Tipperary movement frustrated after Kilkenny revert to tried and tested tactics

In the end it was a case of back to basics. Kilkenny went away from the drawn match convinced they needed to improve like they did for the All-Ireland replay in 2012 and came back with a systematic change for the replay.

The solution wasn't revolutionary. After 2009 and 2010, when they had been caught out by Tipperary's movement, they decided in 2011 that the way to counter that was to mark man to man. On Saturday they reverted to that and with the same outcome. The tightened defence meant Tipperary were not able to create the same confusion by rotating their forwards and the platform for this strategy was laid in Nowlan over the past three weeks.

That hard preparation showed in the performances. They were getting ready for trench warfare because that’s where they saw the best chance of winning the game.

To be fair to Brian Cody the changes that he made – Pádraig Walsh, Kieran Joyce coming in and snuffing out Bonner Maher, who's Tipperary's key player, John Power coming in and doing damage and much more importantly Michael Fennelly in the middle of the field, which as ever this season proved a deadly accurate indicator. Tipp led by two at half-time having had the goal chances but were probably lucky because Kilkenny had arguably put in place the crucial defensive platform early in the match with blocking down by JJ Delane, Cillian Buckley and Paul Murphy, which set the tone from the start. Delaney is such a brilliant player and for all the talk of his legs being gone his anticipation is amazing. It was unbelievable that going for Cody's 10th All-Ireland his team looked like they were still after their first.

Cody's changes were the difference and when they came out for the second half they created much more chances that they didn't take. Colin Fennelly was running amok on James Barry but he didn't capitalise for a while. Fennelly could have been taken off at half-time but when they created space in front of Barry the chances started to appear and at the other end Tipp struggled for scores and were living off scraps. A dodgy penalty and a couple of frees kept them in touch and amazingly they were back within a couple of points with time almost up.

Technically they were still in it, but you never felt that it was really there for them. There was one critical piece of play in the 50th minute. At one end the Tipperary defence – who you could say did well – got in a couple of blocks and then at the other end there were three blocks on Tipp forwards before Kilkenny cleared and it ended with a John Power point.

There you thought both sides were fighting tooth and nail with Kilkenny more adept having imposed their game plan on the match. Tipp were trying to replicate that moving game but this time it was more of a dog fight.

Key players for Tipperary never settled – Séamus Callanan didn’t get on the ball for about 15 minutes – but at half-time they were two up without having played much and they had a great opportunity to kick on. Immediately after half-time Kilkenny hit them for five points. It was as if they didn’t come out of the dressingroom for the second half.

Only for misses, Kilkenny would have been out of sight.

Cody wasn't slow to act, bringing off Richie Hogan likely hurler of the year after 57 minutes – by which point Tipp had only just brought on Michael Cahill, the most impressive sub the first day – and sending on Henry Shefflin. For a man on his 10th All-Ireland he harried and chased as if he was going for his first.

The key influence for me was what happened to Bonner Maher and showed how important he is to the Tipperary cause. Even when he got to the ball he was under pressure from Kieran Joyce all the time and his touch was

reminiscent of the Bonner of 2013 rather than of this year.

Kilkenny were able to do enough but they are not the scoring machine of old. As an indication of that they dropped way too much ball short to Darren Gleeson in the Tipp goal and then the goal chances that fell to Colin Fennelly were not taken.

Richie Power was outstanding though. His goal was the vital break because up until then they'd struggled to open the gap. That goal was well taken and gave them breathing space. In fairness to Tipp they stuck at it and Séamus Callanan got in for a scrappy goal but Kilkenny kept a grip on the game and a symbolic moment came when Jason Forde went for a point just after the goal and missed.

That would have made it a one-point game and anything could have happened but had Tipp caught them it would have been a travesty of the match over 70 minutes.

In the end the difference was that Tipperary arrived to replay their own game whereas Kilkenny had a good look at it and set themselves up to improve and beat Tipperary.

What a team: written off last year and I wrote them off at the start of this year and said they couldn’t come back from the quarter-final in Thurles, that hurling had moved on to a different type of game. But it’s back to basics and the trenches in Nowlan Park are once again the governing influence in the game.