Little details for the big day - Minor semi final reflections

The 2013 minor hurling championship is every bit as unpredictable as the senior. Much like the big brother, both provincial winners have crashed out at the semis as Waterford and Galway form the undercard on the second Sunday in September.

So what will occupy the minds of the Waterford mentors for the next three weeks? The most obvious focus of the DVD viewing will be the high number of frees conceded. Too many of the tackles going in are clumsy and unrefined which makes it easy for the man in the black to whistle up. Instead of shepherding the forward away from the target, an overzealousness takes over. It’s a collective glitch rather than the failing of one individual. “It’s something that we have work on” acknowledged Sean Power in the immediate aftermath. I can’t criticise any of the lads because it’s a hot cauldron out there. It’s very tough. Sometimes a free can go against you and it’s not necessarily your fault. It’s something that we will have to work on, there was a lot of scores conceded from frees so we will have a look at that.” Waterford coughed up six scoreable frees in the first thirty minutes against Kilkenny and five more after half time. Alan Murphy converted ten. Over the seven matches, 2-44 of opposition scores have come from frees (an average of just over seven points). Those are punishing statistics if they continue to appear on All Ireland day.

The short puck out policy is another issue to mull over. Gavin Power fired nine snappy deliveries to his defenders (four in the first half and five in the second). One those quick balls to Kevin Daly resulted in DJ Foran’s smashing net finder. After losing the midfield battle early on, it displayed their adaptability in a difficult situation and also the swiftness of the management to move on the line. The margins are fine with that high risk strategy however and persisting with it may come at price down the line. Overall, the management must be pleased that they won while leaving something in the tank. Midfield also looks more settled with Mark O'Brien and Tom Devine in place as Michael Harney settled in at number five. Their shooting was jittery down the stretch however with Patrick Curran and Stephen Bennett surprisingly among the culprits. Little details to tidy up.

The men in maroon timed their run once more with a win over Laois their only competitive warm-up beforehand. Limerick forged ahead on three occasions in the last ten minutes but couldn’t wriggle free. In a game that was tied sixteen times, Galway blocked out the noisy Limerick crowd and never looked back when they took control in the second period of extra time.  Brian Molloy is their top scorer so far but the complete forward unit put in a shift last time out. For the second game in a row, all six starters split the posts. Centre back Shane Cooney grabbed a hold of the game at vital times in much the same way that Austin Gleeson did the week before. A couple of creaks did start to appear however when Cian Lynch turned their defence and midfielder Darragh O'Donovan also broke through.

Mattie Murphy tends to get the formula right but Seán Power is not far away from solving Waterford’s outstanding problems.