TREATY CODE IS NO SECRET
Déise will set up to frustrate but John Kiely’s men can adapt tactics
IF Limerick didn’t fully realise that they were carrying a giant target on their back, the truth came dropping slow at Nowlan Park last Sunday. By the final whistle, the question was being asked: have the chasing pack already began to suss how to stop the All-Ireland champions? The fall-out to the League semi-final when Dublin set up with a sweeper and attacked the opposition’s gameplan at source – by turning the midfield into a battle zone – is still ongoing. Waterford look set to do something similar this afternoon at Croke Park for this endgame in the Allianz Hurling League as familiar questions about style, systems and aesthetics pepper conversations about the game.
Because of everything they have achieved over the past 12 months – promotion from Division 1B, a first All-Ireland in 45 years, and now the opportunity of a first League title since 1997 – the most pertinent question in hurling right now is: How do you stop Limerick?
Mattie Kenny had the temerity to come up with his own answer, to frustrate the Treaty County at every turn. Imagine. And that’s actually what his Dublin team did, flooding the middle third with centreback Sean Moran dropping into the pocket and playing the role of sweeper. They also applied the old approach of ‘hammer the hammer’, especially when it came to Limerick’s half-forward line which is so essential in how the team work the ball and link the play.
By the final whistle, all three of Gearóid Hegarty, Young Hurler of the Year Kyle Hayes, and Tom Morrissey had been replaced. At a media briefing to promote this afternoon’s final against
Waterford, inside forward Aaron Gillane admitted that Limerick have to accept that they are the team everyone wants to take down. ‘They did their homework on us the same way we did our homework on them. I think the two teams have a kind of similar style of play. So when two teams like that clash, they’re going to cancel each other out a lot,’ he said. ‘If you want to go far in any competition, you have to be able to adapt. You can’t be a one-trick pony or else you’ll be easily found out.’ Limerick’s manner of adapting was to unlock a Dublin defence whose unflinching refusal to take a step back was epitomised by Eoghan O’Donnell, by conjuring the goal of the year so far. It started from the familiar launch pad of the half-back line and a triangle of zipped passes that saw Hurler of the Year Cian Lynch catch a crossfield ball with the back of his hand before the sliotar was fed to Seamus Flanagan who had ghosted into space from deep.
It was a rare moment of magic in a game that was all crash-bangwallop around an overpopulated middle third.
Naturally, it wasn’t to everyone’s tastes. Online, Kilkenny’s eighttime All-Ireland winner turned Laois manager Eddie Brennan described it as ‘ugly’. The obvious response to the RTÉ analyst from anyone with a vested interest in Dublin’s progress was: who cares, once it is effective.
After a landmark first victory on Tipperary soil since 1946, Kenny set his team up in such a way as to leave the issue in doubt right up until the last ball when it finished as just a one-score game, Limerick 1-19 Dublin 1-16.
It is possible to laud Kenny for his managerial smarts, to praise Dublin for their aggressive, inyour-face defensive efforts, their high intensity and high workrate – all the things you want from a team – and yet feel that the game lacked something as a spectacle. It is possible for both things to be true.
Because we’ve been here before. The use of a sweeper or extra defender upsets traditional hurling sensibilities but hurling is simply following football’s lead which is generally a couple of years behind the trends of professional sports.
Tyrone football manager Mickey Harte has long been an exponent of the ‘let the game evolve’ approach but that simply ignores the handwringing over the state of the game – falling attendances one part of the reason the GAA’s Standing Committee on Playing Rules came up with such a radical set of proposals to try and bring Gaelic football back to first principles.
Hurling is fast moving on from a designated sweeper or seventh defender to fluid attacking and counter-attacking formations, not much different to football.
When Limerick took Kilkenny apart at Nowlan Park in round three, there was a naivete about the way Brian Cody’s defenders followed the Limerick forwards out the field.
‘IF YOU’RE A ONE-TRICK PONY, YOU’LL BE EASILY FOUND OUT’
Even with wind advantage, Limerick’s half-forward line dropped deep, listed centre-forward Shane Dowling signposting the set-up by thumping over his team’s first score from the half-way line with Kilkenny centre-back Paddy Deegan caught in two minds as to whether to follow him or not. It was generally Gillane plus AN Other in a two-man inside line and after laying the foundation for victory with a 2-10 to 0-7 half-time lead, Limerick dropped even deeper against the strong wind. Jackie Tyrrell took a photograph on his phone at Nowlan Park last Sunday to illustrate the 20 Dublin/ Limerick bodies in the middle between the two 45s – a point well made about where the main battle was being fought.
But a photograph taken during the group encounter between his native Kilkenny and Limerick would have been equally instructive – Aaron Gillane in wonderful isolation inside the Kilkenny 45 with just his marker for company. Not even one of the two other players in the Kilkenny full-back line in shot, never mind a single one of the half-back line covering.
That’s a nightmare for any defender to have an All-Star forward in such space, especially when Limerick play such heads-up hurling.
So Limerick’s game plan has been an open secret. Waterford’s set-up is almost designed with the All-Ireland champions in mind, jersey numbers close to meaningless in a variation of the interchangeable system Derek McGrath implemented.
In their own semi-final against Galway, Austin Gleeson wore seven but started at wing-forward and drifted all over. Tadgh de Búrca replaced listed midfielder Colm Roche in the centre but played across the half-back line, no more than Philip Mahony and Kevin Moran.
In the quarter-final against Clare, Jamie Barron operated almost as a second centre-back against the stiff wind, then pushed up more after the break.
Like Limerick, Waterford tend to rely on a two-pronged inside line where the Bennett brothers, Stephen and Shane, have cut loose this spring.
Don’t be surprised then if, even in the expanses of Croke Park, the middle third of the field is where the main battlelines have been drawn.
As Gillane put it, it’s up to the AllIreland champions to adapt and find a way.
They usually do.