TONY CONSIDINE: Dublin and Galway pay price for lack of teamwork

The only good thing about the two semi-finals in Thurles yesterday was the pitch.

The games? Forgettable.

It was all so easy for Tipperary in the first game but what is it about Dublin? Hurling is a very simple game but they make it look so difficult. There was no pattern to their play with aimless striking of the ball and no aggression. They don’t seem to realise either that hurling is a team game; all over the field Anthony Daly’s team are playing as individuals.

The only guys I could pick out for Dublin who were playing hurling as it’s meant to be played at this level were young Danny Sutcliffe at wing-forward and Shane Durkin, especially when he moved to midfield.

Dotsy O’Callaghan was reasonable but you’d expect more from a man of his experience at this stage.

Contrast that with Tipperary, and with their forwards especially. Inside 18 minutes, every one of the starting sextet had scored. Look how impressive the youngster Jason Forde was in this, a league semi-final. Jason is only 19 but looked streets ahead of almost any Dublin forward.

The less said about the game the better. Suffice to say that if Tipperary had really wanted to, they could have won this game by 30 points rather than 15. They got no test from Dublin and it confirmed what many of us feared, that there’s a huge gap between the best in Division 1A and the best in Division 1B. In fact Dublin yesterday looked like they had gone back even from last year.

This was a terrible game and the reflection here is on the players, not on the management. The Dublin players left themselves down.

The second game was slightly better fare. For over half-an-hour it looked like we were going to have a real game on our hands but when will Galway ever learn how to play against Kilkenny? First off all you’ve got to get your defence right against Kilkenny — and them from the west didn’t do that. When you’re building a house the first thing you get right is the foundation. It’s the same principle when you’re building a hurling team. Surely, with all the teams and all the clubs they have in Galway, they must have two men capable of manning the two pivotal positions, full-back and centre-back.

Why did they take off young Niall Donoghue after only 16 minutes of play? In my opinion he’s the Galway full-back-in-waiting yet he got no real chance yesterday.

Then there’s the kind of ball you deliver to your attack; blazing ball up into the air against the Kilkenny backs, you’re only asking for it to be sent straight back down to you again by JJ Delaney and company.

We did have highlights, Galway highlights even, and Colm Callanan’s saves will be talked about for the rest of the year. Cyril Donnellan also did very well. Other than those it’s very hard to find a Galway player who did well for the full 70 minutes.

Kilkenny though are still the benchmark. There was a lot of talk about the fact that Brian Cody wasn’t on the sideline this week. You could have Mother Teresa there and it would make no difference. Why? Because the leaders are on the field.

Count them out. Goalkeeper Eoin Murphy is in his first year but is already in charge of that defence. Look outside him — Paul Murphy came back with a bang, JJ was brilliant, Jackie Tyrrell likewise, guarding the goals like their lives depended on it. Midfielder Lester Ryan is nearly in line for player-of-the-year the way he’s going, in his first year while Michael Rice was back to his best yesterday.

When Kilkenny really needed scores again, who was the main man again? Richie Hogan, another who’s having an outstanding year. What I love about this Kilkenny attack is that they win their own ball. When you have forwards like that, when you have defenders that are able to mark their own man, who needs tactics? Look at how simple Cillian Buckley made the game look when taking his point with his first touch of the game, his first touch of the year. Contrast that with Galway’s efforts to make goals from easy point-scoring opportunities. Contrast the teamwork involved in it with Dublin’s individual style.

To sum up, you have to say the two best teams in the country are in the final. Hopefully they’ll serve up better than what we say yesterday. It won’t be difficult...