Reid brings curtain down in style

Lyric comes before epic, the Greeks tell us, so we’ll start there.

The opera that was yesterday’s NHL final in Semple Stadium reduces pretty quickly to a few notes played along the left wing facing the Town End, with TJ Reid lining up an unlikely winner from a distant sideline cut.

“I thought he was going for it,” said his team-mate Richie Hogan.

“I backed off because of that but then I went looking for it and he gave the ball to me. I was shaping one way but I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye and left it back to him.

“It was a very tight angle but, in fairness to him, the way he was hitting the ball all day, I thought he’d do it.”

He did it all right. Reid’s late, late score ended a game which had lurched one way and the other all day, and which neither team had claimed as their own until the Ballyhale man’s point with 90 minutes on the clock.

Conclusions, ladies and gentlemen?

First, there can be no other county which relies on duende the way Tipperary do.

Yesterday in Semple Stadium was more league than final until Tipperary got a goal, or maybe until James Woodlock was floored by Michael Fennelly, or some other point at which the blood rose for the home support and their players got in touch, finally, with their inner selves. Hence the roof-lifting reception for Kieran Bergin’s equaliser at the end of normal time.

Duende? Sorry, it’s Mediterranean spirit. Brio. Soul.

In comparison, Kilkenny look as machine-tooled as a Mercedes, but check out TJ Reid’s winner for precision and efficiency: German engineering rarely fails.

The entire game wasn’t on that level: for much of the first half the most fascinating side-show was the choreography 70 yards from the puck-out. When Tipperary were restarting, centre-back Brendan Maher stayed deep, away from his man, Richie Hogan, who in turn dropped to the middle of the field.

When Eoin Murphy hit the ball out he often had a thicket of blue and gold jerseys beneath his deliveries, with Tipp crowding the landing zone to good effect. All this talk about Stephen Cluxton and his options has blinded us, maybe, to the way hurling keepers have been forced to go short and use angles — precisely when most of them can hit the ball further than any of their predecessors.

Still, Kilkenny looked good for their win with time winding down.

They worked their points with confidence: witness the necklace of passes between Eoin Murphy, Richie Hogan, Eoin Larkin and Michael Fennelly for the last-named’s point in normal time. That originated in a feeble Tipperary effort which died in the Kilkenny square but was recycled for a terrific score by the Cats.

Eventually Bergin managed that equaliser deep, deep in injury-time from one of those deliveries, though he could thank the indefatigable Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher for the pass. That opened the door to extra-time and, eventually, Reid’s fine winner.

Eamon O’Shea was pragmatic in defeat: “I can’t change what happened. What happens in a game happens in a game,” said the Tipp boss. “You get penalties, you don’t get penalties. I could spend my life worrying about this but I have to move on. I’m just really proud of the players — they put in a huge effort. I’m not going to be critical of anybody. That’s a game that has to be refereed in real time.”

His opposite number was ebullient at the final whistle and noted Kilkenny were in a better place this year than they were last year, significantly enough.

“We won last year and we didn’t perform particularly well in many of the matches,” said Brian Cody.

“I would say overall we’ve been better but as well as that, we’ve exhausted the panel fairly much and given game time to lots of players.

“And we start to look to the first round of the Leinster championship against Offaly. Last year we were ripped apart by them several times for goals.

“The reality is, we’re delighted to win this but it has no bearing on the respective strength of the team for the championship except to say that right now, we’re happy with where we are.”

Other conclusions? Neither half of normal time was particularly happy for Henry Shefflin, who went off early in extra-time after a heavy challenge.

We focus on him because we’re in countdown mode with his career: these days are significant.

We may have moved beyond Peak Shefflin, just as we have moved beyond Peak oil, but the rousing reception for the wides he struck shows the fear the Ballyhale man can still strike in opposition supporters, and Shefflin was still able to improvise the Mark Kelly penalty which TJ Reid scored following an Anthony Nash-esque lift (we presume here that a letter of protest has already been posted to HIQA, signed E Keher).

Expect the familiar warnings to be issued to Kilkenny, and about Kilkenny. That they remain vulnerable to pace, for instance, as though every other team which ever existed were somehow not vulnerable to pace.

That last score should stand as a warning, though.

Lyric or epic, the best always find a way.