The Limerick man in me is still dancing
LESS than two weeks after Eamon Dunphy walked away from RTÉ, his ‘this is show business, baby’ catchphrase is ringing around in my head.
You see I was torn last week between what was real and what was theatre for the masses.
There was a part of me proud that the game I have loved all my life is penetrating into parts of Irish life I never thought possible.
Like the racing commentators Robert Hall and Ted Walsh, on Galway races duty, talking about a festival in Croke Park that was fit for kings.
I was proud to hear that but I was mystified to hear it too.
Look, anything that promotes our game is a blessing I am not going to sneeze at but I can’t just ignore the voice screaming inside my head at all the soft words from high places — for pity’s sake even Michael D got in on the act.
In the giddy excitement of last weekend, no one bothered to mention that we witnessed two very different games.
The Limerick man in me is still dancing from last Sunday and the potential of what it is going to do for the game in our county and city, particularly, where it has played third fiddle to rugby and soccer for far too long.
And I am thrilled, too, for this fine young team of ours, full of verve and character who are growing up into giants in front of our eyes.
The hurling man in me, though, is deeply sceptical.
What we saw last Sunday was more show business than hurling. We are confusing high scoring, exciting matches and extra-time finishes for the game at its very best.
If that is only the measure of sporting excellence, then does that make darts the closest sport on this planet to our game?
I am not being contrary for the sake of it; I am merely pointing out in all that excitement — and, yes, naturally I felt it too — a multitude of sins are being covered up.
When scoring rates start shooting through the roof at the rate they are — and the scoring records last weekend tumbled like tenpins — you can either choose to stand and applaud or to take time out to consider what is happening here.
Yes, some of those scores were sourced from incredible skill — that Peter Duggan point from Clare, the side-line cut conversions from Joe Canning, Tony Kelly and Mark Coleman, Aaron Shanaher’s goal — but many more from nonexistent defending.
I mean the point where Graham Mulcahy rolls the ball up unimpeded in front of a static Damien Cahalane out on the Hogan stand side-line in the first half last Sunday is something I have never seen before. And I don’t want to see it again. The big issue — one where all the focus is on now — is on puck-out strategies which are now the starting point of attacks. This is how it works; you retain the ball from a short puck-out, you work it through the lines and then you get it off to a shooter 80 metres from goal and it either goes over or it goes wide. I find that unsatisfying because, to a large degree, you are decommissioning physical engagement, which was one of the game’s core qualities. Remember the clash of the ash? Well, you would do well to. That is not to say that players are not investing huge effort; you only had to look at an exhausted Daniel Kearney coming off after 60 minutes last Sunday to know the undiluted honesty that is still driving these players on.
But he was empty because of the amount of ground he covered, because of how he made his GPS vest smoke and not because he was wounded in a game of blood and thunder.
That is not to in any way to undermine Limerick’s achievement or Cork’s heartbreak, it is merely to point out that the game has evolved to a point where we can now cheer for a game that lost some of its soul and I just don’t believe that is a good thing.
I also think that we have lost the ability to tell the difference. Both games last weekend were celebrated as if they were one and the same, when they anything but.
IF Sunday left my heart bursting with Limerick pride, then Saturday’s drawn epic between Clare and Galway left me simply proud of the game. I am not saying that it did not also have elements of the Limerick/Cork game — and if we are to tackle the spiralling scoring rates and the lack of physicality the GAA is going to have to look at introducing a heavier sliotar which does not travel as far — but it had a more old world feel to it.
The physical presence of this Galway team make that inevitable; this is a group who would relish hopping into a time machine and going back a decade to take on Brian Cody’s great Kilkenny team.
We would relish seeing it too. The thing is, though, they are not at Kilkenny’s level — if you went nine points down in the opening quarter against them, chances are that you would be 19 by the end of the second quarter.
However, what that game showed is that you can use your head when you don’t have the size to engage in a battle of physical wills.
We wrote here last week that the key for Clare was movement and that is where they found their joy in the second-half, emptying the flanks to allow John Conlan to move into the kind of space which yielded four points.
I may be no fan of hurling’s sweeper but Clare’s deployment of Colm Galvin worked a wonder, mainly because it happened midgame and I think it caught Galway by surprise.
That is why I don’t think that trick will work this time, Galway will be prepared for it if Clare start like that and will simply push a man up on him.
There is an advantage there for Galway in terms of learnings, so Clare would be better advised, this time, to get to the pitch of the game earlier.
And they may well be facilitated by Galway injuries.
Even if one of Gearóid McInerney and Joe Canning are missing — and we truly won’t know until the ball is thrown in despite all those positive bulletins about the latter — it is a potentially fatal blow for the champions, and if both are out it is simply catastrophic.
Galway became much for porous in defence after McInerney was forced off, while Canning reminded yet again last Saturday of the rare and wonderful talent he is.
For all of Galway’s depth those are two players who cannot be replaced with like for like.
The advantage now sits with Clare and I expect them to make it count, in the process setting up the final of our lives.
I am thrilled, too, for this f ine team