Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

For anyone who hasn't heard them yet, both the examiner and the independent podcasts give decent analysis of the senior game last week. Daly is on his own with the views he produced in his article as Landers and Ryan speak a lot of sense. Daly coming up with nonsense like Stephen Bennett not hitting the free that well so it should have been saved and then Limerick could have gone down the field and scored again we're dismissed as they should have been. Martin Brehony argues that Waterford shouldn't look on it as a free shot and should be disappointed they didn't win. He feels every time you beat a team it changes the belief dynamic between both.

I don't agree with every point made ( I agree with none of Daly's) but many are made logically so you can at least see things from another perspective.

In looking back over last Saturday’s game, I have come to the conclusion that Liam Cahill used it as an experimental laboratory to try out various things with a view to being better prepared for when Waterford (hopefully) play Limerick again later on in the championship. The main experiments, obviously, were placing Calum Lyons in midfield, having Conor Prunty mark Gearóid Hegarty, and placing Iarlaith Daly at full back.

Lyons had an exceptional game, indicating success with this experiment. In the recent past, Kevin Moran’s physical presence and ability to get forward, combined with Jamie Barron’s all-action work in the middle third, gave Waterford perhaps the most effective midfield pairing in the country, and maybe Liam Cahill is trying to reproduce this effect with Lyons in Moran’s place. At the same time, one wonders if Waterford can afford to do without his ball-winning ability in the half-back line, from where, as we know, he can get forward and shoot points with equal facility.

While Daly was doing fine in the full-back line before he got injured, I think the jury is out on the Prunty experiment. While I would say that Hegarty had a greater impact on the game after Prunty moved to full-back, Prunty himself seemed to be more comfortable in his more normal position, notwithstanding the problems he had with Aaron Gillane, who was getting a superb supply of ball from out the field.

Cahill’s decision to replace Daly with Tom Barron seemed surprising at the time. As noted here before, defending is not Barron’s strongest suit, and he appeared to be much more comfortable when relieved of full-back line duties with Prunty’s relocation. He did improve when he got to the pitch of the game and had quite a reasonable second half, with six possessions. And he now has 48 minutes of intense championship hurling in the bank, which strengthens the panel further.

The decision to replace Tadhg de Búrca with Cárthach Daly late in the game was also interesting, as it looked like a signal to Daly that he is ahead of Shane and Kieran Bennett in the pecking order. I would not be surprised to see him back at midfield for the Cork game (especially in view of how well he did against them in the league final), with Calum Lyons restored to wing back.

The decision to replace Michael Kiely with Pauric Mahony with just two minutes to go indicates to me that Cahill was not particularly concerned with the eventual outcome of this game. At that stage Waterford needed a goal to survive, and Kiely was much more likely than Mahony to either score or create one. I suspect that Cahill was again giving a signal to Mahony that he is in the championship mix and may still have an important contribution to give.

One of the key “learning” from the game from Waterford’s point of view is how discomfited the Limerick defence was when Waterford ran at them in the first 20 minutes, when Waterford dominated the game. A key factor here was that Waterford won six Limerick long puckouts in a row. It was like Limerick against Waterford in last night’s under 20 game – you keep the opposition pinned back if you win their puckouts, get scores and then win the next puckouts again.

However, Limerick managed to get some parity in this area in the second quarter and won more than half of their long puckouts in the second half. Of much more significance to the final result, and a continuing crucial area of weakness for Waterford, was their inability to win their own puckouts (as was also the case against Tipperary). Over the game, Waterford hit 27 long puckouts and only won 8 (30%) of these. This gave Limerick the midfield platform to secure victory. While Waterford also hit 16 short puckouts, in most cases this was followed by a long ball down the field which again gave the advantage to the Limerick defence.

In the league semi-final against Wexford, Waterford established superiority by working short puckouts to free players in the midfield area. Granted, this was facilitated by Wexford’s policy of not pressing up on short puckouts (as seen in their subsequent championship games against Galway and Dublin), but it was repeated, with equal success, in the league final (in the second half in particular).  It would be nice to think that Cahill is holding this tactic in reserve for a later meeting with Limerick, and that the panel will be working hard on perfecting it over the next three weeks, but I have my doubts.

In last Friday’s Irish Times, Joe Canning made some telling observations on key elements of Limerick’s successful formula. He wrote that beating Limerick is not about marking their forwards effectively, but about keeping the ball away from them. Their forwards get so much good ball because “Limerick nearly always have a spare man coming out of defence with time and space to pick one of them out”. Thus, it is essential for the opposing team to win, or at least get an even share of, the midfield possession battle. As Canning puts it: “Pressure out the field is the best help a marking defender can have”.

There are two parts to the Limerick formula – winning possession and then using that possession well. A key element in getting possession is Limerick’s ability to win turnovers, usually via gang tackling. I counted 15 cases of Waterford players being turned over last Saturday, whereas Waterford won just eight. As Canning observes, Limerick very rarely give teams chances to turn them over. They do this by immediately transferring the ball to a free team-mate when they get possession, usually followed by a second transfer to another team-mate in space who can either look up to give the ball inside or have a shot at goal themselves (Diarmuid Byrnes and Declan Hannon are particularly good at this). I counted eleven instances in Saturday’s game where Limerick completed at least three passes in a row (the count for Waterford was just four).

Waterford really need to take a leaf out of Limerick’s book in this area i.e. when you get possession, immediately transfer to a free team-mate; on no account should you run into a gang tackle, as Waterford did repeatedly on Saturday.

Canning makes two further points about Limerick’s fixation with retaining possession. One is how they always look for a team-mate to give a short pass to from sidelines, rather than trying to hit it as far as they can down the field, which is what Waterford almost always attempt to do. The other is that you never see Nicky Quaid giving a short pass to the fullback, taking the return and then belting it down the field (again as Waterford frequently do). Instead, he will always try to find a team-mate with a pass, sometimes 65 metres down the field.

As regards individual performances, I thought that Austin Gleeson possibly gave his most complete performance in a Waterford senior shirt last Saturday. He repeatedly won possession and drove at the Limerick defence, providing great inspiration and leadership in the process. He topped the Waterford possession count with 14. I don’t think he ever did that before.

By contrast, Jack Prendergast got his first second-half possession in the 58th minute (which he used very poorly, sending in an overhit ball that went harmlessly wide). His total possession count of seven was the lowest among the outfield players who played the whole game. He only had five possessions in the Tipperary game. He does some wonderful things when he is on the ball, but Liam Cahill has to work on making sure this happens more frequently.

One final point. Both Waterford and Limerick had twelve shots for points from frees on Saturday. Limerick got them all. Waterford missed four, and lost by three points.

Waterford team (possessions in brackets): Shaun O’Brien (2); Conor Gleeson (10), Iarlaith Daly (3), Shane McNulty (8); Jack Fagan (8), Tadhg de Búrca (11), Conor Prunty (8); Darragh Lyons (7), Calum Lyons (12); Austin Gleeson (14), Jack Prendergast (7), Patrick Curran (8); Dessie Hutchinson (8), Stephen Bennett (10), Michael Kiely (6); Tom Barron (6), Jamie Barron (3), Neil Montgomery (1), Cárthach Daly (1), Pauric Mahony (1).

I know he's injury prone, but starting a lad six days after he was deemed only fit enough for 10mins was very short sighted from Cahill.

Minor footballers Munster campaign ended tonight with a 1-16-0-09 defeat at the hands of Tipperary.

2-16 was the total we scored in 3 games. Fair play to the players and management for giving it a shot at least. Simply not enough interest in underage Football

Big blow, certain starter when fit. Has been very unlucky with injuries since coming on the inter county scene. Hope he’s not another dara fives (great hurler but career riddled with various injuries)

when I said we're not the only ones that get injuries I didn't know iarlaith daly was out huge loss for ye I hate hearing about injuries no matter what the county

My mistake

To be fair he went over on his ankle, completely unrelated. Obviously some ligament damage which is rotten luck

Has this been officially confirmed yet regarding Daly's injury

darn

Wish him a speedy recovery, so unlucky

He should have been subbed before this happened. He was clearly injured a few minutes before. He stayed on and did more damage. Poor enough, i think, from medics / management. Pity....savage player.

Rory Furlong was phenomenal mid week fullback U20s. Flexible player too. Maybe he can be called up as cover now as Prunty has struggled with injury this year.

good luck

2022 Munster GAA Football Senior Championship

Waterford V Tipperary

🔴LIVE STREAMING LINKS 📍📡📡📡📡 https://game-day.show-more.site/gaa.php?live=Waterford%20V%20Tipperary

📅 Saturday, 30th April 2022 🕑 19:00

Round : Quarter-Final

Venue : Fraher Field

Referee : Maurice Deegan

Hard luck to the footballers, positive start but sadly not able to hold out and played catch up for the rest of the game

Onto the Tailteann Cup and await the draw

Sorry - I actually can’t read that wall of text.

Where did I say I have a problem with any of it?

I am delighted for them thanks very much

Where in my post does it come across as a rant?

I think your post was an almighty rant though! Haha

Hegarty is living in Dromcollogher currently by the way

Clare come out 2 points winners against Cork

Given Limerick beat Tipp next weekend, we just need to beat Cork and we're through along with Limerick and Clare