Hurling thunder and lightning: And a storm’s on the way

Forked and playful as the lightning, crested as the serpent. Hazlitt wasn’t talking about the weekend’s All-Ireland semi-finals, though he might as well have been. 

After the ferocity of the combat on Saturday night in Thurles, a couple of flashes of genius yesterday in Croke Park set up a traditional All-Ireland final: Kilkenny versus Tipperary.

“I thought it was a great contest,” said Tipp boss Michael Ryan.

“When you’re involved as I am you don’t appreciate it - I doubt it was a classic, but I’d say it had plenty of intensity for spectators.”

As good as Waterford-Kilkenny? Close enough, no matter what your metric is. Tipp-Galway had high standards to meet after Saturday, and they came through in spades, with the game in doubt until Tipp secured that All-Ireland place in the very last minute.

If it wasn’t quite at the operatic heights of the Waterford-Kilkenny conclusion, it was sufficient to induce that keening note of anxiety from the crowd which marks the true nail-biter.

As a finish it was of a piece with the beginning. In fairness to Tipp keeper Darren Gleeson, his flick over a Galway player’s head in the opening minutes was a decent attempt to set the tone (what is it about overhead flicks and players called Gleeson?) We also had an early goal, just as in Thurles.

Conor Cooney advanced on the Tipp goal with seven minutes gone, full of uncharitable intent. Cooney delayed before goaling with a bullet strike: the lesson for any youngster watching is to take that extra step before picking your spot to make sure (and oldsters too, maybe: a couple of Waterford players might profit from a promise not to shoot directly off the stick in future).

The Swings: Noel McGrath tested the crossbar and Conor Cooney pointed before the sharp intake of breath could be exhaled.

The middle of the first half belonged to Tipp, hitting five points on the spin and motoring smoothly.

Galway were ahead on 25 minutes, though, thanks to a rake of Joe Canning frees and fine long-range strikes from Adrian Tuohy and Joseph Cooney. And four Tipperary wides.

The exchanges were testing, even if they didn’t have the edge of desperation we saw the previous evening.

In his memoirs Richard Nixon said Eisenhower was as devious as any other politician despite the avuncular image, adding, “and I mean that in the best possible sense.”

If the intensity in general yesterday didn’t match the savagery in Thurles, where savagery is meant in the best possible sense, Galway-Tipp exceeded Waterford-Kilkenny at least once.

When Joe Canning came along the sideline on 23 minutes he was met by Padraic Maher. The defender-meets-forward-at-right-angles is a long-standing feature of the game.

The collision of the two big men had us calling on fragments of physics to work out mass and impact, but credit both for getting on with the game.

Credit referee Barry Kelly also for calling it what it was, a legitimate challenge, and on the best display of inter-county refereeing by far this observer has seen this year.

Tipp were rusty enough in that first-half, and it might have gotten worse for them if Conor Cooney had been quicker to get a shot off late on; as it was Padraic Maher denied him with a hook for the ages.

Half-time: Galway 1-10, Tipperary 0-11, but Tuohy and Canning both gone off.

The Swings, part II: Cyril Donnellan almost freed David Burke to go straight through the Tipp centre, and when the ball was cleared, Callanan was heroic in denying John McGrath from close range.

The resultant 65, pointed by Callanan, put Tipp ahead, but Joseph Cooney intercepted a Tipp handpass and, like his namesake, advanced as close as he could to the Tipp goal before finishing clinically.

With the game in the balance, then, Tipperary sub John O’Dwyer goaled from a tight angle, and a minute later Seamus Callanan conjured up a goal-scoring assist to John McGrath. Those were the hammer blows that halted Galway, despite the massive shift put in by David Burke.

Bald description doesn’t quite do justice to those interventions, mind you: Callanan’s scoop across the goalmouth was an improvisation Miles Davis would have claimed proudly, a play which wrong-footed the Galway backs utterly.

As for O’Dwyer’s extraordinary goal, struck down with heavy topspin past the advancing Callanan . . . talent does what it can, but genius does what it must. Galway closed within a point but didn’t look like hitting the third goal they probably needed; in truth Tipp made heavy weather of closing the game out, but they did.

In the maroon corner Micheal Donoghue’s appraisal afterwards was level-headed.

“We probably have to watch it back and see where… I think with the lads, their work-rate and maybe coming back the field and stuff, maybe there was one or two clearances that went up and then the Tipp boys got them and it was just straight back down on top of us.

But I suppose that’s just the way the game was. There’s probably periods on reflection of it near the end, maybe we should have carried a bit more, maybe we should have taken it on a bit more and gotten a score or maybe… sure, look, there’s always ifs and buts, isn’t there?”

There are.

The crowd were still emptying out of the stadium and Michael Ryan was looking to the next day out, and the next level up.

“I think we’re going to have to find a level of intensity far more consistent than we were able to show out there today.

“At times we got to it but not nearly a consistently enough and that’s the challenge. We’re playing the masters of intensity, they showed it again last night, that level of intensity that got them through their semi-final.

“That’s something we’re going to have to work on but you know, if I was sitting here telling you that we were perfect, we’d be in some trouble.”

Ryan will know well that while places in the All-Ireland final don’t come with an asterisk, the departure of Joe Canning removed a serious threat to Tipperary yesterday.

More significantly, perhaps, Seamus Callanan didn’t score from play, a stat which would be damaging if repeated in an All-Ireland final against Kilkenny. If three more starting forwards don’t score from play, as happened yesterday, it might be fatal.

On the other hand, Ryan will have noted the injury Michael Fennelly picked up on Saturday night in Thurles: anything that requires a stretcher for the big man from Ballyhale is likely to keep him out of the All-Ireland final. The loss of Fennelly might be said to balance out the benefit to Kilkenny of that extra game against Waterford.

Can Tipperary bring the same power and drive to bear against Kilkenny, or will the Cats find a way - some way, somehow - to be ahead at the final whistle?

Forked and playful the lightning may be, but it usually comes with thunder. In three weeks’ time there’ll be nowhere to hide from the storm.