In attendance at the unveiling of Ballygowan Activ+ as the new Official Fitness Partner of the GAA/GPA is former Tipperary hurler and All-Ireland winner Brendan Cummins at Croke Park in Dublin.
By Michael Devlin
Brendan Cummins believes the key to Liam MacCarthy Cup success on Sunday will be in the battle in for the half-back line.
The Tipperary legend offered a tactical analysis of this weekend’s All-Ireland Hurling Final, whereby he outlined that stopping Kilkenny gaining primary possession on the ’65 will be integral to a Premier victory.
Do that, and Cummins believes the Kilkenny half back line will be drawn further up the pitch, allowing the Tipp full forward line plenty of space to inflict damage on the Cats.
“It will allow our half-back line to sit a little bit close to our full-back line, which then means their half-back line should have to come further up the pitch to engage us because if we can get overlaps 80 yards from their goal, the half-back line have to come out.
“When they come out then, there's 60 yards of space then for Seamie [Callanan], John McGrath and the boys inside. That's really what you're looking to create in a game like Sunday. But you have to win five, six and seven first.”
Brian Hogan’s restarts will also play a huge factor says Cummins. When he was launching out the puck-outs against Kilkenny during in his Tipperary career, it most often Eoin Larkin and TJ Reid in the wing forward roles he looking out at.
Reid continues to carry out a hugely important job between the Kilkenny midfield and full forward line, along with John Donnelly and Walter Walsh, and Adrian Mullen also dropping in to challenge for loose possession. The task for Brian Hogan, and indeed his team mates out the field, is to prevent Kilkenny controlling the game by mixing up the puck out strategy.
“We’d have known TJ Reid and Eon Larkin were the two 10 and 12’s that I was dealing with, and every 10 and 12 sits back the pitch. What you do with five and seven is the key, because you want to keep them honest
“But you see Walter the last day [against Limerick] where he stood, 60 yards from his own goal saying, ‘Go on, put it over my head”, so Nicky Quaid looked out and saw this big monster out the pitch with the hurley up, thinking’ “I can’t get it over eight foot of your man down there, I have to go down the other side”. So Kilkenny dictated the terms of where the game was played, so you have to all the time drive your agenda.
“That responsibility is on the goalkeeper, but not just on him, on his colleagues around him, because he can only deliver to the guy in the best position, it’s somebody’s job to get into that best position. There’s two working that all the time.
Kilkenny and Tipperary in action in the Allianz Hurling League in Thurles earlier this year.
“It’s grand playing for Kilkenny because Mullen, Donnelly, TJ and Walter, if you’re stuck, just throw it down on top of them Tipp don’t have a Walter figure in the half forwards, so for Eoin eight out of ten he’s going boom, boom, boom.
“Whereas Brian Hogan will probably be looking six out of ten to go long, the other four then will be the difference between winning and losing. But it’s not just his responsibility either, it’s the others around him to make themselves in a good position to receive the pass.”
Ultimately for Cummins, it’s about who makes the best decisions on the day, especially through the middle third of the pitch, that will decide the outcome.
“The big thing for me is the Tipperary full back, who plays there and how does Huw Lawlor survive on Seamy Callanan, and who can protect their backlines the best. It’s the winning and losing of the game in my head, and that’ll be a case of, you won’t see it happening, who’s going to take the chance to leave the wing forward or midfield to run back and intercept that pass.
“That’s going to be the winning and losing of it. At least 30 of those decision over the course of the game, 15 maybe on each side, if you don’t make that decision tight, there could be two goals in it against your team.”
