I’ve been swept away by Déise’s ‘system’
I’VE voiced my opinion on the use of sweepers quite vocally in recent times, but I have to credit Waterford for how they played it yesterday.
You’ll probably have gathered by now that I’m not a fan of sweepers, but Waterford have developed their system significantly since losing to Cork in the Munster semi-final in June.
They’re playing with seven defenders, but they’re working the ball out from the back, looking up, playing really intelligent ball and getting great scores from distance.
And that they’re doing it in the last 15 or 20 minutes is bringing a real attacking freshness off the bench, with the likes of Maurice Shanahan, Brian O’Halloran, Tommy Ryan and Colin Dunford coming in to finish the job.
Their backs are rock-solid but they’re finishing games with their best attacking options.
It’s really well-planned and thought-out. It’s working well.
To play how they do, what you need is really good players and Waterford have them.
They had Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh at 34 years of age and playing in his 69th Championship game yesterday, and another long-serving star, Kevin Moran, leading the way.
Those guys really laid down a marker in the first half, ‘Brick’ scoring the goal and Moran firing over three points from play.
Jamie Barron and Austin Gleeson stormed into the game in the second-half, Darragh Fives played the sweeper role and was outstanding, while Conor Gleeson was brilliant in his man-marking role on Conor Lehane.
With that extra defender, Waterford were difficult to break down but the game changed when Damien Cahalane was sent off.
Cork were a point ahead at the time, but Waterford outscored them by 3-8 to 0-5 from there.
It was a clear second yellow for Cahalane, and the subsequent red, and Waterford brought on the cavalry.
When, more by accident than design, they got man-on-man with Cork, they demolished them down the home straight, with their pace and athleticism.
Austin Gleeson’s goal was one of the greatest I’ve ever seen and he did brilliantly to dispossess Mark Coleman before playing the ball across for Jamie Barron’s first green flag.
Waterford’s goals in the secondhalf were high-quality, with brilliant finishing, pace and vision combined.
I really thought this one would go down to the wire, and it might have had Cahalane stayed on the field, but it was a super performance from Waterford without Tadhg de Búrca.
They really used his absence as a motivation in the right way. He’s an outstanding player, one of the best in the country, but others stood up.
From Cork’s point of view, they can look back on their season with some pride, considering where they’ve come from in a season.
They played well enough until the sending-off but looked like they didn’t really know what to do from there.
But they’ve won the Munster championship, contested an AllIreland semi-final and unearthed five new players.
The experience will stand to them but, while Patrick Horgan looked like their most dangerous forward, and Alan Cadogan scored a couple of points, Waterford got their tactics so right, pushing up man-on-man on Cork puck-outs, and Anthony Nash put three out of play in the first-half.
Waterford never gave Cork an inch, overpowered them physi- cally, matched up to them in terms of sheer athleticism and ran them off the field eventually.
My view before today was that Galway would win the All-Ireland final, irrespective of the opposition in the final, but I might have to revise that opinion now.
Waterford are just so difficult to get through and with that system now taken on to another level, they have players to hurt Galway from distance.
I watched Offaly trying to play with a double-sweeper against them in the qualifiers but Waterford still managed to score 1-35.
They’ve built from there and got better with every game. They have a lot of excellent players, a solid bench and a shrewd management team.
The five-week break might not have been ideal from a Cork point of view, as Waterford used the back door to develop game on game.
Derek McGrath drafted Eoin Murphy and Fergal Hartley into his backroom team and they were clever appointments.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do mid-season, but Murphy and Hartley are two former players, highly-respected and huge supporters of Waterford hurling still.
They commanded instant respect and their additions to the set-up will have freshened things up immediately.
It was great management by McGrath and Waterford went back to basics because they experienced a meltdown against Cork in Munster.
Playing their system the way they did yesterday, it’s highlyeffective and they’ll be hard to beat on September 3.
Teams that don’t have the ability to properly utilise a sweeper can turn a game of hurling into a bit of a farce – but there’s something different about Waterford now.
‘They’ve got better with every game’