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A YEAR LATE, BUT TIPPERARY FINALLY GET THEIR JUST DESSERTS!
Posted: 07 Sep 2010 02:24 PM PDT
Fair dues to Tipperary and Kilkenny for providing us with a marvellous All-Ireland Final for the second year in a row. And congratulations to the Tipp men for a terrific performance which has restored hope to the world of hurling pretenders. This was a compelling and complex encounter with so many subplots that presenting any kind of coherent analysis is a daunting task.
Our first observation is that, in terms of pure hurling, last year’s final was superior. This is indicated by the fact that there were a lot more plays in this year’s final – 371 in all compared with 314 in 2009. This indicates a game in which the exchanges were much tighter with lots of hooks, blocks, dispossessions, flicks, kicks and handpasses. This in turn meant that the average quality of play this year was significantly down on last year – from 2.41 to 2.27 in our rating system where each play receives a rating on a scale from 1 to 4.
In last year’s final, Tipperary had a superior play count (165/149) but Kilkenny made up for this with a superior average play quality (2.48/2.35). This year, the roles were reversed, with Kilkenny having marginally more plays (189/182) and Tipp shading the average play quality score (2.29/2.26). In other words, while both teams did better this year in terms of containing the opposition, Tipperary’s level of improvement was distinctly better than Kilkenny’s.
This is well reflected in the respective error counts. On this occasion we counted the number of errors committed by both sides, including instances of poor ball control, misdirected passes and strokes, underhit pucks, getting hooked/blocked, losing or giving away possession and bad misses from scoring attempts. On this count Tipperary had a clear advantage with 38 errors to Kilkenny’s 51, although not all of the latter can be attributed to pressure exerted by Tipperary players.
We will never know what effect Henry Shefflin’s early withdrawal had on the game’s ultimate outcome. It should be noted that Shefflin actually had a quiet enough game in last year’s final, and in fact played the ball as much in the twelve minutes he was on the field last Sunday as he did in the entire game in 2009. We are, of course, talking about the best player in modern hurling here, so his loss clearly was a major blow to Kilkenny. Apart from his own scoring ability, Shefflin has a key role as creative playmaker for Kilkenny, and this role in particular was badly needed as Kilkenny chased the game following Tipp’s two-goal burst early in the second half. After this, the Cats seemed to panic a bit, and began raining high balls into the Tipp goalmouth to very little effect. And, of course, had Henry himself been at the end of those balls things might have turned out differently.
Another major blow for Kilkenny was the relatively modest contribution of their other superstar, Tommy Walsh, in this year’s final. Last year Walsh amassed 51 quality points from 19 plays – this year the counts were just 26 points from 12 plays. While Patrick Maher played little enough ball himself, to the extent that he succeeded in curbing Walsh’s influence he deserves considerable credit.
And yet, for all that, Kilkenny did have the upper hand (albeit marginally) in the overall play count and this was reflected in their greater number of shots (and attempted shots) at goal (32/29). A key factor here was their domination of the puckout statistics. Normally at this level one expects the defending team to win a small majority of the opposition’s puckouts. Last Sunday, Kilkenny not only won a majority of their own puckouts (14/12) but they won no less than three quarters of Tipperary’s. In the second half, Tipperary won only one of their eleven puckouts.
That Kilkenny were not able to turn this major advantage in terms of primary possession into a winning score can be put down to excellent work on the part of the Tipperary defence, the massive effort put in by the Tipp midfield and half forwards to close down Kilkenny when they had possession, and Kilkenny’s own failure to turn shots into scores. Kilkenny’s poor rate of converting scoring chances into scores (especially compared with Tipperary) had already been highlighted before last Sunday’s game, even if this could partly be attributed to the ease with which the Cats were winning their games. In their two championship games prior to the All-Ireland final, Kilkenny had converted just 52% of scoring attempts into scores, compared with 64% for Tipperary. Last Sunday the gap wasn’t quite as big (59% to 54%) but it was still decisive, especially since four of the Tipp scores were goals.
There was a touch of irony about Tipperary’s two-goal salvo early in the second half which gave them the platform to go on to win the game, as this has been a staple part of the Kilkenny success recipe over the years (including last year’s final). This appeared to unnerve the Cats somewhat, for while they continued to create plenty of scoring chances for the remainder of the game, they hit some terrible wides and passed up several opportunities which on other occasions would probably have yielded goals.
Another irony of Tipperary’s victory was the relative contribution of both sets of substitutes. Last year Tipperary had a very threadbare bench indeed, whereas Martin Comerford, Michael Fennelly and TJ Reid all made decisive contributions when introduced late on by Kilkenny. This year the roles were reversed, with Seamus Callinan and David Young both having a big impact when they came on, and Benny Dunne and Seamus Hennessy both landing peaches of points in the closing stages.
Reflecting on last Sunday’s game in its immediate aftermath, we felt that, apart from Lar Corbett’s goals, the two key contributors on the field to Tipperary’s victory were Brendan and Pádraic Maher for Tipperary, and the statistics certainly bear this out, with both players scoring 46 quality points. Brendan Maher amassed no less than 31 of his points in a colossal first half whereas Pádraic was more consistent through the game, with 22 points in the first half and 24 in the second. A similarly consistent performer was Noel McGrath, who earned 19 points in the first half and 22 in the second for a total quality points score of 41. In this context we would also mention Mickie Cahill, whose quality points total of 31 was excellent for a corner back and who really came of age in this game.
Going into this game, we felt that the inexperience of Patrick Maher and Gearóid Ryan could prove fatal for Tipperary’s chances. At half time we felt even more convinced about this, as neither player had any impact on the game, having played the ball just seven times between them. However, fair dues to Liam Sheedy for persevering with them, with Ryan in particular turning in a sparkling second half, earning 23 quality points from nine plays against no less an opponent than JJ Delaney. Ryan’s peach of a long pass to Noel McGrath to set up Lar Corbett’s second goal was one of the most memorable plays of the day.
Remarkably, man-of-the-match Lar Corbett only played the ball six times (for 16 quality points) during the course of the game, but with three of these finding the net (shades of Gorgeous Gus in the Victor comic of old!) who in Tipperary is complaining? In last year’s final, Corbett played the ball 16 times for 44 quality points only to end up on the losing side. Such are the ironies of sport!
We were surprised that Brian Cody dropped Michael Rice – Kilkenny’s key man in last year’s championship – for this year’s final, and Rice will no doubt derive some consolation from the fact that, despite missing 13 minutes of the game, he still ended up at the top of his team’s quality points register with 43, just ahead of Michael Fennelly, who topped off a great championship for him with a massive display which garnered 42 points.
Kilkenny’s other main contributors were JJ Delaney and Eoin Larkin (who had a marvellous tussle with Declan Fanning), both on 37 points, Jackie Tyrrell (who provided wonderful leadership for the Cats in the second half) on 35 and John Tennyson (32) who put in a great performance throughout considering he had just returned from a bad injury.
As in the 2009 final, Kilkenny had major problems among their forwards last Sunday. Last year, Aidan Fogarty played the ball just twice before being hauled ashore after 51 minutes. This year he lasted just three minutes longer with five mainly ineffectual plays to his name. Last year Eddie Brennan lasted the entire game despite playing the ball only seven times, but then three of those plays yielded points. This year he made just five plays, with no scores, before being substituted after 51minutes. Scoring four points did not save TJ Reid the indignity of being substituted after 63 minutes, Brian Cody obviously being more impressed by Reid’s error count of eight (by far the highest of any player on the two sides) and Pádraic Maher’s growing influence as the game moved towards its conclusion.
This was a game which, on the general balance of play, could have gone either way. Unlike last year, Tipperary were not clearly the better team, despite what most media pundits have suggested. But they played with great positivity, took their chances when they arose and got their just desserts, having been denied last year mainly by poor refereeing.
At the same time, we salute Kilkenny and the standards they set over the last four years. However, last year there were definite signs of a weakening of their formidable edifice. In the final paragraph of our report on the 2009 final, we wrote: “…last Sunday may have been a turning point in the life cycle of this Kilkenny team which, for once, was unable to impose itself physically on the opposition … Tipperary’s inexperience was a key factor in their defeat. If they can learn the appropriate lessons, and perhaps find another scoring forward, their day cannot be that far away”. In last year’s final, just five Tipperary players got on the scoreboard; this year it was double that number. And verily, their day has come. Enjoy!
Play statistics (quality points in brackets):
Kilkenny 189 (428): Ryan PJ 5 (11); Dalton J 11 (28); Hickey N 6 (11); Tyrrell J 16 (35); Walsh T 12 (26); Tennyson J 15 (32); Delaney JJ 13 (37); Fitzpatrick J 11 (21); Fennelly M 19 (42); Reid TJ 11 (24); Shefflin H 7 (13); Larkin E 15 (37); Brennan E 5 (9); Power R 10 (26); Fogarty A 5 (8); Rice M 18 (43); Lyng D 4 (10); Comerford M 1 (2); Mulhall J 3 (7); Hogan R 2 (6);
Tipperary 182 (414): Cummins B 7 (11); Stapleton P 10 (19); Curran P 9 (20); Cahill M 12 (31); Fanning D 15 (29); O’Mahony C 10 (22); Maher Padraic 20 (46); Maher B 17 (46); McGrath S 13 (26); Ryan G 12 (31); Maher Patrick 8 (18); O’Brien J 9 (14); McGrath N 19 (41); Kelly E 9 (17); Corbett L 6 (14); Callinan S 4 (13); Young D 5 (11); Dunne B 1 (4); Hennessy S (4); O’Brien C no plays.
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