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ENDA MCEVOY - Tipp are more seasoned
THE most significant and potentially far-reaching five minutes of the 2010 hurling championship to date? Easy one.
It wasn't a passage of play from Cork/Tipperary at Pirc U Chaoimh at the end of May, groundshaking a match as that appeared at the time.
It wasn't a sequence from the two-part Munster final; not Tony Browne's equalising goal in injury-time in the drawn game, not Big Dan's winning goal in extra-time the following Saturday. It wasn't even anything from Kilkenny's dismissal of Cork in the All Ireland semi-final.
No, the five minutes of the 2010 championship that really matter, and that might be seen to matter still more come teatime on Sunday, were the last five minutes of the Tipperary/Galway quarter-final at Croke Park on July 25. The five minutes that saw Tipp teetering on the brink.
The five minutes that might well have seen them lose their footing and plunge headlong into the void, never to make their way back out under Liam Sheedy's management.
Three chances - three scores
Remember? The clock was showing 67 minutes and Galway were leading by 3-16 to 3-14. They'd had a couple of chances to go three points ahead but had missed them: a composure issue.
Now Tipperary, the more experienced team, created three scoring opportunities for themselves – and didn't miss them. A composure issue again, and they were the crowd with the composure. As, at this stage in their evolution under Sheedy, they were entitled to be.
Three shots were taken and three points accrued. John O'Brien, Gearoid Ryan and Lar Corbett all found the range as the favourites got up right on the finishing line to win by the minimum margin. It was that close, yes, but there was nothing remotely fortunate about it.
Instead of attempting scores from Hail Mary distances, Tipp had poked and prodded till the gaps opened. Pa Bourke, newly introduced as a substitute for Patrick Maher, didn't try to be a hero in circumstances where another player might have gone for glory by himself.
Instead the Thurles Sarsfields man kept his head up, looked around him, studied the available options and then played the simple, decisive pass for the Ryan and Corbett points.
Won't be found wanting
Bourke held his nerve. Tipperary held their nerve. That's why they'll be lining out in Croke Park on Sunday. And should matters come down to a test of nerve, as they may very well do, don't expect the challengers to be found wanting.
They were found wanting at the death in the 2008 All-Ireland semi-final against Waterford, but that was in Sheedy's first year as manager and with an XV containing a raft of players unused to such a big occasion: easily explicable and, on the whole, pretty forgivable.
They were found wanting again at the death last September, but not by much and only then against the most successful outfit of modern times: again, easily explicable and almost entirely forgivable.
The manner of the win against Galway demonstrated that Tipp have learned the hard way and, as a consequence, have learned well. What's more, they're an improving team – always the most difficult type of team to beat.
Losing to Cork in the provincial quarter-final has proved to be a blessing that at the time was so well disguised as to be unrecognisable. Rather than taking the direct route for a third year in succession, Tipp were forced to do a circuit of Ireland. Wexford in Thurles, Offaly in Portlaoise, Galway in a quarter-final.
Far from damaging them, the tour afforded them breathing space to get their house in order post-Pirc U Chaoimh; gave them a change of scenery and allowed them to build momentum gradually. To repeat, they're an improving team, even if they haven't been hurling with the same verve and fluency they showed throughout the Summer of 2009.
Granted, the formbook says – nay, insists – they have some more improvement to find in order to see off Kilkenny. After all, Tipperary only beat Galway by a point whereas the All-Ireland champions beat John McIntyre's men by seven.
As many a hardened gambler will be quick to confirm, however, the formbook is not always to be relied upon. So Tipp beat Galway by a point. Right. But that was on one particular day.
And Kilkenny beat Galway by seven points. But that was on a different day. Does it really need to be added that Sunday is an entirely different day again?
Hunger has
no bounds
To put it another way, Cork beat Tipperary by 10 points and Kilkenny beat Cork by 12 points. Yet not even the most optimistic Kilkenny supporter – and Kilkenny supporters are by nature pessimistic rather than optimistic, but that's another story - could possibly argue that Kilkenny are 22 points better than Tipperary.
Which brings us back to much the same place where all of us were this week last year. An established team facing a coming team. A team who've feasted long and well (and wisely too) facing a team whose hunger knows no bounds.
And a team with gallons of petrol in the tank facing a team who one of these afternoons will yet again put their foot on the accelerator only to discover this time that at long last the petrol has run out. You'll be able to work out for yourself which team is which in the latter scenario.
On that point, had an email last week from a friend from South Kilkenny. He's a shrewd gent, someone who likes and knows both his horses and his hurling and is a keen student of the aforementioned formbook, both in equine and camn-and-sliotar terms.
The week before the All-Ireland semi-final, for instance, he predicted a 10-point victory for the Noresiders against Cork. Like I said, a shrewd gent. (Although perhaps not that shrewd, for if he were he'd surely be residing in Switzerland rather than South Kilkenny. But anyway.)
Postpone inevitable
And now? No 10-point victory. No victory at all, it seems. Injuries, old age, staleness, the Henry situation, Tipperary's hunger and young legs.
"This is the day it all catches up on Kilkenny," sez he glumly. "There's a reason why no team has done five-in-a-row in 126 years of the GAA."
All good things come to an end, even – especially – for the greatest teams. That end may indeed arrive for Kilkenny on Sunday. But if any team can postpone the inevitable, this is the one.
Enda McEvoy is the hurling correspondent of the Sunday Tribune.
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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