Being up against a brick wall ideal for hurlers

MOSTLY HURLING:The construction of new hurling walls around the country can help bring about a transformation in players' skill levels

LARRY GOGAN is firing out the questions in his long-running Just a Minute Quiz on Radio 2. “Where’s the Great Wall?”

“It’s in Crumlin, Larry,” comes the rapid reply.

Having scored poorly, our genial host assures the embarrassed participant the questions didn’t suit him.

Of course we all know that, just like a gigantic dragon, the Great Wall winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus, stretching over 5,000 miles from the east to the west of China.

We also know the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 because more than 2.6 million East Germans escaped to West Berlin or West Germany from 1949 to 1961, where life was deemed much better.

Then there’s the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem which is one of the most sacred places of the Jewish religion.

I presume Wall Street is mainly inhabited by bears these days such is the volatility of the stock market.

What a useful word “wall” is. How many companies have gone to the wall in the recent recession and how many people have gone off – and will go off – the same wall?

Great Tipperary player Tony carried the Wall name with distinction on the hurling fields of Ireland for much of the 50s and 60s.

Now wall is becoming a very important noun in the same hurling world. Hurling walls are being constructed the length and breadth of the country, some indoor. The progressive hurling club now has to have a wall. Not any old wall will do, though. Tommy Hilfiger or John Rocha haven’t hit the market with a designer wall yet but it’s probably only a matter of time.

To achieve the maximum return the hurling wall needs to accommodate the whole squad, which today means upwards of 30 players. Unfortunately many clubs have already built without doing enough research and have ended up with a wall that’s far too small. So if your club is at the planning stage there’s one man to be contacted for advice. (No, this is not an advertisement). National hurling director and all-round good guy Paudie Butler is your man. Just ring Croke Park and ask for Paudie.

These walls, if used properly, could bring about a major transformation in players’ skill development. It should be possible to get as many as 500 ball contacts in an hour of wall hurling. How long would a player be on the field before that many touches would be achieved? All the great players have had their own house wall, school wall, hall wall or alley wall. Now clubs with walls are affording players the chance to greatly improve their skill levels.

However, there is a caveat. The player using the wall needs to be coached, initially. Bad habits will be made worse with bad practice. Good habit people usually win. Under pressure, players revert to type. So the player with the good habits, in the heat of competitive battle, will win out.

Who is going to coach the coaches? Yes, it’s Paudie again. Paudie will go to your club and coach your coaches. The player who is coached properly on the wall can then, if he wishes, practise on his own and progress to a high skill standard. Whether he’s from Kilkenny, Monaghan, Galway or Wicklow doesn’t make a difference. So, from a skills viewpoint, all players can be equal when they are coached properly and learn to hurl at speed.

The wall itself is a wonderful teacher. Once the player accepts the message from the wall and adjusts accordingly he is on the road to perfection.

Wexford lead the way in wall hurling development so expect to see the future generations of their hurlers highly skilled.

Across the border in Offaly, KP Egan’s (prolific developer of innovative hurling aids) latest hurling aid is a fantastic product called a sliotar hitter, which is a little like an upmarket swingball for hurlers. Any hurling family would benefit from having one in their back garden. KP has developed a Pandora’s Box of hurling aids which can only be of benefit in a game that has to be made as attractive to our youth as possible.

I’ve no doubt but that many of the top players playing this weekend are serial wall-users. I’m not too sure that much use was made recently of the wall by the players from last week’s drab encounter in Thurles.

If I was the Waterford management I’d be using Eoin Kelly farther out the field and I’d be playing Séamus Prendergast at centre forward. On the other side of the field, Eoin Murphy continues his form as one of the top corner backs in the game, while Noel Connors made a very solid debut in the other corner.

For Limerick, subs David Breen and Denis Maloney played a big part in their second-half revival. They’ll have to get a greater return from their frees, though. I still think potentially, Waterford have the stronger forward line and if they up the performance (quite a bit) they should prevail.

Champions and further history seekers Kilkenny face what should, potentially, be a tough opener for them. While Galway will learn a huge amount from the game, I don’t see them winning.

The other Leinster semi-final is much more difficult to call. Dublin should have had Wexford beaten out the gate in their first championship clash last year but whether it was history, tradition or maybe just not being able to sustain the momentum they capitulated in the replay.

This weekend, the game should be equally close, with the Dubs, maybe having gained some psychological advantage from their drubbing of Wexford in the under-21 championship recently, pulling through.

In Munster, Tipperary go into their clash with Clare with the big advantage of having won a testing quarter-final encounter against Cork and also having played Kilkenny in the National League final.

Their opponents were relegated from Division One of the league and really don’t have any form to convince us they can win this game. However, they were the surprise packets in Munster last year.

But I don’t think they will cause a surprise on Sunday.