The Ciotóg Side: Presumption is Tipperary’s enemy in three-way tussle
Your mind could stray, about the second All-Ireland semi-final, across the water to the House of Windsor.
There was that time in 1995 when Princess Diana, with cold coquettishness, explained the travails surrounding Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. Her diagnosis slid stiletto deep: “Well, there were three of us in this marriage. So it was a bit crowded.”
The operative word, in a hurling context, is ‘second’. Kilkenny are through to September. Galway and Tipperary know Kilkenny are through.
Galway are glad Kilkenny are through. Last weekend’s result offers a narrative in which Anthony Cunningham can make good on a risky comment after the Leinster final, when he told Brian Cody he would see him in the All-Ireland final.
Every risk is a frisk of someone’s nous. So far, Cunningham is scanning fine on the ráiméis detector. Win Sunday and the Galway manager will speak plausibly to his squad about their destiny in 2015.
Any notion of something pre- ordained is where Tipperary might nod. Awareness of Kilkenny cuts both ways. While it suits Galway, Tipperary could be another matter. That awareness might mean a psychological crush and three teams in this weekend’s semi-final. Looking ahead crowds out focus.
Last season’s runner-up will be conscious that another date with Kilkenny destiny is but 70 minutes off. Might Tipperary look beyond their date with Galway and come a cropper?
The query is not stupid. Where lie Tipp heads on this front? A fortnight ago, you could read online opinions from Premier supporters on the county they would prefer to beat in the All-Ireland final. Galway might as well have been Rory McIlroy’s wedding planner.
There has been chatter about Kilkenny not being so impressive against Waterford. Maybe so.
Equally, Nicky English could be right in speaking of the champions as better fixed this year than last year.
Which or whether, there will be a sizeable cohort in Tipp who regard Kilkenny as easy enough meat in 2015. Those lads are most certainly looking ahead. Premier supporters have form in this regard, plenty of it.
If Getting Ahead Of Yourself was an Olympic sport, Ireland’s medal count over the years would be way higher. Most of those gongs would be lying in drawers throughout the North and South Ridings.
One of their finest goalkeepers surely knows his own folk. Speaking before the 2009 Munster quarter-final, Brendan Cummins summarised his county’s wayward relationship with presumption: “In Cork and Kilkenny they win one, January comes and they think, ‘We’re no longer All-Ireland champions’. Not in Tipperary. It’s a culture thing.”
Victory in the 2015 Munster final was all the more impressive in this context. Tipp felt the expectation and won it anyhow. Similar steeliness this weekend would propel them into September.
Remember that Cummins’ remark came before Tipperary got across the line against Kilkenny in 2010. The day after that victory, one of the Tipp players could be heard on the six o’clock news roaring about winning five-in-a-row.
We know how that aspiration panned out: Benny Hill music over footage of Lar Corbett and Tommy Walsh. Still, the players are not the supporters, as proved in this summer’s Munster final. Besides, the sharpest Tipp supporters are probably sharpest of all. There is no better company.
A neutral would probably like to see Tipperary go all the way. At full stretch, they are a delight to watch. There is much to admire. Tipp can conjure goals out of less than dresses Paris Hilton of an evening. The catapult wrists of John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer leave Swiss watchmaking lost for precision.
Equally, Tipperary’s hurlers have shown class on the field when it was not easy to show class. Item: Lar Corbett’s pat on the back for PJ Ryan when the latter made an astonishing save in the 2009 All-Ireland final.
Item eile: Shane McGrath’s acknowledgement of Henry Shefflin when the latter limped off in the 2010 All-Ireland final.
Those moments shine every bit as bright as silverware.
Hurling culture in Galway is the very opposite of what obtains in Tipperary. Most of time, alas and alack, the second word in the nickname ‘herring chokers’ is the operative one.
A Craughwell native says his uncle, weathered by many disappointments, put it best: “Galway hurling is like a baby’s backside. You never know what’s coming.” Word says the panel is pure flying in training. For them, every boost to confidence is needful, for Galway are flaky out.
Had they not snatched, fortunately enough, a draw with Dublin in their Leinster quarter final, I have no doubt their season would have collapsed. Now they might well gain a shot at a fifth senior title, if training form translates into Sunday form.
The two counties’ rivalry in the 1980s had a frontier atmosphere to it, with machismo aplenty in both camps. This meeting could well be fiery and even explosive. Galway, a physically imposing side, will set about testing defensive mettle.
Word also says Galway’s management are contemplating operating a sweeper. Me neither, on the logic front.
Tipperary’s current approach is based on pinging balls from the back to men in the middle third. Why ease such matters for Tipp by making a spare man the sultan of ping?
Galway do not require a full-time sweeper. What they require is the correct match-ups, starting with John Hanbury on Niall O’Meara and Pádraig Mannion on Séamus Callanan.
They likewise need a clear strategy on minders for John O’Dwyer and Brendan Maher when they drift out into the channels, looking for a ball in a few yards of grass. Galway need to pick a minder at wing-forward and let him spoil, same as Colin Fennelly spoiled Waterford’s drifters in the first All- Ireland semi-final.
Tipperary should beat Galway. If they do not, those Olympic medals will be scant recompense.
