Cunningham and Canning bemused at Tipp tactics

It was the major talking-point during the game, it was the major talking-point immediately after the game, it’s been the major talking-point ever since.

Tipperary tactics in last Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC semi-final loss to Kilkenny were a total reversal of the normal, as one of hurling’s top forwards, Lar Corbett, was detailed to ‘mark’ one of hurling’s top defenders, Tommy Walsh.

Kilkenny had already decided that another defender, Jackie Tyrrell, would in fact be the man they would delegate to pick up Lar, which, for the 50,000+ crowd in Croke Park and the millions watching on TV, led to the unfolding of some truly bizarre scenes. It also led to several unsavoury incidents and left hurling purists with a very sour taste.

Yesterday, at the launch of this Saturday’s Trip To Tipp, the two All-Ireland U21 hurling semi-finals in Thurles (Clare v Antrim 4pm,Galway v Kilkenny 6pm), it came up again.

Ger Cunningham (former Cork goalkeeping great, current Cork senior hurling selector) and Joe Canning (current Galway senior star) are both Bord Gais hurling ambassadors (Bord Gais are the U21 championship main sponsors). They appeared to be as bemused by what they saw as everyone else.

Cunningham: “I suppose people are just trying to come to terms with it really, the situation where one of the best forwards of the last couple of years is running around after adefender. It was just... it caughteveryone by surprise. Obviously it was a tactic, every manager will try and come up with a different tactic and will see how it works but it was obvious after 10 or 15 minuets that it wasn’t going to work, even though Tommy was out of the game and so was Lar, because he was anonymous really.

“You would imagine that if something wasn’t working you would change it and it took them a long time to do that.”

Cunningham had the advantage of being in Croke Park, watching the drama unfold off the ball even as the TV cameras were following play.Canning was at home in Portumna but even on TV he could see — this was all a little bit strange. Canning said: “It was a funny game.Obviously, Kilkenny were very impressive in the second half. Tipp kinda — their game-plan didn’t work and it was visible for everyone to see.”

The mistake teams make when trying to beat Kilkenny, reckonsCanning, is that they can be toonegative in their tactical thinking. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t actually think about the opposition but this thing about trying to counteract them — I don’t believe in it.

“It’s very, very hard to try and negate a team like Kilkenny — you can’t. They have so many players — lads they didn’t even bring in off the subs’ bench — that you can’t try and take them out of the game.”

Be positive, he says, as Galway were in their Leinster final win over the Cats, as they intend to be again in the All-Ireland final.

“You have to do your own thing and, hopefully, that will work. If it doesn’t, fair enough. But you have to be confident in your own ability, have the belief in your own set-up. We’re just trying to bring that belief to Croke Park. We have to concentrate on ourselves, bring our style of play to the game and, hopefully, that will be good enough.

“I’m sure Kilkenny won’t be concentrating too much on us. That’s how they’re so successful over the past number of years. We hear it time and again, that they just worry about themselves and getting the performance. Any successful team, and any team that tries to match them, needs to do the same thing.”

It’s not that this upcoming senior All-Ireland final won’t be tactical — it will, says Canning, but only in a positive sense. “We’ll have our tactics and they’ll have theirs — I don’t think it’s going to change much from any other game. Obviously they’ll want to impose theirs on us, and likewise with ours on them. Whatever team gets the breaks and the bit of luck on the day will win.”

Good or bad though, tactics are here to stay — get used to it, says Cunningham: “It’s just evolution. Hurling is changing all the time and some people mightn’t like the way it’s going, they’d like to see the traditional two midfielders, three half-forwards, three full-forwards. That day is probably gone.

“You’re going to see different variations of forward play and if that means pulling a defender out or pulling the half-forwards out or whatever, things are going to change. You’ll see an evolution of that happening the whole time — hopefully it wouldn’t get to the situation where it becomes a farce.”