Cats into final with little fuss or bother
We have two tiers in operation a lot closer to home than that if yesterday’s game in Croke Park can be taken in evidence.
Kilkenny kept Waterford at arm’s length for a facile win in the first of this year’s All-Ireland SHC semi-finals, surfing a perky start to book their place in the big show next month.
Cats boss Brian Cody claimed he was never comfortable on the sideline — but consider that simply part of the post-game etiquette.
Kilkenny confirmed the suspicion that has floated over this year’s hurling championship like a dark cloud in a cartoon: that they and Tipperary head the pack and everybody else is tussling it out for bronze.
We encourage Dublin to make smithereens of this notion next Sunday but would not be inclined to put legal tender on their chances of doing so.
If you sniff a certain reluctance to discuss the bones of the game itself, your instincts are correct.
Much like a child on a Sunday afternoon looking for distraction in anything apart from his homework, we are postponing the headache of algebra for as long as we can.
Yesterday’s match was poor by any standards. There was a world of wayward deliveries (most of which seemed to be collected and returned by Paul Murphy, the Kilkenny corner-back) and uncharacteristic wides.
You know something is wrong when someone like Henry Shefflin takes five attempts to rise the ball.
We begin with Shefflin deliberately. He spent much of the first half at left half-forward rather than on the mark, as advertised. The big man carries an aura into every game — how many other Henrys can you identify simply by their first name? — and sometimes you wonder if that influences, however subliminally, referees with half-a-second to adjudicate on game events.
Thing was, Tony Browne was playing right half-back for Waterford, so it was folk hero on folk hero, two players of such longevity that when referee Barry Kelly called them on fouls in that vicinity he must have been pressing button A and waiting for the operator’s instructions.
Kilkenny weren’t the sleek and gleaming machine of old in that first half. Perhaps they didn’t need to be, given they took a six-point lead in at the break, but they had uncharacteristic wides after Richie Hogan’s fine early goal.
They still managed to bookend the half with another goal from Hogan, when he improvised a forehand smash from Colin Fennelly’s deft hand pass. Any more of this and the ‘next DJ’ talk will start up about Hogan. Again.
As for the second half . . . it might be best to take a leaf from Mark Twain’s book and simply draw a veil of charitable silence over proceedings. Waterford needed a goal to kick-start their onslaught after half time — but they also played with five men in the forward line against a defence that has long been a by-word for parsimony.
The Déise had opportunities but a succession of depressing wides, all drawn magnetically to the right of the Canal End goal, served to bang the nails down into their coffin. They got within five of Kilkenny at one stage but never looked like driving on; the fluent aggression of the Galway game was gone and, if they didn’t regress to their Munster final collapse — Noel Connors, Brick Walsh, Kevin Moran and John Mullane tried too hard for that — the goals they conceded were an uncomfortable reminder of the horror show in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Waterford boss Davy Fitzgerald defended his tactical approach after the defeat.
“A lot of people won’t understand it but it was set up very defensively on both sides. They won’t pull their six backs out too much. They sat. And we sat the same way.
“When that happens you get to take shots from 50, 60 yards. We did some crazy things, I admit, but we had to take them chances and we didn’t.”
His opposite number was largely poker-faced at the final whistle.
“We weren’t comfortable at any stage,” said Brian Cody. “With 10 minutes to go a goal would have opened up the game for Waterford, and they had a lot of ball.
“We had a lot of wides, shooting from long distance, and we never really had a situation where we were comfortable.
“We went nine points ahead and it never came down to less than five, but hurling’s a game where a goal can come — and a second one — very quickly, so relaxed? No.”
The Kilkenny boss didn’t seem very relaxed about the refereeing either. Barry Kelly gave the Cats six frees, and though Cody said he doesn’t criticise refs, his silence was eloquent enough.
Fitzgerald qualified his own concerns about the lead-up to Kilkenny’s second goal with a compliment to Kelly, but both men articulated a general air of surprise within the stadium at the referee’s relatively casual approach to enforcement.
Will Kilkenny win another All-Ireland? Hush your vulgar directness — but they won’t on yesterday’s performance. Noel Hickey was troubled by Shane Walsh early on while Richie Power was oddly slow getting to the pitch of the game.
On the plus side, JJ Delaney and Tommy Walsh were irrepressible and Michael Fennelly played himself into the match. Most notably, Shefflin came through the 70 minutes unscathed, despite using the most talked-about knees in Irish sport since Paul McGrath.
And like McGrath’s knees, Shefflin’s joints simply have to be accommodated, nursed, cajoled and coaxed through another 70 minutes if Kilkenny are to take another title home next month.
If he doesn’t look up to a game-breaking solo-run, a la early on in the 2002 All-Ireland final, any more his influence as an on-field general yesterday was as great as it has ever been.
Now he and his teammates face yet another battle on the first Sunday in September. Marengo or Waterloo?
