Tipp’s direct approach found wanting

A Munster Under 20 Hurling final that Tipperary will look back on with plenty of regrets but ultimately it was a game they didn’t deserve to win.

By Shane Brophy

They had the chances and will look back on five goal chances which went a begging before Andrew Ormond finally managed to breach Eoin Davis’ goal in added time. However, by that stage the damage had been done as Jack Cahalane’s 57th minute goal put Cork into an unassailable lead.

While Cork were deserving winners, they didn’t have to play that well to win the game and that is frustrating from a Tipperary point of view. In the aforementioned Davis, centre back Ciaran Joyce, and corner forward Shane Barrett they had excellent performers but the reason they won the game was their better use of possession.

This was in contrast to Tipperary who played a very direct brand of hurling which yielded little reward. Being direct is fine as long as you have players to win it, or being able to mix it up a bit, but there was very little in terms of playing the ball to the wings or into space for a forward to run onto. We know how good the likes of Conor Bowe and James Devaney are in possession, but they got very little quality ball to work with. Andrew Ormond is a player with massive potential to progress to senior level and while he finished with 1-3 from play, all those scores came late on when he drifted out field to pick up possession.

He had to as Tipperary were beaten up a stick in the half forward line in the second half with Cork’s half back line winning ten of the visitors puckouts and without that platform to attack was always going to be difficult for the premier county to win. Tipp didn’t help themselves in that regard either with the majority of the puckouts going down the right wing to James Devaney who was crowded out, rather than to a taller Gearoid O’Connor on the other wing.

Tipp managed just 1-5 in the second half, 1-4 coming from Ormond and Bowe, with the other point coming from an Eoghan Connolly long range free, as the forwards had such little possession, they didn’t win one free in an attacking sense in the second period.

After the slow starts in their previous two games against Clare and Waterford, Tipp did start in lively fashion but a two pointed frees from Devon Ryan was scant reward, with Ryan also missing a relatively easy free by his standards. The Knockavilla clubman carried Tipp’s only forward threat in the first half, scoring five points, two from play, but an ankle injury picked up late in the first half blunted his effectiveness and never impacted the game thereafter.

The long range free-taking of Eoghan Connolly also kept Tipperary in touch at half time, landing three monster efforts in the difficult swirling wind. The skipper was outstanding and further enhanced his credentials for a senior call-up with his physicality and ability to break the tackle again noteworthy.

However, Tipperary’s approach with the ball made creating scoring chances difficult, despite creating goal chances in the first half which saw Ormond denied by Davis, while Kian O’Kelly fired over from close range. There was definitely a focus on running at the Cork defence to create openings when point chances were there for the taking.

At the other end, the Cork full forward line had no such problems with quality ball going in to where Shane Barrett was a constant threat. It was a tough education for Darragh Flannery in his first start who found the Cork senior panellist too hot to handle with Eanna McBride moved onto him after he scored three first half points from play, adding two more after the break.

They also had Colin O’Brien in excellent form with three points from play and that Cork outscored Tipp 1-12 to 1-7 from play is a further indication of the deservedness of the rebel’s victory. However, it would argue that Cork didn’t have the better forwards, it was they played to a better plan that helped their forwards get better scoring chances whereas Tipperary’s approach was very much old-school and didn’t play to the strengths of its better finishers such as Devaney, Ormond, and Conor Bowe.

In fairness to the management team headed up by manager John Devane, it hasn’t been an easy campaign to get their message across of what way they hoped to play with two Covid related shutdowns leaving little time to work on things but even they must have been frustrated at how many of the players didn’t play a smarter brand of hurling in using the ball better.

It’s something they won’t have much time to stew on with the next under 20 campaign starting in May, with training allowed to begin in March and with eight of the players that featured against Cork available to play in 2021, they do have the basis of a strong panel to contend next year.