No designated penalty taker for Tipp, vows selector O’Neill

Who will take a penalty should Tipperary be awarded one Saturday?

One thing’s for certain: it won’t be Eamon O’Shea or his selectors who decide.

After Seamus Callanan mishit their first-half penalty in the drawn All-Ireland final, John O’Dwyer took over duties for the second after the interval.

That decision wasn’t made on the sideline or dressing room but by the players.

“That’s something we have beentrying to develop,” says selector Paudie O’Neill, “players on the field makedecisions and they don’t always have to look to sideline.”

There won’t be any orders given on this occasion. Even though the pair had their shots saved, one of them could easily step up to another again.

“Eamon and ourselves, we don’t given them specific instructions of x, y and z going out. On the field, they have to make the decisions but obviously the penalty scoring ratio has dropped very significantly this year.

“So players will discuss it and are aware that the chances of scoring a goal have gone down. So you have to ask ‘do you take the point and put it in the bag?’

“But there won’t be instructions, I’m certain of that.”

It may have hindered Tipperary the last day but O’Neill is supportive of the principle behind the new rule interpretation.

“The change with the (Anthony) Nash rule, I would have agreed with. It had got to the ridiculous stage and ad hoc in training I asked Jason Forde had he tried the Nash technique. He said ‘yeah I’ve been doing a bit of it’ and he literally threw the ball up and I’d say he was within touching distance of the line.”

The Clonmel man likes the idea of only two players being allowed on the goal-line. “I think one on the line, any top-class penalty taker with only one person on the line, it would be difficult. Two people, they might have to change it again if the stats were very low but I think three anyway is no longer giving a benefit to the forward.”

Just as Anthony Nash found a loophole, what is there to say more hurling rules won’t be more manipulated?

“There’s two things there. Everything is evolving the whole time and people are trying to come up with things.

“Then there’s the Irish psyche of when there’s a rule, we like to come up with some way of getting around it. I think we’re pretty masterful at that, it’s part of our culture nearly.

“I can’t predict what the next one will be but I suspect there will be one there.

“People put a lot of thought into these things.”

While the debate remains whether the two fouls actually occurred in the penalty area, Tipperary have managed to cope in Croke Park this year without too many frees in their opponents’ half.

Four were awarded against Kilkenny while in the Cork semi-final only one came their way.

“There is no point in blaming the referee,” argues O’Neill about the first game against Kilkenny. “We didn’t have an issue with the referee. He reffed it as he saw it. I thought the last day, it was pretty even steven. It was pretty okay.”

But how different will Brian Gavin be to Barry Kelly? “Brian Gavin is an experienced referee. He’s been around the place a lot. We wouldn’t have any issue. It’s not something that’s at the top of our minds.

“I think the referees, to be fair to them, it’s not a job I’d like myself.Going out in front of 83,000 people, there’s an enormous scrutiny on them. I know from the limited interaction with them, they prepare very well. And they really are scrupulous in their preparation, the way they approach games. They will make mistakes but that’s something that’s part of it.”