HANDS UP WHO IS FOR THE FINAL?….Ryan McCambridge celebrates after the semi-final win

SIXTY minutes of hurling. That’s all that lies between Cushendall’s dream of bringing the Tommy Moore Cup to Antrim.

I wasn’t the only one who thought that the bookies were way off the mark on last Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final clash against Sarsfields but I definitely didn’t see such a dominant performance coming against the Galway champions.

As always when an Ulster team upsets the odds, the hindsighters come out in force to inform all and sundry how poor the opposition was, that Sarsfields were the worst Galway champions in years, or that, actually, they were lucky to get out of Galway at all.

Closer to the truth is that they were made to look poor, they weren’t allowed to play because Cushendall didn’t give them room to hurl and dominated every area of the park. Certainly there have been better Galway champions in recent years, but they came out of the county that has provided six of the last 10 All-Ireland senior club champions. Galway doesn’t do poor club champions.

Unfortunately I missed out on a great day in Navan and had to make do with watching a recording of the Ruairi Ogs’ historic victory due to the clash with the Ulster GAA ‘Growing and Developing Hurling in Ulster’ Conference (more on that later).

Cushendall looked fitter, hungrier, stronger in the air and aside from getting the ball to Joe Cooney, Sarsfields looked short of ideas. Ryan McCambridge deservedly won the man of the match award but there were a number of standout performances. Paddy McGill, Eoghan Campbell and Sean McAfee were all superb, and a 1-7 haul from Neil McManus certainly helped the cause.

But Cushendall can play better – and that’s a great way to be going into the St Patrick’s Day final. There were some poor wides at times, which in part can be put down to nerves, but they are opportunities that they’ll have to make count against Na Piarsaigh. The Limerick champions were taken to extra time by Oulart the Ballagh – again against the odds – and having survived that scare and lost to Ulster opposition in Loughgiel four years ago, they won’t be suffering from complacency going into the final.

Na Piarsaigh looked a physically stronger team than Sarsfields and Cushendall won’t enjoy the same physical dominance but it’s a game that’s very winnable for the Antrim champions. Oulart asked serious questions of Na Piarsaigh and when they moved Garrett Sinnott to half back in the second half, Na Piarsaigh barely won a ball. In fairness they were (eventually) able to answer the questions asked of them but needed huge performances from their midfield pair of Alan Dempsey and William O’Donoghue, as well as Kevin Downes in extra time.

Na Piarsaigh justifiably carried the favourite’s tag into the last four and will do so again ahead of the final but they will also know that they need to play better than they did against Oulart to win the All-Ireland. Really looking forward to the final.

The aforementioned Ulster GAA ‘Growing and Developing Hurling in Ulster’ Conference was a hugely enjoyable day, despite the fact that many of the delegates spent from 2pm onwards checking social media for updates from the Cushendall game.

With a line-up that included DJ Carey, Donal O’Grady, Paudie Butler and Paudie O’Neill, there was no way that anyone with any interest in hurling wasn’t going to enjoy the day and get something from it.
The title of the conference was a bit of misnomer however. I’d expected there to be a few more of the workshops that were ‘Ulster-specific’. The presentation by Damien Young, former Tipp hurler and performance analyst for his county since 2008, was probably the only workshop that had any uniquely Ulster perspective.

Young presented a video analysis of the Munster and Ulster hurling finals and advised on strategies to adopt in training to address the differences. One stat highlighted by Young that I found surprising was the amount of long ball being played by Tipp and Waterford in the Munster final as against the amount played by Antrim and Down in the Ulster decider.

There was roughly 50 per cent more long balls played by Tipp and Waterford than Antrim and Down. Other stats such as scores, wides, short passes etc were roughly the same. The inference was that Ulster sides don’t concentrate enough on keeping possession from long striking but use it as a tactic to clear their lines. The other obvious difference was the time spent on the ball but we probably didn’t need Young to tell us that we’re a few hundredths of a second slower than the top Munster sides.

So, an enjoyable day all round but one that would have been largely the same had it been held in anywhere apart from Kilkenny, Cork, Tipp etc. I’d have liked to have seen some workshops that enabled delegates to contribute to how the game can actually be grown, with presentations from those with first hand experiences of the challenges.

It’s great to have names like DJ Carey at such events and the high profile line-up makes a statement from Ulster GAA that they’re taking the event seriously, but he was never going to challenge a provincial council and his presentation would have been just as relevant to most Leinster and Connacht counties.

One thing DJ did draw attention to was the need to divert finding away from Dublin to other counties. He finished his presentation with an offer ‘to do anything that he could to help’. Well, DJ, you could call in to Pauric Duffy, leave a calculator with him and tell him to get to work on a fairer redistribution of funds away from Project Dublin.
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