Michael Moynihan: Hurling’s 2015 grand design

Sunday’s Munster final wasn’t a classic of the genre, by general consensus, though it was still a very good game.

Does that matter? To a certain constituency, the Munster hurling final will always have carry a little of the old Woody Allen line about an entirely different activity: The worst one you could imagine was still right on the money.

Still, the obvious question is what differentiated this year’s edition from the previous unquestioned classic of the genre.

Go back to 2004 for the great Cork-Waterford clash which was won by the Déise and you had all the elements: Superb goals, errors, individual brilliance, a sending-off, drama at the death.

It was also sunnier than last weekend, which never hurts.

But even then the trace elements of the modern game were in evidence. Cork were motoring along with a running/possession game, while Waterford’s lightning improvisations were the way of the past rather than the road to the future.

Tactics and structure are now part of the equation. Take two completely non-random quotes from after Sunday’s game.

“It was two hard teams, a really tense game that didn’t really open up yet I thought both teams were probing all the time,” said Tipp boss Eamon O’Shea.

“Obviously, it was an extremely tactical battle. Tipperary were just that bit more fluid than us all day. I thought we got a real grip in the middle part of the first half. We looked like we were able to grind it out, our much vaunted system was up and running.”

The words of Waterford manager Derek McGrath.

More evidence? On Saturday evening, Cork and Clare played out a tight qualifier game which the Rebels eventually won by three points.

“Everybody’s trying to work out the system that suits their own players best... early on we tried different things, we weren’t sure how we would play.”

So said Jimmy Barry-Murphy of Cork after that match.

In the Clare corner Davy Fitzgerald was even more specific: “The reason there were so many wides, if you look at the game, the Cork half-forward line play right out, plus an extra one, and our half-forwards played right out, plus an extra one.

“That means you are going to have 20-plus bodies in around the middle and it’s going to be hard to get shots in, it’s pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure.”

Is this a turning point in the game, or can we finesse the point a little more — is it a turning point in our general appreciation of the game?

One of the expressions which necessitates a trip to the swear jar is the exhortation to a hurling team to “throw the shackles off” and “play with abandon”.

This is not the same thing as playing with freedom within a structure, which is a working option in every open team sport, though traditionalists are suspicious of how much tactical structure can be applied in a game where the ball can travel 100 metres in one direction and 100 metres in the opposite direction in the time it takes to read that sentence.

Yet structure was in plain sight in Semple Stadium on Sunday with the freedom afforded to Tadhg de Burca and Padraic Maher for Waterford and Tipperary respectively, and both players were hugely influential over the 70 minutes.

Expect more games like Sunday — and Saturday’s — rather than fewer.

The next stage in tactical development will probably focus on the end game in those matches: Cork and Tipperary made their winning bursts in the final 10 minutes, as did Dublin against Limerick in the other qualifier.

That may be partly down to the tightness of the scorelines combined with natural fatigue as players approach the end, but are we about to see different strategies come into play as players see the stewards in their high-vis vests assemble for end-of-match positions?

Most readers are probably aware of the two-minute drill in American football, where a team tries to make the most of the last two minutes to get a decisive score.

How far away is the 10-minute drill in hurling, where a team organises its approach to closing out a game?