Liam Sheedy: No overhaul for Kieran Kingston but Cork must get overalls on

Waterford's Neil Montgomery and Cork's Robert Downey in Saturday's Allianz League Final

In the science and art of modern coaching, I wonder sometimes do we overlook the raw basics of defending your goal.

There’s so much emphasis on your striking and positioning. There are endless sexy drills where the ball is pinging like lightning from cone to cone. It can all get a bit systematic and programmed. We can forget to peel back the skin.

It was one of the few times I was out in the middle of the field during training in my time as Tipp manager. For those tackling drills. And the lads were never too pleased to see those coming.

The go-to setup was simple. A and B on opposite sidelines. C and D in the middle. A drives it into C who takes possession and has to go round D, or through maybe, before he can deliver it to B the far side. B sends it back to D who goes the other way. And on it goes for a minute and a half.

Your own little channel, man on man, eyeball to eyeball. Get by him or defend for your life. And no taking the Ring of Kerry. Because there are four other lads doing the same thing 10 yards either side.

Three or four coaches are up and down the groups, policing the tackling. There’s no hiding place there and you quickly get to understand your tackle and how to get it right.

There doesn’t seem to be a massive focus on that old art right now, judging by the number of cheap frees given away in a lot of games.

Stephen Bennett scored nine frees last Saturday night and could have had one or two more. Waterford maintain superb energy right around the pitch and are relentless in their approach. Liam Cahill will have slept well Saturday night after the quality and energy of that display.

When they travel up the pitch they invariably come in pairs and sometimes in droves which, admittedly, is very hard to defend. They are the best team in the country at taking on the man and getting to the other side.

And in today’s game, the team running at opponents will keep their freetaker in employment, because defending is not what it was.

Kieran Kingston’s sleep will have been more interrupted. Whatever about the frees, Cork’s missed tackle metric last Saturday evening must have been frightening.

Neil Montgomery was able to advance from 50 yards, hop the ball off the ground, and pass to Stephen Bennett. On League Sunday, I highlighted Darragh Lyons just breezing past his man. For his second goal, Bennett took a huge roundabout route to the goal and Tim O’Mahony was in the middle of it directing traffic.

Any manager would have been fuming on the line. That said, I think Kieran will resist calls for wholesale positional and personnel changes before the champions come to town on the 17th.

His team were simply overpowered in most sectors on Saturday. But he has 500-odd minutes of data from six other games in this league that suggest his team can be a match for anyone. I’m not sure tearing things up now would send the right message to players.

When we lost the Munster Final to Limerick in ‘19, I think we only scored a point in the last 25 minutes. There was a fair bit of concern, shall we say, out there at the scale of the collapse.

Now championship data is better data than league, of course. We had won four round-robin matches — 280 minutes of evidence we could compete well, plus the first 50 against Limerick where we did fine.

Everyone was obsessing about the 25 minutes, but I was counting on the 330. And letting the players know that.

In any case, how could Kingston change it up completely? You’ve two weeks and one of those is just a buildup week, for polishing. You really have until next Sunday to rehearse something new.

That’s not to say there won’t be tweaks. Kieran's son has put his hand up for a starting position, for one. They may pull out one wildcard, like Limerick did with Kyle Hayes.

But there are three priorities now for Cork, in my view.

They have to defend the goals better and their overall defensive set-up and tackling needs to be of a much higher standard in Championship. It happened to be O’Mahony in the picture for Bennett’s goal, but I feel this is more of a collective issue where they are just not connected to protecting the D. If that doesn’t change they will continue to leak goals.

Secondly, Cork have to apply significantly more energy to getting hands on the ball from their own puckouts. When Patrick Collins has the ball, there was little or no movement. If they stand still against Limerick they will be eaten alive.

And then there is work rate, especially in the six forwards. Not just in attack. It was alarming, at times, how a Waterford player could collect a pass in the middle third with nobody touch-tight.

But I was struck by Jurgen Klopp’s remarks last week when he said: “If you want to be a striker for Liverpool you have to work your socks off ."

I would have this up on the wall of the dressing room and challenge 10-15 to get the overalls on. If they bring the same level of intensity as they had last Saturday night to the pitch it is hard to see them contesting for major honours.

Sometimes, in fairness to the players, you have to scrutinise your prep. Did we lose the edge? I’ve often had scenarios where I said, ‘look lads, I got it wrong this week, I overcooked ye’.

They’ll have to retrace their steps and see if there was anything in the preparation.

We saw against Limerick and Kilkenny there is a capacity for work there. But that didn’t come through on Saturday night. The overalls weren't on.

Like Klopp with his Reds, I’d be firing it at them all the time for the next two weeks. I’d nearly be measuring tackles as much as possessions and scores. I don’t think Cork can function as a team if they bring that level of intensity again.

At least they know now it’s in there. You only have to do it once to know it can be done. The secret is to make it repetitive and consistent. To make it a habit. That’s what you need to dine at the top table.