Kevin Walsh: Why I'm relishing a battle of styles, tactics and strategies

SIGNIFICANT: Kevin Walsh feels Shane McGuigan's battle with Seán Kelly will be a significant one. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie

I know a few people looking on from television studios in particular won’t appreciate how it will play out - and mightn’t understand it if we’re being honest - but I think the clash between Derry and Galway will be intriguing.

The challenge for players and coaching teams is to pick the respective locks. In high performance sport, that should never be easy.

For a couple of years with Galway, it was. But on the back of some very heavy defeats in which they left themselves too open, they have made considerable strides in terms of how they set up without the ball.

There were loads of times against Armagh when they had nobody up front. All 15 players were behind the ball. I saw them against Clare in the League in March in Salthill and it was the same. The visitors had loads of possession in the first 15 minutes. Galway were obviously working on a more robust system then. It had to be done and they are a better team for that, as the results show.

There are many who will view this is as an assault on the senses, and anti-Galway. I know all about it. But this is modern football. It is plain stupidity only to coach for when you have possession. Jim Gavin learned that and Dublin played a very different brand of football without the ball by the time he was finished, from when he started.

We have seen Kerry’s use of a sweeper this year too, although I am not sure that the guys who fulfil the role for them are entirely comfortable with it yet.

Derry are further down the road than Galway in terms of that strategy, which has worked a treat to date, accounting for All-Ireland champions Tyrone, Monaghan and Donegal in Ulster before steamrolling Clare.

Zonal defences are there to get you to shoot from impossible angles, or to take you down lanes 1 and 5. I call these the sewer lanes for reasons I’m sure I don’t have to explain. There is no threat there to the defending team and a whole pile of you-know-what for attackers.

The first way of breaking down a zonal defence is not to allow them set up. That involves really quick transition. Both teams have the pace to do that. If anything, Derry have a slight advantage in this area, in the likes of Conor Glass, whose duel with Paul Conroy will be significant, Gareth McKinless, Conor McCluskey and Brendan Rogers, who’s a right bit of stuff. 

I expect Rogers to pick up Damien Comer and to maybe make Damien follow him around the pitch too when Derry have possession.

Derry have scored ten goals in four matches, and even if you want to leave out the five they got against Clare, five in three Ulster championship games against opposition of the calibre they faced is indicative of their transitional threat. 

Galway showed it too, most recently with Cillian McDaid’s crucial goal in the second period of extra time against Armagh. Cillian, Johnny Heaney and Shane Walsh, who I expect to be shadowed by Chris McKaigue, are others Galway will rely on to make quick ground from deep.

Apart from those mentioned, there will be one other big contest I think, with Seán Kelly likely to tail Shane McGuigan. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be excited about seeing these guys match wits and wills.

Rob Finnerty has shown himself very good at making space and he’s a good finisher. As I went into a lot in The Invisible Game, you make space by changes of pace and direction but sometimes you can’t shake your man and so in that case, you stay where you are, get a few more teammates around you and use screens and V-cuts. 

That has to be part of the transition though, around lanes 2, 3 and 4, the middle lanes. If the zone is settled, that won’t work.

If the transition isn’t quick enough and a shot hasn’t been gotten off, the likes of Comer or McGuigan will be double-teamed. So the mistake then is to do what Armagh tried to do, to thread the needle with low-percentage kick passes and as a result, turn over the ball time and again. 

These were poor decisions that in my opinion, turned the tide in Galway’s direction towards the end of the first half of the quarter-final. So you must have patience and both teams have shown that.

But you have to create and the way to do that once the zone is set is to have the one-two-three runners coming from the one section of the field. Some teams make the mistake of having runners in different areas at the same time but well-drilled defences can handle that.

Three runners hitting the same area at different angles, coming in behind the man in possession like a train with a second or two and about six or seven yards between them causes chaos behind the first line of the blanket defence. It creates doubt and panic. Do I go or don’t I?

I would leave one player in the centre-forward area in behind the first line of defence, so you can pop a pass if it’s on and then run off the shoulder. And have the inside forwards all out around the offensive arc so they can create the one-two-three runners. 

What happens eventually is that the defensive line gets sucked back ten yards to protect itself and the shooters can come in at the top of the key, to use a basketball term, to get their shots off.

It is lazy to describe these teams as just defensive, though Derry have that reputation more, and I’m not sure why. They scored 1-18, 3-12 and 1-16 against Tyrone, Monaghan and Donegal and removed all hope from Clare early on with a ruthless opening.

They have beaten better calibre, more established Division 1 teams than Galway but Galway are more experienced, particularly in Croke Park.

There are plenty of unknowns, not least about the deployment of the respective defensive systems in those wider spaces. They haven’t played each other much and the League game was no barometer when Galway had 3-8 on the board at half-time. 

It’s safe to say that as well as Galway played, that wasn’t Derry and the Ulster men are a lot better team now anyway, as shown by their results, and with confidence buoyed because of them.

A good start will be vital and certainly, Galway won’t want Derry to get the bit between their teeth and have a lead to defend. It is the archetypal 50-50 game and what way the match-ups unfold will have a huge influence, along with the pace of transitions and who can address the zone defences the best. 

But if they break even, I would give the hesitant vote to Galway on the basis of their greater experience. I fervently hope that’s what occurs but it will be a fascinating game and I’m really looking forward to it.