The defender and the danger. How do St Brigid’s stop a force like Tom O’Sullivan?
Dingle's Tom O'Sullivan. Pic: Nick Elliott/Inpho
Imagine the world in which Conor Geaney misses. Dingle, once again, left devastated by a Munster final defeat. Not only dealing with the loss, but with the inevitable criticism too.
Why the hell did Tom O’Sullivan not man-mark Stephen Sherlock?
A quick reminder: The Cork hotshot kicked 0-16 in Semple Stadium. Six two-pointers, seven points of his total from play. Dingle had one of the best man-markers in the country and chose not to send that force after him.
In the GAA, like life, winners write history. There is no question that, had they fallen on the wrong side of that tight encounter, Pádraig Corcoran and his management team would have been slaughtered for this decision.
Some may have even anticipated they would adapt and send O’Sullivan after Colm Basquel in the semi-final. Wrong again.
“How good is he? He is like their point guard,” says St Brigid’s coach Evan Talty.
“Everything goes through him, he can go both ways. His kicking ability, he is just a serious footballer. What a loss he was for Kerry but you just love to see him on the pitch.
"I know they got a bit of flak as to why they didn’t put him on Sherlock the last day but I think he proved why you wouldn’t do that against Ballyboden.”
O’Sullivan had an injury-ravaged intercounty campaign, missing out entirely on their All-Ireland semi-final and final. Even still, he finished the season with the same number of assists as Gavin White.
For Dingle, he has played all seven games in the County and Munster championship as well as the semi-final. He has scored 1-16 in total.
That is why they didn’t put the 29-year-old on St Finbarr’s most dangerous attacker. Dingle want O’Sullivan involved when they are going forward. Sherlock rarely left his own half. Mark O’Connor explained as much after the game.
“Tom is instrumental in our attack. We know how he can use the ball. He had a couple of two-pointers cancelled out, he can do that. It is really hard for Tom.
“He does it a lot for the county, he plays on the best players and is still expected to kick two or three points. That is harder with the three-man back rule now.” From the hunter to the hunted. After his stunning semi-final display, will St Brigid’s now need to send someone after O’Sullivan?
“I’m not sure you can man-mark anybody anymore,” says Talty, a deep thinker of the game, currently studying a Masters in Skill Acquisition, having completed one in Sports Coaching previously, and also part of the Limerick football management.
“In the sense of where you just stand beside him and if they go the whole way out the pitch and back the pitch you follow them everywhere. You have to be aware of them when they are in certain areas of the pitch.
“The fact that the breach is there now, if a fella takes you back the field, it is hard to leave or go. If you leave it 10v10 at the back, it is such a big area of space. A fella is defending a 20-metre box on his own, which they can’t do. I think the whole ‘follow him to the toilet’ is gone out the window. You have to be so aware of their strengths, what foot they are off, their nuances.”
St Brigid’s will trust in the same approach that got them to this stage. It is a collective defensive system. That doesn’t mean O’Sullivan will have the freedom of Croke Park on Sunday, it just means they won’t ascribe one player to the task.
They know the threat they will face. They know it extends far beyond O’Sullivan. There are only so many fires you can fight.
“I was at the Clare and Kerry McGrath Cup game, no matter who they are, if they are Kerry’s fourth-string, they can kick the ball. It is all one bounce or better. Every handpass, the weight is right.
"People give Kerry credit for being a good kicking team, they don’t give them the credit for being a good separating team. If you watch the inside forwards, the reason the kick-pass is an easy kick-pass is because they have created that separation. Three hard runs to empty out a space. You watch Paul Geaney high behinds, it is that box they move around.”
It is all part of the overarching philosophy. In his world, it all stems from the game model.
From that the detail grows. So out of possession, their plan deep in Dingle’s half will be to press, stay connected, trap where they can. When the defence is set, they will communicate constantly, rush dangerous shooters and force opposition to give the ball back.
That is the theory, anyway. As ever, the result will decide how it is remembered.
“For me as a coach, the lads might say it is to a fault, we don’t coach tactics,” says Talty.
“We coach principles of play.”
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