Colum Thompson takes a look outside Antrim in this piece, but are his words of wisdom something the Antrim management are taking on board these days
By Colum Thompson
When an impartial fan sits down to watch sport it is a natural thing to root for the underdog. Kilkenny are the undoubted high kings of hurling over the last twenty years with eleven Liam McCarthy wins during that period. Let that thought sink in, Kilkenny have more All Ireland’s in the last twenty years than every other team in Ireland combined. Dublin on the other hand have one solitary Leinster title since the early 1960’s and haven’t won an All Ireland since 1938. When I sat down earlier today to watch Dublin V Kilkenny I had no strong feelings for either team but the longer the game went on the more I found myself rooting for The Cats.
Dublin are the latest in a long line of teams who have decided to reinvent the wheel and brutalize the ancient game of hurling and introduce the dreaded sweeper system. It sounds great when a manager sits down with his team for their first meeting and he tells them its time for a sweeper. “We’ll make ourselves hard to beat, we’ll still be in games with ten minutes to go and we’ll get over the line.” The players, not wanting to fall foul of a new manager will buy into the great sweeper deception. Months will be spent in the gym over the winter under the pretense of getting players into the correct physical condition to execute the high energy, high impact type of hurling required to play a sweeper system. Except the entire thing is a total and utter waste of time because nine times out of ten a team that plays with a sweeper system doesn’t get over the line against the real top class teams. It simply doesn’t work, just ask Waterford and Wexford. The Desie men have been playing with a sweeper for four years under Derek McGrath and The Yellow Bellies have been sweeping away for two years under Davy Fitzgerald and neither have either an All Ireland or a provincial win to show for their efforts. Dublin won’t win an All Ireland or a Leinster title with a sweeper either and here is why.
Concentrating on stopping your opponent, making your own team hard to beat neglects the actual most important aspect of sport. You have to go and win the game yourself. As far as I am concerned if you sit a group of players down and tell them you need a sweeper system to win a game you are essentially telling your players you don’t think they can get the job done without it. If you had faith in your preparation and the ability of your players then why would you have to restructure the traditional 15 against 15 concept? Rather than coming up with a system to restrict your opponent from scoring how about come up with an idea to get your own team more scores? The sweeper system by design is negative, it’s a negative tactic and it give off a negative message to everyone involved. But that isn’t the only reason it fails. Take today’s game as a prime example. The Dublin forwards had to work extra hard with 5 forwards having to chase after 6 Kilkenny backs. In the first half they were having a fair degree of success, Liam Rushe and Conall Keaney were throwing themselves around like wrecking balls, winning frees and creating space and the other Dublin forwards were reaping the rewards plundering 2-7 in the first half while the Kilkenny forwards were struggling to break down Dublin’s sweeper aided defence. At the start of the second half you knew what was coming, Kilkenny outscored Dublin by 0-4 to 0-2 in the opening nine minutes of the second period and it looked all too predictable. Lady luck shone on Dublin and a bundled goal by Jake Malone put his team five points in front. Those unfamiliar with the game of hurling might well have thought that this score would have been the crucial moment of the game and it would spur the Dubs on to victory. No doubt Dublin had put themselves in a great position but the longer the game went on the more the sweeper system began to unravel. The Dubs were beginning to struggle, they were out on their feet. You see no matter how hard you train, how many gym sessions you’ve done or how determined you are to succeed the human body is made from skin and bone and there is only so much it can take. With ten minutes to go Conall Keaney, who had been a colossus for Dublin hitting four points from play, made one high impact tackle too many and had to go off injured just when his team needed him most. Liam Rushe, Dublin’s best player who had went at the Kilkenny backs like a bull in a china shop for sixty minutes didn’t feature in the closing stages. How could he after the amount of punishment he had went through for his team? Just as Dublin’s best two forwards had emptied their tanks and the rest of the forwards in blue were now running on fumes the Kilkenny attackers were hitting the afterburners. Colin Fennelly provided fresh legs off the bench and against weary defenders plundered three points. TJ Reid, well marshalled up until now started getting more involved scoring points from play and from frees and Walter Walsh galloped forward for a mighty point like a thoroughbred coming through the pack to get his nose in front at the line.
It was an enthralling contest but you couldn’t help but see Dublin building an impressive looking house of cards. However you knew it had no foundations and when Kilkenny got going it simply fell to pieces. Dublin could put it up to Kilkenny, Tipperary or Galway for long periods of a game but they know, like Wexford and Waterford that the sweeper system will only ever take them so far. What Dublin did on Sunday was prove they deserve to dine at hurling’s top table but deep down they know that if they play with the sweeper they’ll never be king.