Stopping Eoin Kelly...
IT was widely rumoured during the week that the evergreen Tony Browne would drop back and pick up Eoin Kelly for Waterford yesterday, but in the event it was newcomer Denis Coffey who went out to the hot corner, as they call it in American football.
His man finished with 2-9, 2-3 of which came from play.
Perhaps Waterford’s problems began there — Browne, a natural midfielder/wing-back, wouldn’t have the destructive inclinations of a number two or four, and would probably have tried to play Kelly from the front.
Would he have been a better option? Those lazily criticising the Waterford approach should remember that Mark Foley, a ball-player rather than a marker, was given the Kelly assignment in the Tipp-Limerick game — and got barbecued.
Coffey adopted a more orthodox corner-back approach and suffered for it, so the next lazy assumption is “the supply” — Waterford knew well that Tipperary would try to feed Kelly at every opportunity, and that the traditional way to stymie a corner-forward is to cut off the source, so why didn’t they do that?
For this the words “easier said than done” were minted.
As Anthony Daly said last week about Cork’s running game, a lot of people have opinions but it’s not quite as easy to put theories into practice; the Munster championship isn’t the same as laboratory-controlled conditions. People forget that the entire Tipperary approach is geared to benefit Kelly, but that’s not just a matter of hitting the ball in his general direction.
For instance, even though he’s not Tipp’s tallest forward Kelly is good in the air, but the Premier County don’t believe in putting him at a disadvantage under the dropping ball. All through the game Diarmuid Fitzgerald and Micheál Webster were trying to work their men away from the goalmouth in order to leave Kelly going one-on-one with Coffey on the edge of the square.
In addition, “the supply” isn’t about an elegant centre-fielder squinting at his intended target. It also refers to the provision of chances by Kelly’s fellow forwards: when Diarmuid Fitzgerald careered through in the eighth minute he had the presence of mind to lay the ball off to the man from Mullinahone for a goal.
Waterford might have done better with Kelly last year, though. In 2005 he frequently drifted outfield in championship games, often hovering in the centre-forward’s slot; though he scored a memorable point against Clare in Limerick from this general area, it naturally reduced his goal-scoring chances.
This year Kelly has stayed in the red zone; if he had come outfield against Waterford he’d have faced probably their strongest line on the day — Browne-McGrath/Murray-Phelan — but he kept within striking distance of goal.
Waterford can take some comfort: Kelly’s most significant weapon is a talent for improvisation Miles Davis would envy, and that’s impossible to legislate against, as Babs Keating said yesterday. His second goal and last two points from play could only have been scored by Eoin Kelly, for instance.
Waterford might have held the centre for Kelly’s second green flag, but they’re not the first to suffer at his hands. They won’t be the last.
