O’Neill’s evolution theory

Dónal Óg Cusack didn’t so much have a cut at Tipperary during the Irish Examiner hurling championship round table discussion a fortnight back, more pointed out a glaring truth.

“Tipperary have lovely hurlers and yet of all the innovators of the game, they have not brought their own stamp to it in recent years,” he asserted.

“When they beat Kilkenny in 2010, they went reluctantly into that style of game. In fairness, they went there and yet you always had the feeling that they never wanted to be involved in that hand-to-hand combat that we saw for those three All-Ireland finals.”

And so the question was put to Tipp coach Paudie O’Neill as to what style they would employ this summer.

Would they seek to mirror the sweeper system adopted by the All-Ireland champions or would they stamp their own mark on hurling’s 2014 edition, perhaps the short passing game which saw Darren Gleeson’s free trickle out over the sideline at the end of the league final?

“You look at hurling in the last couple of years, it has evolved and evolved again,” mused the St Colmcille’s, Knocklyon primary school principal.

“What is characterising it now is the amazing amount of thought being put in by teams with regard to their style of play and how they are going to take on different opposition. The whole thing is evolving. In the last five or six years it has evolved to such an extent that it probably surpassed anything that went on in the 15 years before that.

“It is inevitable that whatever team wins the All-Ireland they become the benchmark. Whatever style they adopt it does percolate down. It percolates down to the U12 teams in clubs and people tend to adopt that approach. The answer is it will affect teams in that they are working to counteract that style.

“Ultimately you play to the strengths of your players. You play to the spirit and philosophy of your own county and that would be important to Tipperary in the way we play the game. I don’t think it is a case of throwing everything out and beginning again. It is a question of modifying and adapting to new situations.”

Reflecting on a disappointing 2013 campaign, manager Eamon O’Shea said his charges were “too mechanical”, “lacked fluency” and simply “didn’t have a rhythm to their play”.

O’Neill agrees with each point, but insists the issues have been ironed out. How else would they have staggered into the league decider, staving off both All-Ireland finalists along the way, or, indeed brought Kilkenny to extra-time?

And so to tomorrow and the opportunity to right the wrongs of 12 months ago. Surely their league final performance suggests a corner is being turned at precisely the required time.

“The danger for us is that that was an excellent game and it had everything, but that really has no relevance to what will happen against Limerick.

“Genuinely, guys know you cannot afford to spend time living off the positives or drowning your sorrows in the negatives of a game. You could sense a line had been drawn and we had moved on by the time we departed the dressing room.

“We didn’t match Limerick’s intensity during the critical periods last year, but what was striking when we did exit Munster and we would have lads with three and four Munster medals was that they were absolutely gutted. The Munster championship is still a highly prized medal for people like myself who grew up during the barren periods of the ’70s and ’80s. Not alone could we not win a Munster championship, we couldn’t win a match.”