Clubs mimicking elite counties’ style of play is a recipe for disaster
AFTER the fantastic hurling of last summer, the high of the All-Ireland final and Limerick’s breakthrough win, the re-jigged format of the National League worried me a bit from the start. I wondered whether it would undercut the competitive nature of the competition, with no relegation from Division 1A, and that’s certainly how it seemed to pan out.
Not only that, but I saw a lot of matches where the play was very one dimensional, with nearly everybody trying to play in similar style.
There can be a tendency for teams to follow the lead of All Ireland champions and Limerick had this crisp style of play where they tended to go short, short, then long – when working the ball out.
This spring, it seemed the chasing pack had decided this was the only way to play. Even Limerick seemed to be overelaborating in their approach at times, going for the third, fourth or fifth short pass. It didn’t matter because they were winning games anyway and then took the title so convincingly against Waterford.
The problem is, too many other teams – club and county – are trying to imitate them, and not always very successfully.
I was at six different matches in Offaly recently. What struck me from a coaching point of view is that everybody now seems to want to play this short, running, man-off-the-shoulder game. One where a defender plays a short 20-yard pass to another defender instead of clearing his lines or a halfforward plays a lateral pass instead of feeding his inside line – and then the whole thing breaks down.
I was at games where it was ruck, ruck, ruck – followed by a throw-in at the end of it from the referee. Because it’s all so congested, there’s more physicality. It often ends in players getting injured. It felt like you weren’t at a match at all, there was so little hurling done, the physio was on the field so often. It was hard to watch.
I know Offaly hurling is not going well but I watched a couple of other club games on television – Borrisoleigh versus Clonoulty Rossmore in Tipperary and St Thomas against Liam Mellows. They were a bit better, a bit more fluent, but there were still a lot of stoppages, big hits going in, full of physicality and strange refereeing decisions.
Referees are struggling to
handle games, with balls being thrown all over the place.
Conor O’Donovan did a piece on RTÉ on the handpass earlier in the spring. He contacted me as well, sent me on clips in which an inordinate amount of throwing of the ball was going on. My response was that with all the rucks, and tackles, and arms being grabbed, it’s the only way of getting the ball away and keeping any sort of flow.
If Limerick or Tipperary or Kilkenny or Galway want to play it a certain way, or use a sweeper like Davy Fitzgerald in
‘KILKENNY TEAMS UNDERSTAND THE GAME’S SIMPLICITY’
Wexford, they’re so well versed. They know what they’re trying to do, the players are very fit, strong, and have such a high skill level that they are able to carry it off.
But clubs don’t have that same quality. You have players and coaches looking to play a game they see on television, one where you need 15 super athletes who are strong, mobile, can score from distance, with a Cian Lynch-type needed around the middle to plot a way through all the tight situations.
When it doesn’t work – as I saw – it’s a mess.
You have coaches saying ‘this is the modern game’. Try and suggest that, ultimately it’s a simple game and you can be accused, like myself, of being regressive and old-fashioned.
If the players don’t have the skillset at club level, it’s an absolute disaster of a spectacle.
Think back to the great forwards of the past – a lot of them thrived on fast ball, whether high or low. The ball will always travel faster than the man.
Kilkenny teams understand the simplicity of the game. Look at the style in which Ballyhale Shamrocks won the club All Ireland. Henry Shefflin came in with that Brian Cody style – a practical, no nonsense, win-your-own-ball approach. It’s a system where you’re looking for the early ball inside over the half-forward line with that line coming in support. Look at how Adrian Mullen won Hurler of the Year. It worked like a dream. I fancied Ballygunner all year. The Waterford champions are a super side but I dare anyone to watch their All-Ireland semifinal against Ballyhale and explain it away from a coaching point of view. You had players out the field popping short passes over and back when a quick ball over the top might have exposed Michael Fennelly. Instead, he had time to drop back in front of his full-back line and hoover up possession. As it continued to break down, the Ballygunner players seemed to lose confidence in their game plan and Ballyhale took over in the second half.
In terms of the game overall, what I saw in recent weeks in Offaly wasn’t good, not so much from a standard point of view as much as a vision of how to play the game.
Clubs don’t need to ape the latest county trends. They might just find that if they keep the game simple, it will be a lot more effective.