Kinvara looked for this on Mon…
[FONT=Garamond]PM O’SULLIVAN, ‘If you have good forwards, with a lambent first touch, you must play at the highest possible tempo because it is tempo that pays the best interest on skill’[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Hurling sits in an envelope of dissatisfaction.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]The less interesting aspect centres on the champions’ dominance, wound tighter by a seventh NHL title in 12 seasons. Motto: that Kilkenny be beaten. This aim, intoned with chivalric weight, dominates discussion.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]No surprise, either. Most of us spend our life confusing novelty with quality.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]There is an interesting twist. Last February, [/FONT][FONT=Garamond]É[/FONT][FONT=Garamond]amonn Cregan questioned contemporary hurling as a spectacle. This query had been heard, mostly in Corkonian accents, for a couple of years. The Limerick native was blunter: “You know this ‘hurling scrum’ that I call it, I think that’s obnoxious. I hate it.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Complaint gave way to prescription. “A forward wants the ball to come in fast and low and at an angle,” said Cregan. “Effective, intelligent ball coming in is far better than hand passing, hand passing, hand passing.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Hurling has evolved in remarkable degree over the last 10 years. True, refereeing criteria should be revisited. Letting play flow at all costs has become a tariff on certain skills. But teams can help themselves, irrespective of outside considerations. Item: shape of their front six. Glossing moment: first half of last summer’s Dublin-Kilkenny Leinster semi-final. Tommy Walsh, heading into traffic, gathered in his own patch around number 5. He pivoted and struck left, zipping a clearance between 12 and 15. Liam Doyle made up the Clare forwards with such deliveries throughout the mid 1990s.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Walsh’s stroke should have been a forward’s delight. Instead the sliotar flew outside Richie Hogan, who had travelled a dozen yards infield simply to be nearer the action. He had to compete for possession while heading towards the sideline, back to goal. This scenario is a defender’s charter.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]That moment is coaching ore, loaded with implication. Hogan is a superb hurler, author of the finest goal I have ever witnessed, but in that instance he was guilty of condensing the field for no good reason. All backs should clear as Tommy Walsh managed: a beat early, off front foot, ball despatched head high down. All forwards should ensure they do not inhibit said clearances by narrowing space.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Any such inhibition lessens tempo. And tempo is to skill as hen is to egg, indivisible productivity. If you have flying forwards, that lambent first touch, go at the highest possible tempo. The sharpest front men have the mental discipline to hold their position. It is not easy. The temptation to step nearer play accentuates in an era of swarm tackling and heavy hits. The trick, as per Cregan’s caveats, is combining spatial work-rate and positional wit.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Defender’s charter[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Forward lines are most dangerous when they cohere as a discrete run of numbers rather than as clogged middle ground, where you have 11 and two at 11½, 14 and two at 14½. Again, this set up is a defender’s charter. As one inflection of playing the percentages, lateral players need to maximise taking ball while surging infield and minimise addressing ball while eyeing the sideline.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]If there is to be a renaissance in first time hurling, in moving the sliotar with bitter directness, position’s importance will be renewed. Kieran Bergin drew a gasp from the crowd, pulling overhead in the recent NHL Final. Lovely connection but it went straight to Kieran Joyce, holding his ground at left half back.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]People might criticise Bergin for not fetching the ball, for not having, in the phrase, a look. I differ. There is as marked a question about why that right half forward was gone from 10. Exactly what was his absence achieving?[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Speed is the nub because speed delivers tempo. So long as forwards keep proper position, the ball can be released immediately from middle third. The striker need not even look. Needs be, he can send to a number rather than to a specific person. And need there will be, when struggle comes to a head in the last ten minutes, space and time and breath short.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Those passages that decide a close contest invariably involve striking without being able to look. A besetting sin is the attacker who drops off too soon, seeking a placed pass, leaving his marker to gather a pressured clearance, which is returned with interest to the far end.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]These issues were not invented yesterday. The scintillating writer Kevin Cashman, referring to Galway of the mid 1980s, coined the phrase “Jennet Express” in exasperation at their running style. For all the flak he took for this invention, he cannot be accused of sparing his own. Characterising Cork of the mid 2000s, Cashman offered the priceless “genetically modified hurling”, a sally later recast as “jennetically modified hurling”.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Are these new tactics ― courtesy of Clare, Dublin and Galway ― Jennet Express redivivus? Tipperary seem a special case. But three seasons old, this decade is already replete with innovation. Scissors, stone, paper: Tipperary’s shredding attacks, Kilkenny’s flinty resistance, Galway wrapping up midfield. What next?[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Definitely, what could be termed ‘overlap hurling’ is increasingly common. It is a preference about which I am suspicious. The core prompt too often seems insecurity. The ability of players to strike cleanly, on the move and being tackled, is doubted. There is a similar query about the ability of forwards to quarry possession. The panacea beomes a lateral handpass. Overlap hurling can appear shortcut hurling, a desire to kill off the contest with early goals. Dublin, dinking handpasses across the pitch, sweat this malaise. The most beautiful game is called hurling for sound reason. Stickwork is what sticks. Tellingly, these innovations emanate from counties striving to overturn Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary. Historic dominance was founded on striking effectively off both sides in tight circumstance. The template remains Galway’s semi-final win over Kilkenny in August 1986. If nothing else, this approach voids passivity. Let us not forget July 2012, for all that the final fence was baulked.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Traditionalists, by definition, will always be with us. They are unforgiving of everything save success. Winners get plagiarised and losers get patronised. If overlap hurling delivers an All Ireland, the story will alter. Cashman’s ire derived from a belief that Galway had the wherewithal to harvest more than two titles between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Never is it simple. Contingency threads necessity’s needle, often as not. Cork assembled their short-passing approach of the last decade as a splice of Newtownshandrum’s coeval prominence and a dearth of ball-winning half-forwards. Galway of 2012, teeming with auxiliary midfielders, resulted in part from uncertainty about their centre half-back.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Anthony Cunningham and company deserve warm credit for daring to be different. Courage is the only sure source of momentum. Innovation is never easy in so conservative a sphere as hurling culture, where scoffers are ubiquitous.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Now, though, they have a mighty problem. Expectations are ramped and only one end, a fifth Senior title, will satisfy. I thought the canniest comment after the draw last September came from Jamesie O’Connor, who stated that Kilkenny had figured out Galway.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Can Cunningham resume with the same weaponry? Kilkenny, in battle heat, forged a shield for this ordnance. The replay saw them victorious by an 11-point margin that could easily have been 21. Yet what other system can Galway adopt in 2013, given prior investment and the personnel available? The horns of this dilemma might gore.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Gripping outfit[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Clare are the most gripping outfit in tactical regard. Face value, they have a ready-made full forward line in Shane O’Donnell (19), Darach Honan (23) and Conor McGrath (22). This trio’s age profile means they could and should be around, collectively, till decade’s end. Equally, John Conlon looks a natural centre forward and Tony Kelly to wing forward manor born. They are all comfortable when striking on the run. Why not keep full forwards high up the field and spray them with Creganesque ball?[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]All of which means Davy Fitzgerald’s hand has not been forced. Sending out an orthodox front six would be a plausible move. The stakes are higher in such cases. Clare have been sporadically brilliant, suggesting an All-Ireland title or two in the mix, but their methods are anything but an austerity package. Lack of economy in their hurling means this group is not geared for the long haul.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond]Back to most basic: winner takes not just all but likewise controls the narrative. Time to time, the script gets rewritten. Then the script gets plagiarised. Winter is for adjectives. Summer is coming with the only audit that counts, that silver noun. It will be fascinating to see whether Kevin Cashman’s strictures still apply.[/FONT]
