Leinster hurling final: How Kilkenny's midfield remains in a state of flux

Derek Lyng has yet to field the same midfield pairing more than two times in a row in the championship.

Fri, 07 Jun, 2024 - 07:33

John Fogarty

The irony that Derek Lyng in his 13 championship games as Kilkenny manager has yet to field the same midfield pairing more than two times in a row won’t be lost on the county’s keenest supporters.

After all, Lyng served in one of the county’s greatest middle duos with James “Cha” Fitzpatrick (2006-8) before teaming up with his current selector Michael Rice in ‘09.

Lyng would probably like to be consistent in his selections but circumstance, injury and form more often the former, has put itself in the way. The flexibility of players has also allowed players to move there from the half back and forward lines.

Also, since it was increased to six teams, the Leinster SHC round-robin has allowed for more experimentation in games and squads have certainly been rotated against certain opposition.

And it’s not as such flux is exceptional to Lyng’s era – Brian Cody regularly altered his midfield in his last few seasons in charge. For the 2019 All-Ireland final defeat to Tipperary, his choices were Conor Browne and Cillian Buckley. Browne was there again for the ’20 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Waterford alongside Fogarty but 12 months later and Fogarty had been joined by Richie Reid when Cork beat them at the same stage.

In Cody’s final season in 2022, he changed midfield following both provincial round defeats to Galway and Wexford. We’re reminded of PM Sullivan’s concerns in this newspaper before the 2022 All-Ireland semi-final against Clare – “mucho chopping and changing… with midfield a particular area of uncertainty”.

Nearly two years on and all is unchanged, unchanged utterly as Lyng has either had his hands tied or chosen horses for courses. At least Cian Kenny has been the one constant this season but Lyng has named two different duos to face Dublin these past couple of seasons – Adrian Mullen and Paddy Deegan in UPMC Nowlan Park last year and Kenny and Shane Murphy in Parnell Park last month.

Dublin’s running strengths on the suitable surface of Croke Park may convince up to switch things once more. “Paddy Deegan has been in and out of there, Cian Kenny has played midfield and wing-forward and Mikey Carey has been midfield and wing-back,” says former Kilkenny player, manager and GAA president Nickey Brennan, who covers games for Kilkenny Community Radio.

“You could argue though that we have adaptable players so there is probably a greater versatility of player now. They’re obviously nowhere near as successful as Brian Cody’s teams were but that’s probably the nature of the beast at the moment in that they’re not stand-out players in their own particular positions and they can vary from game to game.”

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Brennan would know only too well that there is a traditional appeal in Kilkenny for the physically dominant midfielder going back to Frank Cummins.

“The thing we don’t have at the moment is a player of the calibre of Derek Lyng or Michael Fennelly,” says Brennan, “a big imposing midfielder who can get the ball and can get the ball and physically take on tackle after tackle and break them. We don’t have those players and that’s just where we are at the moment.”

2022

L einster Round 1 Adrian Mulllen, Cian Kenny

Leinster Round 2 Pádraic Walsh, Walter Walsh

Leinster Round 3 Adrian Mullen, James Maher

Leinster Round 4 Adrian Murphy, Alan Murphy

Leinster Round 5 Adrian Mullen, Alan Murphy

Leinster final Conor Fogarty, Cian Kenny

All-Ireland semi-final Conor Browne, Cian Kenny

All-Ireland final Conor Browne, Cian Kenny

2023

Leinster Round 1 Darragh Corcoran, Paddy Mullen

Leinster Round 2 Darragh Corcoran, Conor Fogarty