Boys Eoin stuff for clinical Kelly

THERE WAS a sub-plot to yesterday’s All-Ireland SHC semi-final between Waterford and Tipperary, and not a minor sub-plot either.

Whoever came out on top in the battle of the Eoin Kellys, went the pre-game wisdom, would win this war. They weren’t in direct opposition And yet in a sense this was indeed mano-a-mano; each Eoin Kelly, Waterford and Tipperary, is the team’s leading marksman, its talisman.

On this occasion, crucially, Waterford Eoin had the better support cast. 1-9 he scored, 1-2 of that from play, against Tipp Eoin’s 0-8, but the Mount Sion/Passage man saw much more of the action, much more good clean open ball — a tribute to those out the field and those alongside him up front, all duly accredited by Eoin.

“The boys are winning the frees, it’s easy enough to hit them over. I wasn’t really happy with my first-half performance, there were a couple of shots, easy shots, I should have put over. The lads have been great all year, especially John (Mullane) and Eoin (McGrath) on either side, they’ve been winning a lot of frees. Everyone is just playing well at the moment. I don’t know if it’s experience or just hard work but we spoke a lot about it, about just working hard — we never spoke about having been here five times before, or being beaten five times, no point in talking about that. We just said we’d work hard from the first minute to the 73rd, the 74th; don’t look at the scoreboard, just keep working, and that’s what we did.”

The backs were tremendous, both lines of defence, but up front the work was also put in, a couple of block downs celebrated like they had been scores. “In the last couple of games we weren’t working hard enough. You look at Kilkenny last week (against Cork), they were unbelievable. Their blocking down, their harassing of the Cork forwards — they are the benchmark.”

While Tipp’s Eoin was doing his bit at the one end, six first-half points inspiring a comeback after Waterford had raced into an early six-point lead, his Waterford namesake matched him almost score for score at the other, five first-half points as the sides went in level, 0-10 apiece.

The second half was when the gap opened, the goal the difference. Dream ball in from Dan Shanahan, doubled on at the first attempt by the Waterford Eoin but brilliantly saved by Brendan Cummins — he didn’t miss the second time. “It came back on the side I was on — you need a bit of luck and we haven’t had it for the last few years. But you earn your luck also and the training we’ve been doing for the last 12 weeks has been great. There’s a huge belief in this camp, everyone is playing for each other.”

At the other end that bit of luck was marked only by its absence. Tipp quickly negated that Waterford goal, a cool finish from Seamus Callinan regaining the lead for the Munster champions, but stuck as he was in the corner, Eoin could only watch in frustration as all the chances, all the breaks, fell to team-mates closer to the red-zone. Lar Corbett blazed wide from a narrow angle, young Callinan had a second goal effort superbly saved by Clinton Hennessey, and substitute full-forward Micheál Webster had his rebound effort shoved out for a 65, subsequently missed by Eoin. Tipp supporters were quick to point to this as a turning-point, conveniently forgetting that Waterford’s Eoin had just missed a 65 at the other end. Waterford Eoin didn’t miss his final three efforts, however, the second a free from halfway, the last a point-blank shot that rocketed over the bar from the crossbar.

Won this one, and now Waterford go on to that long-awaited All-Ireland final, a final they failed to reach five times in the last 11 years, four of those under previous manager Justin McCarthy. As a senior player, Eoin was one of those behind the heave after the first round Munster championship loss to Clare, a heave that saw Justin leave. Justified now? “I suppose it looks like it; we didn’t like to do what we did, Justin is a nice man, a good hurling man — no-one liked doing what we did. We felt we were just missing that little something to reach an All-Ireland final, something we didn’t feel we were going to get from Justin. There are lads in their 30s who have never played in an All-Ireland final. We just felt we needed a something little different.”

And the feeling now? “It hasn’t sunk it yet. We’ve been trying for so long, it probably won’t hit us ‘til tomorrow. The one thing I hope is that it doesn’t bypass us now; we’re in the final, we haven’t been there for so long, but there’s no point going there just to make up the numbers.”

As for his namesake, no cast lost in defeat, but no consolation in that. “When you get the chance of reaching an All-Ireland final you have to take it — that was our goal and we’re bitterly disappointed.”