Romance alive but final goal unfulfilled
Tipp-Kilkenny Mark III is a go after yesterday, so everyone can congratulate themselves on having called it right, but the All-Ireland champions’ qualification for the final wasn’t a triumphant procession.
Dublin matched them in all departments with just one fatal absence from the armoury — goals.
The 43,562 in Croke Park saw Tipperary’s big game experience and big game players pull them through, but Dublin coursed their opponents deep into the added minutes of an enthralling game.
However, that lack of goals has dogged them all year — Ryan O’Dwyer’s hat-trick against Limerick apart — and they needed one yesterday.
Maybe Anthony Daly should have promoted one of the goal-hungry Dublin minors from the curtain-raiser.
A man in a sky-blue jersey proposed to his Tipperary girlfriend in Croke Park before the senior game, a development featured on the big screen in Croke Park, and ahead of the throw-in that brave romantic looked to be shaping up as the punchline to a few jokes, the only Dub to get a result in Croke Park or some such.
And for all the planning and the scheming, and in spite of the warnings of the Munster final, Dublin leaked a goal two minutes in. Lar Corbett stretched the longest hamstrings in Ireland to get a vital touch to a long ball before Gary Maguire in the Dublin goal could claim it: a goal straight off the Munster final conveyor belt.
Cue the avalanche to follow.
Except it didn’t happen. Dublin settled and drove into the game. They withdrew a sweeper and competed hard in the middle, popping the ball to an open man coming up the left wing whenever they could.
Anthony Daly might be a Harry Redknapp fan in his heart, but the clever outlet ball Dublin used yesterday was more reminiscent of teams coached by Pat Reilly or Phil Jackson.
Dublin also kept the ball away from Pádraic Maher to some profit. The Colossus of Thurles dictated the play in the Munster final but Dublin bypassed him and profited accordingly.
Still, they never looked like scoring a goal, while both Seamus Callanan and — to a lesser extent — Corbett had chances which were smartly saved by Maguire. The toll from exerting their high-pressure game wore away at Dublin as the game aged, and Tipperary got their scores a little easier.
Noel McGrath became more involved in the second half to good effect and, in an emblematic passage of play late on, a tiring Dub spilled the ball only for Maher to stride on, gather and point. There were four points in it at the finish, though Dublin were still knocking on the door, laying siege to Brendan Cummins’ goal, and the relief among Tipp followers was authentic.
“I don’t think that Kilkenny will be too worried about anything they saw today,” said Tipp boss Declan Ryan. “It was a dour enough game at times, it was very physical, there were a lot of physical exchanges out there on both sides. There were a good number of frees scored.
“I think both teams, Kikenny and Tipp, have a good bit to do over the next two weeks.”
Goals were on his opposite number’s mind.
“You felt if they got three goals we would have to get two,” said Daly. “We knew it wasn’t going to be anything like the last day either. What happened in Cork was a freak show and it was weird to be watching.
“It’s a rare thing for teams to hit two of those days on the bounce and it must have been hard for the Tipp management to get their heads 100% tuned into it with everyone talking about the final. Mickey Fennelly even said it after the match last week in his interview that it [the performance against Waterford] wouldn’t do against Tipp.”
Ryan will have some thinking to do.
In the US intelligence community there is a long-standing differentiation between puzzles and mysteries.
A puzzle can be solved if you get more information; a mystery exists because you have too much information.
The puzzle before any game is simple (who’ll win?) but the mystery comes afterwards, when the information is to hand and needs to be processed ahead of the next day.
Daly is correct in saying it’s rare for a team to have two games in a row like Tipp’s Munster final performance, but there were some worrying malfunctions for the men in blue and gold.
They need Noel McGrath involved in games, and the same goes for Maher further back the field. Dublin didn’t faint away in a weakness just because they conceded an early goal yesterday either, which accentuates the need for workrate from the Tipp attack.
For all the hymns being sung to Tipp’s all-singing, all-dancing forward line, it was the all-working commitment of that sextet which created all those goal chances against Kilkenny last September.
Against that, Ryan has three weeks to teach those lessons. He also welcomed back last season’s Young Hurler of the Year in Brendan Maher, who put in 35 minutes at championship pace, which is very positive for Tipperary.
As for their opponents . . . at six o’clock yesterday the Dublin team bus was inching along with the taxis on Jones’ Road, the passengers’ heads down. It was good to see the ripple of applause that accompanied it down the road though. And good to hear the occasional shout of “next year”, loud enough even for those on board to hear.
