It is the biggest day of the hurling year and two heavyweights have made the final. But who is going to win, Tipp or Kilkenny? Two JOE’s argue both sides.
Conor Heneghan says… having tipped Tipp to do the business at various stages throughout this season, I suppose I have little choice but to stick to my guns ahead of the final with Kilkenny this weekend.
That might suggest that there is a little hesitancy about doing so on my part, but to be honest about it, the doubts I had about Tipp earlier in the season have gradually eroded as the season has gone on. As far as I can see, that seems to be the case inside the Tipperary camp as well, where the players appear to have a lot more belief in themselves than they had at the start of the summer, but when you haven’t won a Championship game for the best part of two years a certain level of insecurity is understandable.
When making the case for Tipperary being genuine All-Ireland contenders after their defeat to Limerick in Munster, I’m not sure if I genuinely thought they would go on and win it this year; it was more of a case of defending a group of players who had had their bottle seriously questioned after a few years of underachievement.
The ability was certainly there, but did they have the character? Had they lost to Galway, you’d have serious grounds to say no, but they showed plenty of grit and determination to recover from an ominous position that day, scoring 2-10 to Galway’s single point in the last 20 minutes of that game.
Since then, they’ve been able to showcase that ability we all knew was there while a number of players have emerged to fill the gaping leadership hole that Bonner Maher was probably trying to shovel dirt into on his own.
Now, there are leaders everywhere you look. There’s Padraic Maher in the full-back line (although we expect him to play half-back) and Brendan Maher at half-back. Shane McGrath and James Woodlock tore a highly-rated Cork midfield to pieces in the semi-final, ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer is averaging around five points a game and Bonner Maher has been his usual inspirational self.
Then there’s Hurler of the Year elect, Seamus Callanan. Plenty of players have gone into an All-Ireland Final with that tag in the past and flopped spectacularly and no doubt Kilkenny will have earmarked him for loads of their own particular brand of TLC, with one JJ Delaney leading the charge. Before you go on, yes, that’s the first time you’ve seen JJ Delaney and the phrase ‘TLC’ appear in the same sentence.
Certainly, the Cats will be better equipped to deal with the direct approach adopted by Tipp in the semis, but Callanan is having one of those seasons where you begin to wonder if he can stopped. It’s amazing what scoring 7-34 (7-34!!!) in four games can do to a man’s confidence.
Despite coming through tests against Galway, Offaly, Dublin and Cork, not to mention losing to Limerick, there’s a danger that Tipp will go into this one slightly undercooked. Dublin and Cork offered pretty feeble resistance and you can be sure that nobody will be saying that of Kilkenny after Sunday.
With all due respect to them, the current Kilkenny vintage aren’t quite at the same level as the team that triumphed over Tipp in the 2009 and 2011 finals but they’re still a damn good side and they showed against Limerick that they know how to win, even when things might not be going their way.
As a result, it’s probably going to be tight and if that is the case then it’s back to a question of character once again. Plenty of the players lining out in blue and gold have beaten Kilkenny in a final already but that was four years ago. Do they believe that they can do it again?
I believe they do and I believe they’ll win.
Sean Nolan says… a hyper-motivated Kilkenny facing a Tipp team who have had a succession of facile wins adds up to only one winner on Sunday.
From epic Gaelic football, to sex-toy fuelled Transfer Deadline Day shenanigans to Ryder Cup teams, the sporting agenda has been pretty full. So you could perhaps be forgiven for overlooking Sunday’s All-Ireland final but we’re not in a forgiving mood.
It’s Tipp v Kilkenny for poc’s sake. These are teams that contested three sensational All-Ireland finals between them from 2009 to 2011, a rivalry so good RTE made a documentary about it. Look, here it is.
And the rivalry between the hurling powers even has its own Wikipedia page. Cork may differ, and we genuinely miss the wildcard element of a Clare or a Galway in the decider, but this is a massive clash.
And, when it comes to those big days, the team in amber and black usually wins out. In their last seven Championship meetings, Tipp’s only win was the 2010 final. That defeat was also Brian Cody’s only Championship defeat at the hands of the Premier.
So history favours Kilkenny but what about the season so far, haven’t Tipp been the coming team? I’m not convinced. Before the semi-final with Cork I was sure that their defeats of Galway, Offaly and Dublin were facile victories over flaky teams. We all saw them destroy Cork (who may have been worse than any of the aforementioned three that day) in that semi but it was only in the second half that they were able to press their clear dominance into a decisive lead.
At half-time it was just a two-point lead they held (1-07 to 0-8) and that failure to take full advantage of their dominance has been a feature of all their games, only showing their full range and prowess in flashes.
If they fail to fire from the off against Kilkenny, and maintain it for 70 minutes, they won’t get a shot at getting into the groove when it suits them. In Seamus Callanan they have the most in-form forward in the game but he was shackled by Limerick and I expect Brian Cody to have a plan to do the same. Without him firing in goals and points at an astonishing rate, Tipp will be in big trouble.
As well as having a defence that has tightened up considerably since Galway scored 6-33 over two games in Leinster, Kilkenny have rediscovered the most lethal trait of their dominant days; goals.
When they were on the road to four-in-a-row the Cats used goals to either slay teams early or snuff out late fightbacks. They lost that knack in 2013, raising only two green flags all year, in six games.
But the goal threat is back with a bang this year. Eight were scored in their first two games of the Championship and while they only managed two against Limerick, they were the winning of the game, as Richie Hogan and Eoin Larkin’s goals were perfectly timed to destroy their opponents.
And we hardly have to mention the motivating factor of winning a 10th Celtic Cross for Henry Shefflin, and how his team-mates want to ensure that astounding feat comes to pass.
There will be enough fire in the belly to empty a Gaviscon factory at HQ on Sunday, but, as is so often the case, when the smoke clears, I expect to see Kilkenny as the only ones left standing.
