Glimpses of the new era to come from Tipp

By Shane Brophy

The strong wind and heavy rain that greet the Tipperary players, management, and supporters arrived (in considerable numbers) in Portlaoise on Saturday evening provided a backdrop of an even greater banana skin of an opener in the National Hurling League.

Off the back of a loss to Kerry in the Munster League, even with a fringe selection and the shocking retirement of Padraic Maher in the days leading up to the game, Tipperary hurling needed some positivity, and in terms of the result they got it.

The performance wasn’t a lot to write home about, but the conditions played a major role in that. This was a night for players to roll up the sleeves as nothing was going to come easy and in terms of their application and desire, Colm Bonnar couldn’t have asked for much more.

The next part is the hard part, but this was sufficient on the evening where Laois posed enough problems but didn’t have the class or belief to win the game. Eight first half wides with the wind, and a couple of decent goal chances not taken, prevented them from putting Tipperary under even more pressure.

However, Tipp weren’t much better with the elements at their backs, eleven second half wides, fifteen in all, as they huffed and puffed to the finish line as the game petered out as a spectacle as the heavy conditions took their toll in the final quarter on two tiring teams.

Something different

Disregarding the loss in Tralee last month, this was the first time we could truly evaluate this Tipperary team and what the new management are trying to implement. Maintaining possession of the ball has become so important in hurling, particularly with the use of the handpass, and is an area Tipp hadn’t developed in recent years.

Right from the off on Saturday, they were prepared to work the ball out from the back, through the lines.It worked to varying degrees of success, to the high of Cathal Barrett’s point just before half time in a move that saw four pinpoint handpasses given in stride up the stand side touchline.

Barrett didn’t find himself on the end of the move by chance, earlier in the half he began a move by taking a short puckout from Brian Hogan, and after he laid off the initial pass, he stayed moving up the field, and ended up providing the assist for a Jason Forde point.

The growth in the importance of the handpass isn’t popular among supporters but in the modern game, minding possession is so important and you need to be flexible to change your gameplan if the need arises. There is no team better than Tipp playing a traditional style but having another plan of attack if Plan A isn’t working is a must nowadays.

New Blood

In terms of players getting an opportunity to stake a claim for a championship jersey, a number did their chances no harm, particularly Craig Morgan who was superb at corner back, not only in his defensive work, but also the urgency of his play when on the ball, injecting pace and power into attacks.

James Quigley started along side him and did well in the one on ones but was under pressure with Stephen Maher in the opening half, when the Laois full forward scored three from play, drifting out into space to good effect.

Dillon Quirke had a solid outing in a Tipp half back line that wasn’t as commanding as you would hope, with Barry Heffernan struggling particularly with his handling in the greasy conditions.

Up front, Mark Kehoe has been a player long touted for a place in the starting line-up and contributed four fine points from play. The key now is to build on that. The same for Jake Morris who pilfered three points from play in a full forward line where Denis Maher won a lot of hard ball and had his fingerprints in a number of scores in both halves.

Along with the wides tally, if there was one major disappointing aspect of the performance it was the support play among the forwards. Numerous times, well-placed passes went into the full forward line where Denis Maher, Mark Kehoe, Jason Forde and sub Paul Flynn ran onto it, but there was rarely a support player in close proximity to take a pass, or if there was the pass was too slow in getting to them. In many cases, the forward player was then swallowed up and turned over, or in other cases took a shot from a poor position as he had no other option.

However, these are issues that can be addressed and they will be as they get used to the style of play being demanded by Colm Bonnar and his management and while all in all it wasn’t a performance to set the pulses race, it was sufficient enough on the night to get the league and a new Tipperary era off to a winning start.