Numbers game points to a Kilkenny victory
Galway thoughtfully and patiently compiling a lead in the first half, Kilkenny responding by lorrying the ball back as hard and as straight as they could. Never mind the lack of width (and wit) or absence of angles, see the length of those clearances!
“They’ve no Plan B,” declared the man from the Nenagh Guardian of the defending champions. Pause. “Then again, seeing as Plan A has worked so well for them over the years...”
Never a truer word. But this was the day it didn’t. And here was the most remarkable aspect of it all, the small fact of the first September draw in 53 years included. After 17 minutes of the Leinster final Kilkenny had scored nothing. After 17 minutes of the All-Ireland they’d scored a point. Astonishing.
In other words, Kilkenny had seen Galway coming this time and — forewarned, tooled up, motivated — still couldn’t do anything about it. Of Anthony Cunningham’s myriad achievements this summer, that is perhaps the most impressive. [Adopts guttural Austrian/Californian accent] “I’ll be back”? Not this time. Not at all.
On the face of it, the ending of Kilkenny’s record of avenging each and every championship defeat under Brian Cody at the first time of asking is a statistic, nothing more. But scratch the surface and see what lies beneath.
The loss of a fifth gear. The inability to hurl two good halves every day, give or take Tipperary collapsing like communism. And look at the macro this past month. In both the senior and U21 finals Kilkenny’s puckouts — bad enough to begin with — were cut off by the enemy half-back line and asphyxiation ensued. A paradigm shift.
All of that said, this is Cody’s Kilkenny we’re talking about. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. What’s more, given that Galway have twice put themselves into a winning position approaching half-time in the two encounters to date, we have reached the stage where the actuaries — those gentlemen for whom accountancy is altogether too exciting a job — are liable to burst in the door and inform us that the numbers are now conspiring against the challengers.
Numbers? The law of averages. The law of diminishing returns. Galway building up an early lead, Galway scoring the first goal: it cannot keep happening. And that is only logical, for hurling, given the narrowness of its base at the top level, is more of a numbers game than most. Over time, the house always wins.
One caveat, mind. In the time-tested manner of replays, tomorrow’s is a game that could well be won by seven or eight points. Lead by five at the interval again and this time the Leinster champions will surely kick on and win by 10. The past was yours but the future’s mine.
Were the Oscars for Championship 2012 being handed out now, there is no doubt as to the recipient of the Best Director statuette. Anthony Cunningham first, the rest nowhere.
Best Actor in a Starring Role? Fergal Moore, Iarla Tannian or Johnny Coen (the latter a more likely recipient of a Most Promising Newcomer gong, admittedly) in the event of a Galway victory, JJ Delaney or Henry Shefflin should it be Kilkenny’s day.
As for the Best Supporting Actor category, do consider Andy Smith, arguably Cunningham’s biggest individual triumph. For most of his inter-county career Smith looked like a fine club hurler promoted beyond his ability. Of late, however, he’s operated as Iarla Tannian’s auxiliary engine and has been understatedly effective in the job. Getting forward, getting back, getting to the scraps.
On September 9, he popped up on the Kilkenny 20m line just before half-time — yet another Galway runner from deep hitting the point of attack and taking the pass — to divest himself of an admittedly harmless angled shot that was saved with some difficulty by David Herity. It was the afternoon’s fulcrum; concede a goal there and the holders, as Cody has admitted, would hardly have made the trek back from seven points down.
Moore, Tannian and Coen have been Galway’s headline acts. Smith leads the best supporting actor nominees, which includes everyone else.
Granted, the Canning conundrum persists and will do so for many a day yet. A total of 1-10 from play this summer is, on the face of it, no return for a player of Joe Canning’s gifts and influence. Again, it’s that cold-eyed management trade-off we’ve mentioned here before. Get him involved out the field, with the guarantee he’ll score less, or leave him inside, with no guarantee he’ll score more? Still, 0-4 from play from Canning tomorrow would be more valuable than his 1-1 last time out.
The point has been made of Cody that he wins his matches before the throw-in, not after it. Win the battle, then fight the battle, etc. Events three weeks ago did little to hobble this particular hobbyhorse. Having been made to sit through two tactical papers set by Dr Cunningham, and having laboured through them, the moment had come for him to start asking the questions. Springing Cillian Buckley and Walter Walsh is his answer. (In passing, does Cunningham have the imagination to further discombobulate Cody by trying something slightly different tomorrow? Or the personnel to do so?)
As a function of wishful thinking more than hard evidence, John Tennyson, TJ Reid, Richie Power and even Tommy Walsh were all touted as potential midfield partners for Michael Fennelly. The larger issue surrounds whether Fennelly can rediscover his best form and be a cyborg again. Should he succeed, Buckley, assuming he starts there, will merely be required to play his own game. The identity of his partner will be largely irrelevant anyway.
Either way, Kilkenny still have Shefflin, who three weeks ago proved again that greatness is about iron in the soul, not mercury in the wrists. It was a performance to put one in mind of that scene from the opening episode of The Sopranos where the depressed don of New Jersey, ensconced in a psychiatrist’s chair, is deploring the tendency of modern American men to go “to shrinks and counsellors”.
“What happened to Gary Cooper?” Tony Soprano grumbles. “He just did what he had to do.” Tony should have been in Croke Park on September 9. Gary Cooper lives. In Ballyhale.
The question about Kilkenny possessing the legs to go to the well again or not aside, they can help themselves in practical terms by asking a few pointed questions of Moore and Coen, or at any rate limiting their influence. Similarly, Galway can’t be dumping ball after ball on top of Brian Hogan and Paul Murphy again and are entitled to expect a better return from their wing-forwards David Burke and Cyril Donnellan, scoreless in the last day.
Another priority for Galway will be to find spaces between the Kilkenny lines, the way Tipperary did with such imagination against Kilkenny two years ago.
Do the favourites possess anyone to do that? Richie Hogan fits the bill. By the same token, if there’s a player of the recent past Galway could do with, it’s Kevin Broderick. Imagination, vision, a low centre of gravity. A ballplayer among athletes.
A winner? Kilkenny. A last hurrah. Nothing to do with sentiment, though. The numbers demand it.
