Teams play so many matches now that when you get to the All-Ireland final, the last two teams standing can’t have any secrets left. Cork and Tipperary have met three times already this year and have been exposed under pressure by other teams along the way. They know each other inside out. Everything has been analysed to death.
So, does that mean you do all the things that got you to the final in the first place or do you try to come up with something that will catch the other crowd by surprise?
That’s a bigger question for Tipperary. They have a decision to make: do they enter into a shoot-out with Cork and go bald-headed for goals, like they did against Kilkenny, or do they try to make it a physical battle with no space in their half of the field?
There won’t be any repeat of what happened in the first minute of the championship match in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, when there were flare-ups all over the field. But that was a clear indication of how Tipp were thinking: they were going to bring serious aggression.
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The worry for Tipperary is leaving space in their half of the field. If they go man-on-man in defence, Cork’s running game will burn them. Tipp’s defence has been vulnerable to pace all year, but nobody has more pace than Cork, not just in their attack, but from Darragh Fitzgibbon at centre field and Mark Coleman at wing-back.
The option they have is to bring their half-forward line back the field, drop their centre fielders deep and allow Cork to hit puck-outs to their full-back line. When Cork go short to their corner backs, they tend to hit it down the wings rather than try to work the ball through the lines out of defence, but by crowding the space in their own half Tipp will be asking a different question of Cork.
When Dublin lost to Cork, manager Niall Ó Ceallacháin was asked why he didn’t set up more defensively. He said that would have only kept the score down. Their intention was to win.
Can Tipp win by setting up defensively? Maybe not. Can they beat Cork in a shoot-out? Probably not.
The match-ups will be fascinating. Ronan Maher went back on TJ Reid in the semi-final to counteract him in the air and I can see Tipp trying Maher on Brian Hayes. His threat, though, is not only in the air; he’s happy to take the ball any way it comes. He’ll lay it off, he’ll take his own score, he’ll run at defenders.
In league and championship, Cork have scored 35 goals this year; Hayes has scored 10 of them and played the final pass for 10 others. Going into the final, he’s my idea of the Hurler of the Year. If Tipp can stop him, they’re in business. That’s probably only happened once this year, against Limerick in the round-robin game, when none of the Cork players performed.
Tipp will be desperate to stop Cork from scoring goals, but they will have to surrender something to do that
But they can’t just man-mark Hayes. I can see Craig Morgan picking up Shane Barrett and Michael Breen tagging Alan Connolly, with Eoghan Connolly on Declan Dalton. Bryan O’Mara will probably mark Diarmuid Healy, but I can see Sam O’Farrell dropping back into that zone so that O’Mara can tuck in and sweep up around the half-back line. He was on a world of ball against Kilkenny and Tipp will want a similar outcome on Sunday.
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But if Tipp play like that, Cork will have plenty of space in their own half and they’ll have no problem creating shooting chances from outside. That’s the trade-off. Tipp will be desperate to stop Cork from scoring goals, but they will have to surrender something to do that. Dalton, Fitzgibbon and Tim O’Mahony will all be happy to shoot from distance.
The alternative is a shoot-out. Tipp created plenty of goal chances against Kilkenny and they will be encouraged by how many goal chances Dublin created in the first 20 minutes against Cork. But an open, high-scoring game is exactly what Cork will want. I can’t see Tipp agreeing to that, at least not from the start.
Tipp have made tactical adjustments during the year, according to the opposition. Cork haven’t changed much, if anything, along the way. They will still play three in their full-forward line and they’ll be happy to go man-on-man at the back. All of their defenders are happy to attack the ball and take the odd risk.
Fitzgibbon is back in his best position at centre field and Shane Barrett’s pace and directness at 11 is going to be a threat to Tipp. This will be the case regardless of who lines up at centre back and how Tipp set up in general. Cork have weapons all over their attack.
If Tipp are going to try to shut down space in the middle third and in their defence, that is going to take a massive effort. Can they sustain that for 70 minutes? Can they bring enough threat at the other end in that set-up? I don’t think so.
This will be a mental challenge for Cork, who don’t need to be reminded that they haven’t won an All-Ireland in 20 years. They’ve been favourites all year and nearly won the final 12 months ago. Manager Pat Ryan spoke about embracing the hype and the build-up and if that has been the message for the last two weeks, I think that’s a good thing.
Nobody predicted that Tipp would get this far. Their improvement over the last 12 months has been staggering. There is no pressure on them and they could just cut loose.
But Cork are at a different stage in their development and I think their time has come.
