Christy O'Connor: Louth's gamble never going to pay off against Dubs
NUMBER ONE FANS: Louth supporters Thias Sharkey, 9, and Harry Sharkey, 6, from Ardee take a selfie with Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton. Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
When Dublin obliterated Kildare early on in last year’s Leinster final, Kildare’s biggest enemy was space. Kildare didn’t shut it down and Dublin gorged and feasted in the open plains. Kildare believed that they could take Dublin on in an open contest but Dublin ruthlessly showed and proved that it was a futile exercise.
When Kildare played Dublin again in this year’s Leinster semi-final, they showed how much they had learned that lesson, getting huge numbers behind the ball, being smart and safe on kickouts, making the game as fractured, frustrating and uncomfortable for Dublin as they possibly could. Kildare didn’t win but they nearly did by giving themselves every fighting chance of doing so.
Dublin are not the machine they were but a Leinster final is not the place for a Leinster team to test that theory that they’ve slowed down enough to believe they can be beaten in an open shootout.
Louth gambled on their long kickout but Dublin showed just how costly that gamble was when it was married with such an open defensive structure by committing so many bodies around the break on that long kickout.
For Dublin’s first goal, Louth won their own kickout but when Dublin immediately turned it over off Niall Sharkey, there were five Dublin forwards and just one Louth defender inside the 20-metre line before Con O’Callaghan passed the ball into Paul Mannion to palm it to the net.
When Dublin outscored Louth by 1-9 to 0-0 in that first half, Dublin scored 1-5 off Louth turnovers and 0-4 off Louth’s kickouts. Dublin scored another two goals off Louth kickouts and turnovers, with the other two goals coming off Dublin kickouts.
Dublin slaughtered Louth on kickouts all day; Louth won just nine of their 26 long kickouts, but they were wide open once Dublin secured possession. Dublin could have had ten goals.
A Leinster team is never going to beat Dublin at that game.
In the 72nd minute of yesterday’s Ulster final, a Padraig Cassidy pass was intercepted by Jarly Óg Burns and, as Burn was heading towards goal, Brendan Rogers dragged him down. Rogers was black carded. Rian O’Neill tapped over the free.
It was the equaliser but, critically, it was the third score Derry conceded off a turnover in the second half. In the previous 125 minutes of Ulster finals (including 90 minutes last year) Derry had conceded just one point off a turnover.
Derry were backed into a corner. Armagh were a man up for the majority of the first period of extra-time, but they made the mistake of backing off and allowing Derry to control the tone and tempo of the game.
Armagh had made a similar mistake in the first 25 minutes. They were applying huge pressure on the shooters, but Derry still only turned over the ball four times in that half, with two of those four turnovers stemming from shots dropped short.
In the second half, Derry turned over more ball than usual, but they still only conceded 0-5 in total off turnovers over the 90 plus minutes. Even when the game’s momentum appeared to have turned against them, Derry wrestled back control by doing what they do best – refusing to turn the ball over, and getting off a shot at the end of their phase of possession.
They maintained that control again in the penalty shootout. On a difficult week when it would have been easy, before and during the match, for Derry to lose control, they proved again that they are masters at maintaining it.
At the end of the Clare-Waterford Munster minor round robin game in Dungarvan in mid-April, Clare were ahead by three points with time almost up when Waterford levelled the match with a goal from Conor Tobin. Clare though, swept back up the field and Mark O’Brien landed the winning score.
Waterford were unlucky but a third defeat knocked them out of the championship. Waterford subsequently lost to Tipperary in a dead-rubber, while the U20s also lost their four games in the Munster round robin.
For the Waterford seniors, much has been made of their dire record in the round robin since 2018 – one win from 15. However, in the same time-span, the results of their minors and U20s has been just as concerning.
Since 2018, the minors and U20s have played 30 games and won just five. Four of those wins came at minor with Waterford’s only U20 win coming against Kerry last year.
The U20s were unlucky to lose to Tipperary after extra-time in 2020 and 2021. The minors had good wins against Tipperary in the 2021 semi-final, and last year against Limerick. Yet they lost their next two matches in both competitions by an aggregate margin of 32 points.
Waterford were beaten in those two games by excellent Cork and Tipperary sides that went on to win the All-Ireland but, while some results do skew the numbers, Waterford’s aggregate margin of defeat at minor and U20 in the last six years is an astonishing 190 points.
Good work is being done in Waterford at underage. But their results at minor and U20 needs to improve before they also do at senior.
The All-Ireland club hurling championship has been long forgotten about at this stage in the middle of the provincial round robin but yesterday still marked a significant landmark to that competition – it was the 50th anniversary of the death of Tommy Moore, who the All-Ireland club hurling championship trophy is named after.
Moore of Ballyragget, Kilkenny subsequently went on to hurl for Faughs and Dublin, with Faughs presenting the All-Ireland club trophy in his memory for the 1973-’74 season.
Forty years after his death, the esteemed GAA historian and connoisseur Seamus O’Doherty, a Tipperary man living in Ballyragget, did a revealing study on Moore in the Kilkenny GAA yearbook in 2013. In the study was an appreciation of Moore by the GAA writer Pádraig Puirséal, who rated Moore a “great inter-county player” and “a club man supreme”.
Moore won six senior club hurling championships with Faughs, along with four Leinster titles and two All-Irelands (in 1917 and 1920) with Dublin. Moore subsequently served as chairperson of Faughs for 40 years between 1929-’69.
Moore truly was a club man supreme.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
