For Waterford, every bullet has to be made count

Is it too obvious to say the challengers will hold out for 60 minutes at Croke Park today, after which the dam bursts? Either way, expect the defence of the feline realm to endure for another month.

A year or two ago one of Britain’s spy chiefs ended up in hot water after being photographed on his way into a Downing Street spy-chief conclave carrying a clear plastic bag with notes for the meeting visible facing out.

“Send more agents to Moscow. Organise honeytrap for Silvio (shouldn’t be hard). Buy bread and milk on way home.” That kind of thing.

Cue much horror about the defence of the realm, the imminence of the apocalypse and so on.

Incredibly for a man so well organised, Derek McGrath made a similar mistake on the way to training the other night.

Yours truly was lurking outside Walsh Park, peering out from a blaa van, and managed to snatch a quick glimpse of Waterford’s cunning plan for today from inside its plastic cover.

And cunning it most certainly is, being so deep and devious as to be beyond mortal ken, entirely unguessable to even the shrewdest of hurling folk. It goes like this.

1. Don’t concede an early goal.

2. Don’t concede a late goal.

3. Don’t concede a goal just before half-time.

4. Don’t concede a goal just after half-time.

5. Double mark TJ Reid.

6.Double mark Richie Hogan.

7. Tell Socky not to butcher any more short clearances like the two he did against Tipp.

8. Tell Colin D not to hit the ball straight at Eoin Murphy like he did with big Gleeson.

9. Get Aussie G forward as often as possible.

10. Er, that’s about it...

Okay, maybe not too many surprises there. But ask yourself this, just for a moment. What if McGrath gambles today? What if he opts to seize the day instead of stacking his defence?

Stakes his chips on getting off to a flier and leading by, say, 1-3 to no score after eight minutes? Having had two outings since Kilkenny’s last fixture the underdogs should be able to hit the ground running. Then, an early advantage built up, the shutters come down and it’s all hands to the pump for the next hour. McGrath with his two banks of four, or rather his three banks of three with auxiliaries dropping deep from all directions to fill in the blanks. This is our truth, show us yours.

In passing, Waterford’s defensive configuration is — give or take the role of Tadhg De Búrca — not all that dissimilar to the way Kilkenny have set up these many years. Three and three and one (a defensive midfielder) and three, with the wing-forwards dropping back to bolster midfield on the opposition puckout. The difference is the numbers the All-Ireland champions commit to attack. Waterford have matriculated in the flying-column approach; Tom Barry would have loved them. Kilkenny go full-on tank division at the Kursk.

Anyway. Waterford attempting an early blitzkrieg? Scarcely. Their defensive shield is both psychological balm and attacking platform. Getting to the interval without conceding a goal, or at any rate without conceding two goals, is their first priority. Being still upright when the bell sounds for the last round is their sole duty. There are no brownie points for having a cut or simulating the Harlem Globetrotters.

Admittedly an issue will arise if the challengers enter the closing minutes within striking distance but needing scores, as was the case against Tipperary.

Will McGrath grasp the nettle and commit men forward? Surely. May as well be hung for a sheep, etc.

For one thing, it’s not as though Kilkenny still possess such abundant resources as to render them the no-brainer choice to win a tight match by draining their bench.

For another, given that Waterford took Tipperary to the wire or near enough, what possible cause have they to be terrified of opponents missing Richie Power and a fully fit Michael Fennelly? Be wary of them, yes. Fearful, no.

But Kilkenny have seen them coming, as Tipp had for the Munster final. Whether Waterford have anything to hit them with from left field is another matter.

To say that Brian Cody doesn’t like curve balls is not untrue yet not the whole truth. It’s more that he’s been there so long we remember the curveballs he’s had thrown at him and the difficulty he’s had coping with some of them, Clare in 2004 being the first and in some ways still the most memorable.

In the ten and a bit seasons since the 2005 All-Ireland semi-final the only teams to split Kilkenny open were Tipperary twice, in 2010 and last year’s drawn final, and Galway in the 2012 provincial decider. That’s 44 matches in 47 where the curveballs were anticipated, where Cody got his planning right and where the early-warning system did its job. The man has almost single-handedly excised the phrase “It’s all on the day” from the vocabulary of pre-match punditry.

The logistical issue that eventually did for Waterford in the Munster final has not gone away: getting enough ball into the right areas so that the two or three men ploughing furrows up front are neither shooting from inhospitable ranges and angles nor dragging at their efforts when they do shoot.

Not only that, the underdogs will not win without scoring a goal. They’re unlikely to score a goal without Austin Gleeson having a hand in it, whether providing the killer pass or charging through from deep. Anyone, to paraphrase Radiohead, can play right-half back, relatively speaking, and Gleeson at midfield would give Kilkenny something to worry about. The return of Darragh Fives allows him to be redeployed.

One would be slightly fearful as regards Maurice Shanahan continuing his recent gaiscí. He is tall but he’s not big. Not really. Not in the displacing-water department. Still, Jackie Tyrrell will not be there to greet him with an iron fist in an iron glove.

At the other end of the field Barry Coughlan will be tethered to Tadgh De Búrca by means of an invisible rope, with TJ Reid at its midpoint. They’ll also have one of the midfielders sitting back on top of Richie Hogan, cutting off his air supply, a gambit Waterford made a mess of in the 2010 semi-final when Noel McGrath was the target.

Yet a defensive outlook must not be allowed become a pathology. Sandbagging their own 65-metre line will invite Kilkenny’s half-backs, all of whom can score from distance, to have a pot.

Nothing saps the will of a team quite like a point from one of the enemy’s half-backs. It won’t be beyond the bounds of improbability if Paul Murphy scores a point either.

Some other observations.

WLR FM’s Kieran O’Connor had the usual bunch of us from the press box along giving, um, expert opinion at half-time in Waterford/Dublin. Your correspondent ventured that in view of the Déise’s first-half flatness, and after a season spent in fifth gear, the petrol might be beginning to run dry. Inspired prognosticating, eh?

There’s no evidence to suggest the tank will empty tomorrow. On the other hand, the unfamiliarity of the surroundings may mean it takes the younger side a while to get their sights aligned.

Waterford’s compression of the dimensions of the pitch. They do it very well. It is an occupational hazard for teams with underpopulated full-forward lines to overshoot the runway and deposit their deliveries into the grateful stomach of the opposition goalkeeper. It is an infuriating sight even for a neutral. But Waterford have not been guilty of it.

Waterford’s wides. They’re decreasing, from 15 in the league final and 12 in the Munster semi-final to nine against both Tipp and Dublin. Nine wides here will be three too many nonetheless. As in the Munster final, every bullet has to be made count.

Waterford’s Samurai: Kevin Moran and Brick Walsh. Cork and Clare would kill for them. It wasn’t the tactical realignment that triggered the post-interval flurry against Dublin but rather this pair and Gleeson doing what big players do. Standing up when the moment demands it.

A fully fit Noel Connors will consume, without condiments, anyone and anything within a half-mile radius. Cody will employ his proven horses-for-courses method of attempting to ensure he doesn’t. Walter Walsh, perhaps?

In view of his current form one is obliged to wonder whether Eoin Larkin encountered the Devil at the Village pump one dark night many years ago and exchanged his mortal soul for both a ridiculously sinuous first touch and a prolonged intercounty career. It seems a fair enough bargain.

What undid the losers in the Munster final was something they would have legislated for yet couldn’t do anything about: John O’Dwyer’s snake hips and oiled wrists. Give him a ball in half a yard of grass.

Therein lies the difference between Waterford on the one hand and Tipp and Kilkenny on the other. In two or three years Shane Bennett and Patrick Curran will be doing what O’Dwyer does and what Larkin, Reid and Hogan do: range-finding from within the circumference of a handkerchief. For the moment it’s Waterford’s duty and burden to work a couple of metres of space for their forwards to hit on the run and get their shots off.

Too obvious to say the challengers will hold out for 60 minutes, after which the levee breaks? Perhaps. Still: the defence of the feline realm to endure for another month.