State of the game: 'Bench 100kg or forget about playing inter-county hurling'
Limerick’s Tom Morrissey is shouldered over the sideline by Tipperary’s Brendan Maher and Seán O’Brien in last year’s Munster Championship. Limerick’s power is a potent weapon. Picture: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile
Next Saturday’s Annual Congress could see some of the biggest changes to hurling in years. But are they needed?
All-Ireland and All-Star winners Eddie Brennan and Shane McGrath discuss the state of the game with John Fogarty
JOHN FOGARTY: Hurling has probably never been spoken about as much as over the last few weeks. I wanted to get your thoughts on whether you think it’s in a good place, could it be in a better place? We’ll talk about cynicism in awhile but, Eddie, your thoughts?
Eddie Brennan: The big talking point that came out of the Championship last year — and we were all delighted to get some sort of a championship and it was exciting — was that there is no reason why Championship can’t be played every fortnight. We’re not having these extended breaks, which is a real positive out of it.
Shane McGrath: If you take Eddie’s team, everybody wanted to be like Kilkenny and the thing was to get the ball down there and let people win their own ball and don’t overcomplicate the thing. But then people had to realise that Kilkenny team were the greatest hurling team ever so that didn’t work for everybody.
So people had to adapt and they did adapt and people eventually got up to that level. That team at the moment is Limerick so everybody is saying: ‘How are we going to beat Limerick?’ From the outside view, the first thing which is kind of sad for players like me is unless you can benchpress 80, 90, 100kg I’d say you can forget about playing inter-county hurling. You look at the Limerick boys, if you put the Munster jerseys on them they wouldn’t look out of place. These lads are top athletes but I just think if you get lost in the whole “oh, let’s be as big as Limerick” thing are you going to get the best hurlers hurling?
JF: Eddie, when your team and Shane’s were winning All-Irelands, they were scoring an average of more than two goals a game. Now we’re seeing teams winning them going back to Galway in 2017 averaging less than a goal a game. Is that something that concerns for hurling as a spectacle?
EB: Looking at Limerick, I’m a big fan and I admire what they’re doing but there is a distinct shift (away) from getting goals. If the goal opportunities arise that’s no problem because they have guys who are circling around but their game is built around getting quality shots off and taking their points. It’s probably based on how an opposition team is setting up.
In the Leinster final of 2017, Wexford had Shaun Murphy sitting on the edge of the square, Galway almost made a triangle to the edge of the D and worked it backwards and they stayed out of that zone.
They put the ball down high, their bigger, physically stronger men broke it down and they took their points. It’s maybe more a shift tactically from teams that ‘we might not get through here’. But an inside forward line, primarily you’re trying to feed them to get in and get goals and that would be a shame if we were to lose that. The goals dried up as the Championship went along and the cut and thrust of it was “thou shall not pass”.
JF: Your Kilkenny team played on the edge but were entertainers as well. Are people conflating cynicism in the game now and how big Limerick are? Is there envy about this Limerick team and maybe they are being painted as something they are not?
EB: We tend to do that sometimes no more than when a team comes along and they dominate and power to a Championship there’s obviously a level of admiration.
Their success has come from 10 to 12 years of graft of putting a system together in the background that has ultimately got them here. It happens in every sport that the team up there is to be shot at. It’s the nature of Irish people that we love the underdog coming through then we suddenly love to take them down a notch but that would be very unfair on Limerick because I like the way they play.
You have to look at individual incidents of cynicism on their own merits regardless of who is wearing the jersey. We have to be bigger than that. You’re going to see teams set up like them but the big question is do you mirror what they’re doing and turn it into an arm wrestle? To be the physical athletes Limerick are, I think there are teams a small bit behind but Limerick have their ability to move and hurl as well. Their skill level is absolutely top quality, their ability to score points is top quality.
JF: In terms of the sin bin motion, there has been a lot of support for it from Kilkenny and Tipperary. What are your thoughts on it?
SMcG: There probably were a good few incidents in the games and I suppose the fact not much else was going on in the world meant there probably was more attention paid to it. When they do straight cropping up and trending there obviously is something happening in games. As much as we love hurling, there probably is that cynicism and there is no point in saying otherwise.
The one that sticks out for me was Danny Sutcliffe tripping up one of the Laois boys (Paddy Purcell). Should he get the sin bin for that? I think he should. I suppose where it’s going to meet barriers — and Willie Barrett was talking about it during the week — is how the refs are going to deal with it. What I think could be difficult is what competitive environment are they going to have to try this? If you foul (cynically) inside the 20m or the D it’s going to be a penalty and a sin bin so there is a lot going on.
EB: Is “a clear and obvious goal-scoring opportunity” included in the proposal?
JF: A goal-scoring opportunity.
EB: I think that’s adding a layer of interpretation and additional detail. It has to be kind of clean. We either want rid of cynical tackles and I’m not talking about a mistimed tackle; I’m talking about somebody jumping on somebody’s back and rip him to the ground or wrestling someone to the ground and saying: “You’re going no further and I’m happy to concede a point here.”
If it’s inside the 45 maybe it’s a bit easier to define or referee and say if it’s a yellow card and if it’s inside the 45 we give a penalty. With an action that you’re trying to get rid of in a game, you have to deter it. There is no point putting in a Mickey Mouse measure that means you only bend the rules. We’re Irish people at the end of the day, we love to find the grey of it and we’ll adjust our coaching. If you’re going to bring in a rule that’s going to deal with the cynical play — and it’s not an epidemic but it has become a little more prevalent — you either come in very firm to wipe it out and nail it or you don’t go near it at all.
SMcG: If it (the cynical foul) was inside the 45 could we have a penalty against three players and if it was inside the 21 maybe the one-v-one penalty? The one thing for me is the careless use of the hurley. Say you have a player who likes the bounce solo and the other fella tries to flick it away and misses it fractionally — is he sin-binned for 10 minutes? It’s different if a lad is coming behind you and goes for the funny bone or elbow.
EB: I think you’re right. Just go with a straight penalty. It just means everyone is clear. The defender knows the consequences of rolling the dice.
We want to encourage good defending. I’m thinking of Paudie (Maher)’s hook on one of the Cooneys (Conor) in the All-Ireland semi-final in 2016 whereas if that’s now is he just going to dive in and just wrestle him to the ground? That’s the type of defending we want to see. You think of JJ (Delaney) on Seamie Callanan a few years ago. You want to see your defenders be as honest as they can be.
JF: We’re expecting the Championship to return to round-robin provinces in 2022. Is that something you would welcome or was your head turned by last year’s format?
SMcG: I love the round-robin in Munster and Leinster as well, to be fair. I remember covering Limerick and Cork one night in Cork (in 2018), it ended up a draw and it was brilliant, the lights coming on towards the end of the game. What the round-robin does is give more games to players so there is less training. That’s what players want.
JF: Is there too much emphasis on the provincial championships?
EB: I think the round-robin system works really well. The provincial thing, in Munster it has definitely hurt the teams that have gone on to win it. I don’t know what way you work on that. What you ultimately want to see if everyone getting the same crack at it because we’ve seen playing week on week or every second week it gets you really sharp and if you have a four or five-week break it can often come back to bite you.
JF: They’re looking to get rid of the maor foirne again — Greg Kennedy has a lot to answer for. Niall Corcoran didn’t seem to do much wrong with you in Laois, Eddie, or you Shane with the Tipp minors.
EB: Greg has been pinned once or twice with it but there are a lot more than him who are definitely taking advantage of it and we’ve seen it there where they are filling space on the pitch and someone wearing a colour. These are the tricks of the trade. I’m torn because you do need to get messages out there every so often. In my first year with Laois, I saw even the physio and doctor (pitch entries) being abused.
Every time there was a lad down, there were lads trying to influence referees.
SMcG: I had a few friendly words with a good few fourth officials. I felt a few times I was going in, did I really need to be going in and I didn’t and I went in less and less as time went on.
I’m all for the maor foirne because no matter how well you are prepared there is going to be a player and he might be the best hurler in the world but he just mightn’t see something that is going on because he is so caught up in that moment.
If they made the point of suspending a high-profile maor foirne for a big game, you’d see a kind of a domino effect.
JF: The yellow sliotar doesn’t seem to have upset the game. The players seemed to feel it was sprung on them even though it was in the
pipeline for a long time. Under lights, it would seem to be more beneficial going forward.
SMcG: Maybe it was just me but in a couple of the games I found the yellow sliotar was getting lost in flight a bit more. Maybe that’s because we’re used to white sliotars for years and years but they changed it in tennis and we don’t know anything else now. I think we’ll get used to it. Sometimes the only thing people like to see changed is a child’s nappy.
EB: Like anything, we’ll get on with it. For complete definition, I thought the orange colour should have been considered. Now, I know we’ll have a lot of traditionalists going “ah here” but sometimes the yellow or white could get lost in the lights for a second.
JF: It always seems the rules are always playing catch-up with the evolution of hurling. If there is one rule that could improve the game, what would yours be?
EB: Around 2008, we got a specific instruction from Brian (Cody) that “guys, you have to watch the hand-pass because the refs are being told to clamp down on this”.
It is one that has continued. It is very hard to police such is the speed. But it is something that is getting to epidemic proportions. We’re seeing an awful lot of people giving out about it. I know Dónal Óg (Cusack) called for it to be allowed but I would be dead against that. I think he said the speed at which it is played are we discouraging speed of hands but I definitely think will have to be looked at.
SMcG: It’s like Marmite, you either love it or hate it, but what I would like to see brought in is from outside the 45 line that if you score a sideline that you get two points for it. Canning is the top of all time with 20-something scored. The next is a fella from Clonlara whose name escapes me (Mick Moroney). The likes of Mark Coleman, Noel McGrath, Austin Gleesonhave 10 scored.
I’ve scored two and I’m probably in the top 20 of all time. Because it doesn’t happen every match, Canning is just unreal, he’s the greatest of all time at it, I think it would be exciting to see because not every team has a Joe Canning.
If there was a point in it, it would be interesting to see if you would go for it. Not a hope it will come in.
EB: The weight of the ball is something that a lot people are talking about. The ball is travelling almighty distances and I know players are massively conditioned nowadays but realistically it shouldn’t be a norm that a ball is sailing over from 90-100 yards out. We’re splitting hairs but I know it’s something people are talking about.
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