it but plenty of teams have played with plenty of sweepers in the past five years. None of them used it like this. It was taking the maxim, âAttack is the best form of defenceâ to a whole new level.I loved it. It was so refreshing to see on the day and even more to watch back. I found it almost challenging to go through it, watching it unfold and trying to keep tabs on who was doing what or where they were coming from. In that, I was joined by the Tipperary forwards who had to shadow their runs.
Less than a minute later after Foleyâs score, Lee Chin had a shot half-blocked down, causing it to land near the Tipp endline. The flight of the ball deceived everybody but as it dropped down, Diarmuid OâKeeffe was on his own in 30 yards of space with only Tipp goalkeeper Brian Hogan in front of him. Unfortunately for Wexford, it deceived OâKeeffe as well so he had to take an extra couple of seconds to get it up into his possession.
When he got his head up and started cutting in on goal, Rory OâConnor had got up in support and OâKeeffe tried to find him with a looped ball into the centre but he overhit it.
At the time, everyone naturally followed the ball and saw OâConnor chase it out to the corner before cutting back inside to knock over Wexfordâs second point. But watching it back, when OâKeeffe played the ball across, there was actually another Wexford body bursting into the Tipperary square.
It was Donoghue again. When Chin was taking his shot, Donoghue was in midfield standing about four yards goalside of OâMeara. But as soon as it was half-blocked and spun up into the air, he took off sprinting straight for the Tipperary goal. He took a gamble, left OâMeara for dead and was actually the better option for OâKeeffe cutting in.
Pure luck
A deflection off an attempted shot can go anywhere â itâs pure luck. But seeing the opening and blazing forward to take advantage of it when everybody else is back on their heels, thatâs not luck. Donoghue was there by design. He knew he had that licence to get into positions Tipperary wouldnât be expecting to see him in. And he went for it, right from the start. They all did. From the resulting puck-out, Liam Ryan won the aerial duel and drove out of defence. A scrappy one-two found him driving into the Tipperary half and next thing you knew he was pointing a brilliant off-the-hurl strike over the bar. Youâd know he had relations in Kilkenny!
He started that move 30 yards from his own defence and at no point did he hesitate or worry about who was minding the house. Thatâs the beauty of the system â Ryan could go ahead there and show he was comfortable in that area of the field, able to show off skills that are usually alien to full-backs and not worry about getting caught out.
Just past the three-minute mark, Conor McDonald played a sideline cut diagonally across the Tipp full-back line that was gathered up by Paudie Maher. He was 24 yards from his own goal and whoâs the first man up to give him a hard tackle? Donoghue again! For the third time in the opening three minutes, he had offered himself as an attacking option by bursting forward and leaving OâMeara standing.
Think about the position this put OâMeara in. Three minutes into the game and his man had made three runs into the Tipp full-back line before OâMeara had even seen the ball. Straight away, he has to be asking himself, âWhatâs my job here? Am I trying to win ball and score points? Or am I trying to stop this lunatic from getting in for a goal down the other end?â
Go around the Tipperary attack and they all had to be asking themselves variations of the same question. After three minutes and 22 seconds, Matthew OâHanlon won a foot race from his full-back line and drove out of defence, popping the ball to Jack OâConnor in midfield. As soon as OâConnor took possession, you could see Murphy haring off at the bottom of the screen. And a split second later, you could see Bubbles realising he was gone and he started chasing back.
Away and gone
They hadnât even reached their own 65 with the ball at this point and already Wexford were away and gone. OâConnor soloed out with it and meanwhile, Murphy was sprinting up the pitch and had put six or seven yards between himself and Bubbles. OâConnor drew two Tipp players and played the handpass into Murphy, who stopped to allow Bubbles chase past him before jinking inside him and heading straight for goal. Unfortunately for Wexford, Murphy shot for the net instead of slipping Conor McDonald in at the back post. Ronan Maher made a great block and the ball went out for a 65, which Chin scored to put them 0-4 to 0-1 ahead.
It was a good scoreline but it could have been so much better for Wexford. Less than four minutes gone on the clock and they should have had two goals by that stage.
The pattern continued. Tipp were in a spin, all over the place and nobody knowing exactly what to do about it. They werenât covering the flanks, they werenât tracking runners from deep. Between the 15th and 25th minute, Wexford scored 1-05. In each case, one or other of Foley, Murphy, Donoghue or Ryan either scored, set up the score or won the free that resulted in the score. Of the 1-13 Wexford scored in the first half, 1-9 came from defenders scoring or setting up the attack all in the Tipperary half. Freestyle hurling. It was beautiful to watch.
Massive credit
All they needed was a bit more ruthlessness. They could have had three more goals in that first half but werenât cool-headed enough to bury Tipperary when they had them. I know 1-13 is a big score to put up in the first half of an All-Ireland semi-final but considering the way they had Tipp in such a spin, they could genuinely have made it 3-11. They could have killed the game there and then.
As it was, Tipperary deserve massive credit for hanging in there and finding a way back into the game. They started to make a few subtle structural changes. Seamie Callanan came out to the half-forward line and Noel McGrath dropped about 20 yards deeper as well. It meant they started cutting off some of that space that Murphy and Donoghue were steaming into from the start.
As well as that, the Tipp forwards gradually became more alive to those runs and tracked them better.
The John McGrath sending off suited Tipperary more than Wexford. Combined with the fact Kevin Foley started to drop a bit deeper behind his full-back line, it meant more space opened up in that area between the midfield and the Tipp full-forward line. Thatâs where the Tipp subs did most damage when they came on â Willie Connors, Mark Kehoe, Ger Browne all scored from possession in this part of the pitch.
Shaun Murphyâs injury was a big moment too. Also, the Wexford puck-outs didnât make use of their numerical advantage. They should have been going short and working the ball out. But maybe the sheer amount of physical effort they put into that opening half took its toll and they felt they couldnât do it. Either way, they went long with their last 14 puck-out and lost 10 of them. Tipp scored 0-9 from Mark Fanningâs puck-outs.
But most of all, Tipperaryâs comeback was born out of a refusal to give in, out of character and heart. And now Wexford were reacting to them as the momentum shifted. Tipp players stood up everywhere. Their forwards were like bees buzzing. The Tipp half-back line of Brendan, Paudie and Ronan Maher were a wall. Ronan Maher refused to beaten any way, high or low.
It was a stand of defiance from them. Wexford struggled in that environment and their high-octane game of running from deep started to wane on them. It was a magnetic performance for 45 minutes from Wexford but they just came up short against a Tipperary team that refused to wilt. At the end of it all, you could only say hats off to both teams.
A gent
No contrived anecdote. 
No reference to getting the better of Lar Corbett either
Ah sure lookit. If you can help somebody as you pass along the way, then eventually the Irish Times will be put out of business.
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Jackie displaying a great TFK trait there. Being man enough to change his mind rather than digging in and sticking to his guns. The freedom which comes with being flexible in your views is something we all should aspire to.
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Awful plĂĄmĂĄsing from Jackie . He obviously didnât want to stick the boot in. The system saw them outscored by 7 points in the home stretch against a team with fewer players.
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I see Ger Loughnane had a nice hop of Donal og and Derek Mcgrath.
There is surely a market out there for a podcast containing just the likes of Ger, Tom Ryan and Babs just cutting the back off all and sundry
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Thatâs not true. They abandoned the system late on and bombed everything long. Had they worked it through the lines with an extra man, like they did for the 3rd goal theyâd likely be in an AI final now.
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Why did they abandon it?
They didnât score a point from play in the last 27 minutes of the match. Some achievement with an extra man.
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Jackie didnât mention that stat in his âpraiseâ of the system. He must have been having a quiet chuckle to himself writing that article.
It should have been fairly obvious from anyone watching it and from any of the post match coverage too but here are the stats on it.
From Christy OâConnorâs piece on RTE website around the puckouts specifically.
Puckouts also played a huge part in the outcome of Sundayâs Tipperary-Wexford game, particularly late on when Wexford had an extra-man, but they still elected to go long with 14 of their last 15 puckouts, and lost ten.
Wexfordâs overall second-half puckout statistic is even more revealing considering that Tipperary mined 0-09 off that possession won from Mark Fanningâs restarts.
A nice pat on the head from Kilkenny for the wexicans, as good as a medal.
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Why did they abandon the system?
Tom Dempsey will be chuffed.
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Davy brought on a midfielder for a defender. That has been taken as to point to Wexford âgoing for itâ.
It totally backfired. They apparently have a man behind the goal in the terrace directing Fanning as where to puck the ball out to. Not sure how true that is. With a man up and a sweeper you would have thought Fanning would easily find a short option and work the ball from there. Going long 14/15 times was absolutely nonsensical in that situation.
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