As I watched the NFL on Sunday evening and as players from the Chiefs and Broncos bounced off each other in the snowy Denver stadium, the penny dropped with me. My weekend had been all about the start of the hurling championship, the thing I'd been waiting on for 14 months. Through all that time, I never thought I'd have to wait until I was sitting on my couch on the Sunday night to see some physicality.
The whole thing had been bugging me since the final whistle in the Clare v Limerick game. On the one hand, I was questioning myself, questioning the sort of championship that we might be in for. It was a weird, empty feeling. Like, is this it? Is this what the GAA moved mountains for?
But then, on the other hand, you have to make allowances as well. The empty ground must have an effect. The players haven’t played a really important game since March. Maybe I overhyped the first weekend back, expected too much from it, got a bit too giddy at the thought of it. We are living through mad times after all.
This was the internal dialogue going on in my mind. When it came right down to it, I really didn’t enjoy the games as much as I thought I would. And I don’t think I was alone in that.
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Yes, it was great to be back. The RTÉ introductory montage got you in the mood. When you coupled it with Dalo and Donal Óg's palpable burning passion for the returning action, it teed up the game nicely for a feisty local derby. A proper Munster championship encounter.
But the game itself was far from feisty. There were lots of scores, there was the brilliance of Tony Kelly and Gearóid Hegarty, there was some small bit of defending and excitement at times. But there was very little physicality and there was almost no tension – even when the teams went in level at half-time. Nobody got too annoyed, nobody lost their rag, there was none of the tetchiness that we have come to expect and demand from the hurling championship.
At one stage coming back from a water break, one of the Clare players was a bit slow getting back on the pitch – he must have been tying a lace or something. You could see the referee looking to get the game started again but Brian Lohan had his hand out and he was asking, nice and politely, if he could have an extra few seconds just to let his player get himself right. Fergal Horgan gave him a bit of a hurry-up but it was all very civilised; the Clare player got time to sort himself out and Lohan gave him a thumbs-up and a thank-you.
Squeeze
In normal Munster championship circumstances, that would have been a very different scene. There’d have been roaring from the crowd, for a start. Somebody from the Limerick set-up would probably have been getting involved, stirring the whole thing up. There would have been a squeeze put on the player, on the ref, on Lohan, on the whole situation. But instead, it was, ‘Right lads, no panic, whenever you’re ready.’
Think back to Lar Corbett coming out late onto the pitch after half-time in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final. Cathal McAllister didn't hold the game for him, he threw the ball in and we played away. Henry Shefflin even had a point scored by the time he emerged from the tunnel. This was a million miles removed from that sort of atmosphere.
It was very noticeable that the result was put away by Limerick during the game’s only period of ruthlessness and intensity. At the start of the second half, they scored six points in the first five minutes and ended the game as a contest. Their body language in that period was so different to anything else we saw all weekend. It was, ‘Right, let’s put these lads away.’ It reminded me very much of the Dublin footballers.
But it was self-generated. You could tell by the noise from the sideline, from their subs and selectors as each point went over that this was something they targeted. Once they got that run on Clare and opened up a lead, the onus was now on Clare to generate their own way back. And without people in the stands, that’s a really difficult task.
There is no doubt the lack of a crowd plays a huge role and at times creates a weird eeriness in a big stadium. Hurling is a game of sparks. Every time excitement levels rise – either because of a score or a save or a monster hit, those sparks fly. But they need somewhere to go, something to set alight. When you have no crowd in the ground, it all just defuses very quickly.
I saw more physicality in a supermarket with two auld pensioners fighting over toilet rolls back in March than I did in Thurles last Sunday
Every time Clare raised a gallop to start reeling Limerick in, it needed the crowd to ignite the game. Clare cut the six-point margin down to one in the 48th minute with Ryan Taylor’s goal, and that was the stage that they needed their supporters the most. They were after being flattened by Limerick’s start to the second half but they were picking themselves off the canvas. What they needed now was a noisy crowd raising the decibels in the stadium, the temperature rising with it, feeding the belief that a comeback was well and truly on.
Most important thing
Ordinarily, the puck-out after that Taylor goal would have felt like the most important thing in the universe at that particular time. Thurles would have felt like it was after lifting up off planet Earth and was hovering over the rest of the world for those few moments. Instead, Nickie Quaid pucked the ball out, Clare won a free on their own 45, Eibhear Quilligan launched it back down on the Limerick square only for Clare to give away another free. The game lost its rhythm and any spark there was in it just fizzled out.
Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond happy that the championship is back. And I am hopeful that as teams get more familiar with these new environments, the games will lift in intensity. But let’s not kid ourselves that what we saw last weekend was the real championship stuff. It wasn’t.
We all know that the beauty of hurling and what we love and hold dear to our hearts about it is physicality and fire and contact. Yet I saw more physicality in a supermarket with two auld pensioners fighting over toilet rolls back in March than I did in Thurles last Sunday.
At one stage, Gearóid Hegarty picked up a ball in space, sauntered up the wing and flicked it over an opponent’s head to gather up the other side. As if that wasn’t enough, he dished off a beautiful back-handed handpass to finish off the move. It was a gorgeous piece of skill. Sublime stuff.
But come on. This is the Munster championship. Hegarty can’t be allowed to do something like that so easily. No Clare player laid a glove on him. They didn’t even seem that pissed off by it. I’m not saying you go in and bury him. I’m saying that if you’re approaching the game with the right attitude, that opportunity doesn’t present itself to anyone, least of all one of the opposition’s best players. Or at least he has to think twice about trying it out.
Sometimes you step over the line and you take the consequences. Sometimes you go to shoulder a lad and he sidesteps you and you fall flat on your face
That’s the kind of weekend it was, though. I know Laois, Dublin and Clare wouldn’t be the biggest teams out there, but physicality is not all about size. It’s about using your body to influence the game in a positive manner, making sure you have good body position, hitting hard and fair at the right time. There’s a massive amount of skill and thought involved in it and it’s a fundamental part of the game.
Masterclass
I think of Mike Casey's use of physicality in what everyone thought would be a mismatch in the 2018 final against the man-mountain Johnny Glynn. It was a masterclass in using your body, in keeping the ball out of Glynn's hand, in maintaining a tightness of touch in marking him. That kind of defending was really nowhere to be seen last weekend.
One of the most physical players I ever played with or against was Tommy Walsh. Small in stature but he hit you with every bit of his body and he hit you hard. He understood what it was he needed to do with his body to survive in that department and though he was small, he was well able for it.
I didn’t always use my body correctly when I played. I was reckless at times. But I tried to make use of my strengths as much as I could for my team. The aim was always, always stop the forward influencing the game. Sometimes you step over the line and you take the consequences. Sometimes you go to shoulder a lad and he sidesteps you and you fall flat on your face. You take the consequences there, as well. It’s a double-edged sword but don’t be in any doubt – that physicality is a weapon that’s needed.
I have no doubt that the six teams who are playing this weekend will have watched those two games back and seen the same thing as I saw. The question is, who will be able to conjure up that physicality this weekend? And where are they going to get it from? For Kilkenny, Wexford, Galway and Tipperary, this is going to be an alien experience. They are going to have to generate their own intensity, their own raw warrior mentality.
Limerick must have an advantage going into the big clash of the weekend against Tipperary. Not only do they have the experience of playing a Munster Championship match in that eerie, echoey atmosphere, they also know what they’re capable when they ramp up the intensity themselves.
That five minutes after half-time has to be their template. Be at it from the first whistle. Be relentless. Run up the score. Two points in a minute, four in three, six in five. No room to breathe, no time to think.
Remember, these Tipperary players haven’t played a serious match together since March 1st. That’s eight months ago. Limerick need to make them feel every day of that eight months, especially in the opening 10 minutes. It has to be frantic, physical and raw. It has to be a Munster championship game.
Tipp will know it’s coming. They would have spoken about it all week: this is coming, lads, look what they did to Clare when the mood took them. And so I have no doubt that the Tipp players will stand for the anthem and be absolutely sure they are ready. But they won’t know for sure. That’s the advantage Limerick have to drive home.
