Tullamore can retain title if they withstand early Coolderry onslaught
Last week, this column analysed the Offaly senior football final, comparing two teams with more than a few similarities. This Sunday the senior hurling championship comes to a conclusion, and the two sides involved have little or nothing in common, either in terms of club profile or with regard to the performances of the two teams.
Tullamore are the county’s foremost dual club and are very much a town team, while Coolderry is a village club where hurling is everything and football is held in similar esteem to sports like darts and water polo.
Tullamore have developed a track record of struggling in round robin games, but bursting to life and proving very difficult to beat in knockout fixtures. Coolderry traditionally blitz past all opponents in their group games before struggling to replicate that same destructiveness when their lives are on the line. Even during games, Coolderry tend to burst out of the blocks and put the game to bed inside the first fifteen minutes, while Tullamore have won their last six must-win matches between 2009 and 2010, and only led at half time in one of those games - the 2009 county final against Kilcormac/Killoughey.
On paper, Coolderry look to be an extremely strong team with no obvious weak spots. Tullamore, in contrast, don’t line out with a full hand of current and former county representatives but they do come together to form a unit much more impressive than the individual parts of which it is comprised.
Unlike the county football decider, which was always likely to go down to the wire, this fixture offers no such guarantees. Ken Hogan employed a policy with the Tipperary under-21 hurlers this year of blowing teams out of the water in the opening minutes, a strategy he has asked this Coolderry team to replicate. This they did to great effect against Kinnitty in the county semi-final, securing their place in the final before the half-time whistle sounded.
Tullamore are a dogged and competitive team, but they are not known for starting strongly, and they fit the profile of a team who could easily be trailing by ten points within ten minutes. Against Coolderry, this would be fatal. While Tullamore are well capable of digging themselves out of a difficult hole, they don’t have the scoring power to overcome a large deficit.
Leaving aside all the soap opera against Kilcormac/Killoughey, on the scoreboard Tullamore trailed by 0-9 to 0-6 but went on to score seven out of the last eight points, securing a three-point win. It was a great comeback, but 0-13 won’t usually win a championship hurling game. It certainly won’t if Coolderry have 2-5 on the board by the time the first fifteen minutes have expired.
The corollary to this however is that if Coolderry fail to accumulate an early lead, they leave themselves in a very weak position going down the stretch. These Tullamore players have sky high self belief after digging deep to pick up a string of crucial wins, while Coolderry have yet to have to find their highest gears. Their wins over Shinrone and Kinnitty were somewhat facile and while Coolderry cannot be blamed for underperforming opponents, they needed a more severe test before taking on a battle hardened Tullamore unit.
Ownership of their own puckout will be absolutely crucial if Tullamore are to stay in this game. The best way to break opponents’ momentum after a score is to fetch the puckout and respond in kind, or at least get in a shot on goal. Coolderry’s strangulation of opponents is made possible by the half-back line brick wall of Kevin Brady and David King either side of Joe Brady. The Brady brothers are proven performers at this level and are very strong under the dropping ball, but it’s the form of King that has been the real revelation this year. King has defied his young age to hold his own in a key position and he should have no fear going into Sunday’s final.
Tullamore’s active midfield unit has ensured that once the puckouts break onto the grass, they hold the whip hand. James Keane’s reprieve from suspension ensures that Tullamore should retain this advantage. Players like Jody Duffy and Nigel Mannion have a huge part to play in making sure that at the very least, there is a contest for possession on the floor, rather than just a series of high catches by the Bradys. Tullamore’s plan B could be to move the all round talent of Shane Kelly into the half forward line, and with Keane now available to man the midfield, Vinny Wyer has more flexibility to move his other starting midfielder out of the engine room. Whatever personnel lines out in that sector, the pressure is on the Tullamore half forward line to ensure that puckouts are spoiled and the resultant breaks are devoured. Individual responsibility will also play a huge part for Tullamore. Cathal Parlon at full-forward and Brian Carroll at midfield are just two of the players on the Coolderry team who will show up in sectors of the field where they will be utterly unexpected, so Tullamore must close down those two roving players and, crucially, the space in behind Cathal Parlon when he moves out the field looking for ball. Damien Murray in particular loves finding the vacated space behind Parlon and he cannot be allowed to pick up handy scores this way.
All that said, with favouritism so clearly on the side of Coolderry, this columnist would only bet on Tullamore at this stage. Coolderry always look unbeatable in round robin games, while Tullamore come into their own in the toughest battles. Destroying already beaten opposition is one thing, but Coolderry may need a different mindset on Sunday and it’s unclear as to whether they can deliver in this environment.
If Tullamore can get through the turbulence of the first fifteen minutes without shipping too many scores, this game could take on what is now a very familiar blue tinge by the closing stages.
