Ryan says questions remain over final defences

It was a bittersweet visit to Croke Park for TJ Ryan three weeks ago.

The Limerick hurling manager enjoyed the spectacle of the All-Ireland final, but having lost the semi-final narrowly, he couldn’t help thinking of what might have been.

“It’s a bit bittersweet, watching the game from the stand the last day, you’d be thinking, ‘we’d love to be there’, but Kilkenny did the business on the day against us.

“You have to admire teams which can win games, and they’ve been doing that for years. We were in good shape and we did well, but in retrospect we needed more just to get over the line.”

Ryan agrees with the subsequent rating of the game as one of the greatest ever, albeit with caveats.

“For scoring, pace, excitement, I thought it was definitely up there, though I thought the Kilkenny-Tipperary games in 2010, 2011 might have been slightly more intense, slightly more physical, in comparison, but that’s just my opinion.

“Question marks about the defending? I suppose you’d be thinking beforehand that 23, 24 points would probably win you the game, so 1-28 and 3-22 were certainly above average, in terms of the rate of scoring.

“That might raise a few questions about defending, and certainly the centre of both defences came under intense pressure the last day — it’ll be interesting to see how the two managers decide to set up this evening to try to counteract that. Will they stay the same, will they change? That’s a big challenge.”

Given Tipperary left five goalscoring chances and a brace of penalties unconverted the last day, there’s a perception they may have more room to improve.

“Their forwards are very good, which we knew,” says Ryan.

“The questions would probably be further back the field. They had a little trouble at 6 with both (Padraic and Brendan) Mahers, leaking a few scores, so on that basis, there’s room for improvement. They can get better.

“On the other hand, Kilkenny will probably look back at that Richie Power chance late on which could have put them four points clear, and if that had gone over, they’d have been in a very strong position, with so little time left. As it was, there was a two-point swing, in that Tipp came back down the field and were able to get a score themselves.

“But that underlines how many goalscoring chances there were in the game, and both camps will want to reduce the number of chances.

“Both sets of forwards are very sharp, very accurate, and the free-flowing game suited both sets, so I think both managers will want to cut down on that.”

Another intriguing question is the mindset of both sets of forwards. Ryan detected a lust for goals in the drawn game: “When a goal chance comes your way, then you have to go for it, but there was something different the way both sides approached it the last day. There was huge intent from both sides to go for goals. On more than one occasion there were points there for the taking but forwards on both sides put the head down and went for goals. On both sides managers will want to cut down on those chances, but will they tell their forwards to go for goal as often?”