Ever since Galway stayed strong to beat Tipperary in a classic in mid-August, there have been positive vibes in the county. This year it's different, they said. Except it wasn't in the end.
During the first half, Galway looked like delivering. In the second half, they were snuffed out. Every time a Galway forward got the ball, he was attacked and harried by a swarm of Kilkenny defenders.
We asked the last Galway man to lift the Liam McCarthy and the man who managed them to the 2005 All-Ireland final, Conor Hayes, for his thoughts on what went wrong in the second half.
While Brendan Lynskey was deeply critical of Galway's second half 'capitulation', Hayes takes a more measured view.
In addition to praising Kilkenny's composure and ability to hoover up any chances they got, he said they simply choked the life out of Galway and there was no response.
Kilkenny looked at the places where Galway were strong on the first half. Particularly in our half-forward line, they closed down Cyril Donnellon and closed down Jonathan Glynn. Even though they were getting scraps of possession, once they got the ball they just closed them down and I suppose choked out the game after that.
The prevalence of rucks in the second half was striking. The Galway forwards were harassed heavily by a pack of Kilkenny defenders every time they got the ball. When the ball hit the turf, Kilkenny were invariably able to horse the Galway players out of the way. How're these rucks created?
They just crowd in around the players and get the bodies in over the ball. Going back to my own time, if somebody did that, you'd have somebody like Sylvie Linane or someone like that coming in and letting fly on the ball and clearing out around 6 or 8 ankles, including probably his own players as well and that'd be the end of that ruck.
But nobody seems to pull on the ball in the ruck situation - well, there probably going to get yellow carded anyway if they do it - but it's one way of solving it. If the ball appears, just let fly, you're entitled to hit the ball. But it just doesn't happen, people are trying to get in over the ball, trying to lift it, somebody else stops him from doing it, gets in over it again. so you've a series of fellas getting in over the ball.
It's just a way of slowing down the game, it's a way of kinda controlling the game as well. You get in there and if you're strong enough, and most of the time Kilkenny have a stronger player, particularly the likes of Michael Fennelly.
Galway maybe should have kept the ball moving a bit and not tried to mix it in that way with Kilkenny. Jonathan Glynn got one possession but immediately he was swarmed and then he has to drop the ball or get rid of it and when the ball came to ground then these rucks kinda developed and invariably Kilkenny came out with the ball because they ploughed more men into it. They just choked the life out of the game.
Hayes led Galway to victory over Kilkenny in the 2005 All-Ireland semi-final before falling by five points to Cork in the decider. He reckons it was difficult for Anthony Cunningham and his management team to react when the game started turning against Galway early in the second half. What would he have done?
From a management point of view, maybe try and get a message out to them to calm it down because they were hitting the ball in haste as well. Maybe just shove Jonathan Glynn in full forward, as they did against Tipperary, and bring Joe Canning out to wing or out centre forward. Get him involved in the game for five or ten minutes. Maybe move them around a small bit to see could they unhinge that situation that was occurring there.
I think it was difficult enough for Galway. A lot of it was the on the field in the players' heads. They were making wrong calls, driving ball high and mighty down the field but it was dropping down on the area where you don't want it to be dropping down on. Made very little attempt to push the ball wide, made very little attempt to push the ball down in the corner to give the likes of Cathal Mannion and Conor Whelan. It seemed to just come to a wall in Galway's half forward line. Difficult enough to counter that but I think Galway probably should have done a little of work beforehand on 'if Kilkenny are starting this, then this is what we do'.
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