June 7th 2012.
The setting: We all know the pitch in Pairc Uí Chaoímh has come in for lots of criticism over the years. Countless games were ruined because of a “soft playing surface” (what this means is “the place was a bog”) but not last night. It poured rain in Cork yesterday, but the pitch held up. The only advantage gained from the pitch was that it suited the better hurlers. More about that later.
The game: The first play of the game was a microcosm of the whole match.
Microcosm version – Cork split the Tipperary defence wide open; worked the ball to full-forward Dean Brosnan who took his eye off the ball and dropped it – goal lost.
Game version – Cork took the game to Tipperary for 59 minutes; just when it seemed they would win, they took their eye off the ball – match lost.
What happened?: Managing an under- 21 inter-county is not an easy task. Every other team in the Cork has first call on your players. I was an under-21 hurling selector once – back in 1990. We lost our full-back four days before the first round of the championship. He broke his collar bone while playing in the County Championship with his division. We lost to Clare.
Still, this is no excuse. It is the same in Tipperary as it is in Cork.
For most of the game Cork looked as if they could hold Tipperary at arms length. The longer the game went on however, the stronger Tipperary became. I think that the individual hurling skill of the Tipperary players was a major contributor to this.
Think about it? If it competent player takes X amount of energy to perform a skill properly, a lesser skilled player will take X plus 10% energy. As I hinted above, the more skilful the player the easier he finds it to perform his range of hurling skills in wet conditions. The Tipperary players were more skilful. So during the first 50 minutes when Cork were taking the game to Tipperary, Cork were burning X plus 10% energy. Tipperary were just about coping with the pressure but crucially…using less energy.
Therefore, in the last 10 minutes of of the game, Tipperary appeared fresher and Cork looked very tired. Add to this the fact that the Tipperary substitutes worked better than the Cork substitutes and you have a recipe for a comeback (or a collapse).
What now?: Well, unless you are an under-21 selector, life goes on. The county championships will run smoother, the senior hurling team will get all the attention and if they move on a few rounds, last night will be forgotten. One thing for sure is that no lessons will be learned.
How about this for an idea. There should be a law passed in the Dáil banning the use of hurling walls between 17th of March and the 31st of October. The sooner club hurling training is brought back into the hurling field where skills can be honed in a real environment, the better the chances that Cork teams will begin to out-hurl their opponents again.