Why is the mood so downbeat in Kilkenny?

Kilkenny re-enter Croke Park, with Brian Cody seeking an 18th Leinster title on his watch

This evening’s Leinster Final, Henry Shefflin’s Galway versus Brian Cody’s Kilkenny, is deceptively easy to frame.

We should resist the deceptions. Five weeks ago in Salthill, the Battle of the Long Handshake got elevated into a major event. The moment was nothing of that kind. Focusing on Cody’s glare at Shefflin suits people who want hurling as Eastenders, as a slice of Reality TV. Why not treat the game as a game?

Carrying this emphasis is not straightforward. You need both a love of hurling in itself and an understanding of hurling’s sly details. You can no more bluff love than hurry it.

Case in point: the hullaballoo about Salthill’s last gasp free. Conor Cooney, as freetaker, turned game breaker. Then cometh the iceman, wearing a Brian Cody mask. But what actually happened?

For all the ink spent, all the words spent, the incident’s most salient aspect went unremarked. Namely: Tom Monaghan is right hand on top in technique. The Galway midfielder was accordingly going to fetch Éanna Murphy’s quick puckout with his left hand.

Paddy Deegan surged in from Monaghan’s right side. This facet made Colm Lyons’ whistle far more likely, because the ball was on the far side of Monaghan’s body space. Put another way: Kilkenny player, because Galway player operates right hand on top, has no choice but to ‘come through him’.

Still not a stone cold free, perhaps, but hard to muster a sustained objection to the call. The situation would have been significantly different if the Galway player in question operated left hand on top. Had Conor Whelan, who fetches with his right hand, been under that puckout, Deegan would have been far less likely to concede a free.

I revisit that fleeting incident merely to underline an enduring truth. Hurling remains most truly and deeply and madly about personnel on the field. Brian Cody and Henry Shefflin are not Phil Mitchell and Grant Mitchell squalling over Liam ‘Sharon’ MacCarthy. They are not, in important senses, the main men. To say otherwise is soft soap chasing soap opera.

Salthill’s deepest lessons? First, that Galway’s management remain dependent on 2017’s All Ireland team, on eight or nine of them. Second, that Kilkenny’s management have not found a dependable spine, despite several seasons of effort on this front.

A summary list of what Henry Shefflin oversaw during his opening months runs as follows. He made Jack Grealish and Darren Morrissey stable presences at corner back. He rejuvenated Tom Monaghan as a midfielder, rejuvenated David Burke and Johnny Coen as impact figures. He gave Cianan Fahy a chance that the Ardrahan clubman has largely grasped. He restored Conor Cooney, literally and metaphorically, to a central role.

This last gambit might be his savviest move. Micheál Donoghue’s biggest mistake as Galway manager? Shunting Cooney into the corner in 2018 so as to place Jonathan Glynn at full forward.

That craic was shortcut hurling, a road to nowhere. Glynn is an honest durable operator, a more mobile version of Brendan Lynskey. Cooney had been an imperious full forward in 2017. The ill conceived gambit stunted his development.

Beyond those co-ordinates, the lie of the land hardly puzzles. This team’s spine remains Daithí Burke, Gearóid McInerney, Joseph Cooney, Conor Cooney and Conor Whelan. Cathal Mannion and Pádraic Mannion ride shotgun. Any cavalry of young talent, currently Tiernan Killeen and Gavin Lee, looks a distance off as regards 2022. Shefflin is trusting the tried.

He knows best his best option. Galway are certainly capable enough to beat Kilkenny this evening. They seem more efficient at points from play (16 to 11 in Salthill) and will not be outmuscled.

Or certainly good enough to establish a winning position, let us say. Therein, nub as rub. Galway established a winning position against Kilkenny in the 2020 Leinster Final, when Jason Flynn struck for a five point lead in the 55th minute. The leaders were set for drifting away into ten point victory.

Forty seconds ― two goals by Richie Hogan and TJ Reid ― smelted a torpedo. Thereafter David Burke took his side’s last score in the 64th minute. Kilkenny notched the game’s closing four points, winning 2-20 to 0-24. Galway had been outstared.

These things happen, fair enough. But Galway seem more affected in this vein than nearly every other county. Many of 2020’s players remain in situ.

Remember that the 2022 Leinster round robin saw them establish a winning position against Wexford and Kilkenny. Both times, they faltered. They ended up relying on a draw in Wexford Park, on Colm Lyons not whistling when time was up after that quick Éanna Murphy puckout.

The Galway head can be a yeti, a creature hard to fathom. Henry Shefflin has his work cut out on the psychological front. Then again, he knew this facet would crown the challenge he was accepting.

Kilkenny re-enter Croke Park, with Brian Cody seeking an 18th Leinster title on his watch. I would love to offer a much different gloss but can only report the mood in the county is far from good. To be honest, the mood hoves as low as I can recall it. Not even in the late 1980s or in the mid 1990s were expectations so downbeat.

The current management has not assembled a team spine. Chopping and changing proceeds for key positions, such as midfield. What do supporters see at the moment? Only one player, the excellent Huw Lawlor, nailed on for a central slot.

General sense? That there is no much shape to this Kilkenny team and no imminent likelihood of it taking serious shape. Constantly referenced is the decision to grant Cillian Buckley a free role up front during spring’s NHL campaign, dispatching him to be a fourth half forward or a third midfielder. Take your pick… No logic clicked. Buckley is 30 and his speed has been fraying for the last few seasons. How could moving him into the front eight add oomph? You could make a case for Cian Kenny, young and bold, in such a role. But Buckley? Logic cricked.

Brian Cody has overseen many baffling decisions during the last six seasons. Here was another one. Now Buckley appears a bystander, someone who did not even come off the bench in the recent flop to Wexford. There is a strong sense of barely lidded panic in Kilkenny selections.

Item: the reappearance of Conor Fogarty at midfield. Good luck to the man, a terrific leader, and he had a really good championship first half against Cork in 2021. But Fogarty’s touch, ball on ground, became questionable over recent seasons. Specific item: he would have been straight through on goal late in 2020’s All Ireland semi final against Waterford but for a scuffed pick up from a TJ Reid pass.

Another item: John Donnelly’s role. The Thomastown man is struggling for form, despite obvious gifts. He looks far more suited to full forward than wing forward. At full forward, his fetching and his close control, his unselfishness and his strokeplay, would menace.

Do not get me wrong. At wing forward, Donnelly is honest out and does not shirk the work. Recall 2019’s senior final, when he put in a terrific first half. Best is done to get up and down in 21st century fashion.

But Donnelly the wing forward drops out of the game for spells. Donnelly the full forward might be a more consistent contributor. The calmer kind of Kilkenny supporter wonders why this facet is not obvious to management. Put another way, Donnelly seems far better suited to an Aaron Gillane role than to a Gearóid Hegarty one. Is this logic so hard to discern?

There comes a broader issue, the crux of player improvement. Look at what Brian Lohan is achieving in Clare with some of his candidates. I am not talking about the performance level of stellar figures, natural talents, such as Rory Hayes, Tony Kelly and Shane O’Donnell. Consider names such as Conor Cleary, David Fitzgerald, Paul Flanagan, Cathal Malone and Ryan Taylor. Lohan is getting a fine tune out of these men, candidates who would not be considered innately gifted hurlers.

What then of Conor Delaney, John Donnelly, James Maher and Billy Ryan? Why are they failing to progress in comparable terms? I reckon the vast majority of observers would hold that this quartet ― and several other Kilkenny names could be mentioned ― are plying off a higher base of innate talent.

Or at least as solid a base, any road. What has gone awry with Kilkenny hurlers’ development in mid career? And I have said nothing about how much Limerick’s players have improved since 2017. How much has any Kilkenny hurler improved since 2017?

Enough has been said and written in recent times about the county’s current style of play. Let me just mention I heard last week comments by Paul Murphy, always enjoyable, on his podcast with James Skehill. The former Kilkenny corner back urged the current men to mix up their approach, varying long deliveries with clipped passes between the lines.

You could also read between the lines. Murphy gave several seasons in the mid to late 2010s, especially against Wexford, acting as a de facto sweeper. He was poorly suited to this role, which seemed to fall his way by default, merely because he was the right corner back.

Murphy had evident virtues, such as stickiness and an adhesive first touch. But too many of his deliveries were Cape Canaveral clearances, pitched way too high, snow on the sliotar coming down. So you wonder how he ever had to take on that role. Was there no plan by management?

Even so, Kilkenny might well beat Galway in this Leinster Final. Éanna Murphy is a liability goalkeeper, same as Shane Cooney was a bomb scare corner back. Eoin Cody could bounce 2-3 onto the scoreboard. There is talk Adrian Mullen will go into the full forward line, where he might thrive.

But realities remain ― and in all likelihood will obtain. Master story of this Leinster Final? Kilkenny depending on Galway flakiness to do them a favour. Both the mighty and the flighty are fallen.

Not long ago, the story differed. Not so long ago, the Westerners’ tendency in this regard merely counted as a trait to be exploited ― if it appeared. Kilkenny had several means of forcing a win, even if Galway, as in 2007’s wonderful All-Ireland quarter final, proved resolute to the end.

For the Kilkenny of 2022, this trait’s appearance looks more a necessity to be craved than a possibility to be exploited.