Patrick Horgan: It's not good for hurling that Waterford are out this early
END OF THE ROAD: Paddy Leavey of Waterford dejected after the match. Pic: INPHO/James Lawlor
Limerick did enough on Sunday to get the win eventually, and given the conditions we had in the Gaelic Grounds, and Waterford’s performance, they’ll be very happy with the two points.
It was a strange game because the general expectation was that Limerick would eventually have too much, but it took a fair amount of time for them to get on top of Waterford, who were leading in the last quarter.
Still, did Limerick ever look in trouble? I don’t really think so. One thing that helped was their willingness to make changes and improve the team.
Just take a look at the three lads they brought on - Cian Lynch for Adam English, Mike Casey for Sean Finn, and Tom Morrissey for Shane O’Brien. Cian and Tom both chipped in with three points each, and Mike didn’t weaken the full-back line, obviously.
You can talk in general terms about a team’s strength in depth but that’s what strength in depth looks like in black and white, or in green and white. It’ll be interesting to see if Limerick start some or all of those players next week against Tipperary.
Having a good test last Sunday will make John Kiely happy. They had such a comfortable win over Clare that he’ll be delighted Waterford came and asked them so many questions: he was talking after the game about having a tough review of their performance, but getting down and dirty to squeeze out a win puts them in a very good place ahead of next weekend.
The wind was more of a factor than might have appeared on television and the weather got worse at the start of the second half, which made scores hard to come by, but Waterford didn’t help themselves with the goals they conceded. To be fair, they made only two mistakes in defence over the course of the game, but Limerick punished them both times for goals.
Those mistakes have been the story of Waterford’s championship. They’ve been committed and competitive, and they’ve actually dominated stretches of the games they’ve played. It hasn’t been the case at all that they’ve been outclassed completely.
But they’ve also been punished to the limit when they’ve made mistakes. Other teams sometimes get away with errors but for some reason Waterford have really suffered when mistakes are made.
I give huge credit to Peter Queally, Dan Shanahan, and the management team, because it was clear in the Gaelic Grounds that the players were giving it everything for the management (including Donal O’Rourke, who was with Cork last year and is now coaching Waterford). That’s all you can ask from a team you’re managing, and the Waterford players have never given up.
Have they been unlucky? I think so. One point from four games certainly doesn’t reflect how well they’ve played, but it also reflects just how brutal the Munster championship is. You don’t always get what you deserve, and Waterford certainly didn’t get what their efforts deserved this year.
They’ll be better for the experience next year, they have good players coming through from their minor and U20 teams, but you’d have to acknowledge that it’s very early to be gone from the championship. We’ve hardly had enough warm weather to make the ground hard.
That’s not good from the point of view of developing the game and developing counties: it’s not great that Waterford, which has a great hurling tradition and great hurling people, are gone from the championship this early. I know you can say the same about every county that’s eliminated at the provincial stage, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for the game overall.
I’d expected Clare to qualify from the Munster championship and that’s how it’s turned out with a round of games still left to play.
Before the game on Saturday evening I mentioned that the Tipperary forwards were all excellent hurlers, well capable of creating scores - but that apart from Jake Morris they didn’t appear to have the speed to get away from the Clare defenders. Given the fact that Clare’s defence was the part of the team under scrutiny for the last few weeks, that was always going to be a positive for Clare.
At the other end of the field the Clare forwards ran Tipperary ragged, and Ian Galvin was the perfect example of that when he came on. Michael Breen seemed to stand off Galvin, which was asking for trouble, and that’s how it turned out - Clare won with a bit to spare but Galvin’s goal, which he finished well, was central to the win. He’ll surely come into the reckoning for a start next weekend in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
Tipp looked off the pace for long stretches of the game, and at times it wasn’t too clear who was playing in their inside forward line because there was so little ball getting into them. That was always going to be a big setback for them because those inside forwards are so dangerous.
It wasn’t an accident they were starved of ball. John Conlon came back in for Clare and steadied everything straightaway. His sweeping in front of the full-back line, his management of the other players, his leadership - those were the parts that Clare were missing all year and he supplied them in spades.
He looked very sharp, so maybe the lay-off has freshened him up - at the very end of the game he was the one chasing back to put in a block, so Clare will be very happy to have one of their main men back on the field.
Putting David McInerney back in the full back line alongside Darragh Lohan were other moves which helped Clare. Tipp had maybe one snap shot of a goal chance over the seventy minutes, which indicates a fair improvement in Clare’s defending since Limerick overran them in Ennis.
Diarmuid Stritch brought great energy to the middle for Clare as well, and I’m sure Ben O’Connor took note of his contribution, particularly his point-taking. Ryan Taylor covered a lot of ground and won huge amounts of possession as well.
Even though I thought Tipperary had showed a little more than Clare in their previous championship outings - they had that very good first half against Waterford- in general they’ve been pretty flat all year.
It’s very disappointing for them, having won the All-Ireland last year, not to build on that this year, and Liam Cahill will be more disappointed than anyone.
To be fair to him, he doesn’t shy away from the hard part of the job - he came out before and after the game and spoke honestly. That’s not easy at all, particularly when you’re going out to face the media after your team’s been beaten, but he’s always man enough to take up those responsibilities, in fairness. I think some managers would prefer to take questions only when they win, but not Liam.
Next week Clare come to Cork, and it’ll be a very different Clare team to the one we saw earlier in the competition.
Teams change over the course of the campaign, which makes the Munster championship what it is.
