Imperfect display will suit Cody’s men just fine
IT was a six-point gap at the end of this game but in truth the mach was finished long before that. The first 15 minutes of the second half was the crucial period. Waterford needed to pile on the pressure and close the five-point gap at half-time but they shot five wides and from then on, the Kilkenny defence was on top.
Waterford kept plugging away but the only goal chance they had was when Stephen Molumphy went through — however, with players on either side of him, he knocked it over the bar.
Waterford needed to keep the pace up in this half as they had done in the first period, but they didn’t have the same movement after the break. Though John Mullane kept the scoreboard ticking over, the massive influence of Seamus Prendergast waned in the second half and the game petered out as a contest with Kilkenny withdrawing Richie Hogan to midfield for the last 10 minutes; the game descended into long-range ping-pong, with lengthy deliveries being returned with interest by both defences until referee Barry Kelly brought proceedings to a close. Still, a noteworthy feature was the workrate of the Cats’ attack, who forced turnovers and chances from the pressure they put on Waterford’s defenders.
RICHIE HOGAN, Kilkenny’s stocky corner-forward, touched the ball twice in the first half, but crucially, his two touches produced first-class goals. He made the first himself by racing through and hitting a great shot, while the second showed his skills — with a sublime touch he controlled a pass from Colin Fennelly and then knocked the ball past Waterford keeper Clinton Hennessy.
The floodgates never opened as expected after those goals, however — Waterford moved the ball very well, they looked for their men and used the short ball to pull Kilkenny defenders around.
Seamus Prendergast was doing well on puckouts and on breaking ball, giving a good pass to John Mullane for a fine Waterford goal. Obviously the first half took a huge toll on the energy of the Waterford players, who tackled hard and kept as tight to their men as they could and apart from Mullane and Prendergast, the Waterford attackers couldn’t put the Cats’ defence under enough pressure to eat into their lead in the second half.
BRIAN Cody will have been delighted with this display — not because it was perfect, but because it wasn’t.
They hit 17 wides and there was a lack of cohesion in their lacklustre showing, particularly in the second half.
I lost count of how many times Kilkenny hit the ball from their midfield and half-backs directly to their opponents.
Cody will know this kind of display will not be adequate in the final against either Dublin or Tipperary but he’ll be pleased his half-back line was completely dominant in the second half, while their first-half display provided an example of how to counteract a forward line constantly on the move, as Waterford were in that period and which Kilkenny will also face in the final. Overall the game lacked the atmosphere of a battle. I wrote on Saturday that Waterford would need to make a battle of it but they didn’t do so, and the fare in the second half was poor enough as Kilkenny’s dominance up to midfield provided enough of a platform for them to sail through. It was the ideal way for them to win a semi-final, as it should ensure they are underdogs for the decider.
