Strong survive in brave new world
AT times on Sunday, with elemental forces crashing together inside the circular superstructure of the spanking new Páirc Uí Chaoimh, it felt like a hurling version of the Large Hadron Collider run by CERN, that nuclear research facility in Switzerland which houses the largest machine in the world.
Where the most complex laboratory ever built operates to answer some fundamental questions in physics concerning the basic laws governing the interactions and forces between elementary objects, not to mention the deep structure of space and time.
A bit like being seated then in the main stand on Leeside and watching what was happening on the field between Waterford and Wexford as bodies bounced off each other as if in a test to discover hurling’s own Higgs boson or ‘God particle’.
One clip picked out by Donal O’Grady on The Sunday Game featured 16 bodies occupying the same patch of grass in the middle third. He could have selected a myriad of freeze-frames from a gladiatorial arm-wrestle of an AllIreland quarter-final that has been swamped by the narrative over where the game is going.
With respective managers Derek McGrath and Davy Fitzgerald playing the role of (evil?) genius lab technicians testing the fundamental fabric of the game.
Are they entitled to set up a team whatever way they want? Of course they are. That’s a manager’s prerogative.
The rest of the world can whistle Dixie.
Are paying punters or pundits entitled to give out about the game straying from its conventional traditions and producing an altogether different style of contest that is often fractured, lacks flow, lends itself to crash-test dummy collisions around the middle, very few goalmouth chances let alone goals, limited man-onman battles – in other words, an altogether different sort of game to hurling over the previous 125 years or so?
Of course they are. Let the managers whistle Dixie.
There is so much to admire about what Derek McGrath has created with Waterford. The structure, the system, and the style of play has been well documented — it’s fostering so many of the dressing room and on-pitch intangibles that is just as impressive. Team spirit. Unity. Honesty of application. Character. Just look at what Kevin Moran and Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh alone brought to the party against Wexford.
In the evolution of the game, McGrath will be remembered for a beautiful mind, for reframing the game’s possibilities in terms of formation. Like Mickey Harte with Tyrone or Jim McGuinness with Donegal or Davy Fitzgerald with his county of choice. Unfortunately, that process often doesn’t sit well with those watching from the stands or at home who have been brought up on a tradition of more open, instinctive play. Not defensive-led, counter-attacking formations.
It is possible to admire so much in the management of both Waterford and Wexford and the talent on show — and still think what was served up was a poor spectacle overall. It wasn’t dissimilar to the drawn League final last year between Waterford and Fitzgerald’s Clare. Then, 19,498 turned up at Thurles. A 0-7 to 0-6 half-time scoreline was more in keeping with a game of winter football. For the replay? More than five thousand voted with their feet. Only 14,210 were there to witness a slow-burning affair that finished in a welter of great excitement and Clare’s first National League since 1978.
Winning an All-Ireland isn’t about a popularity contest, however. That’s just part of the reason why Davy Fitzgerald’s outburst after the final whistle is hard to stand up. Puck a ball into the stand on Sunday and no doubt it would have hit someone with views not dissimilar to Michael Duignan or Henry Shefflin, consistent critics of the sweeper system. They are part of a long list that includes Waterford legend Ken McGrath, who was tasked with analysing it on The Sunday Game. SPORTSFILE
By Fitzgerald’s bizarre rationale — ‘I’d only respect people I know have been on the line’ — McGrath isn’t entitled to a view as he has ‘never managed a team at a high level’. The idea that JJ Delaney, Ollie Canning or Jamesie O’Connor over on Sky Sports aren’t qualified to offer a view is equally as preposterous.
McGrath namechecked Arsène Wenger in a typically insightful and entertaining post-match press conference — now there’s an example of how it’s hardly a prerequisite to have even played the game at the highest level to be a top-level manager. And to have a distinct vision for how the game should be played.
As for the notion that a hurling team can’t win an All-Ireland while operating a sweeper, that myth has already been exposed. In 2015, Galway minor captain Sean Loftus lined out as a notional cornerforward but swept to devastating effect. For the record, Galway turned over Tipperary in that final, scoring 4-13 in the process.
It’s hardly a stretch to imagine a similar scenario at senior level.
Waterford now face a rematch against Munster champions Cork.
The search for hurling’s ‘God particle’ continues…