On Tuesday night, Derek McGrath settled on the dependable Liam Lawlor and Michael Walsh axis to shore up a defence that surrendered 17 league goals.
Management had previously invested in largely the same personnel over the campaign and only used seven different players. Shane Fives loses out despite starting all six league games and put a nightmare showing against Clare behind him. He restricted Conal Keaney’s involvement in the relegation play-off, showed competence in the air and emerged with rousing charges out of dangerous areas. The Carrigtwohill man likes to hurl from that position and that expressive nature may have counted against him.
Lawlor never moves far away from the target and performs the basic tasks very neatly. Since Davy Fitzgerald picked him at three, he soon realised the limitations of the position. It was a close run thing initially between Mark O’Brien and Lawlor with the Fourmilewater man narrowly preferred for his physical presence. Since his championship debut against Clare in 2010, the full back issue has rarely raised its head as the cause of elimination. His only glaring error came last June when an ill-judged pass across the face of goal allowed Shane Dooley crash a shot to the far corner. He signed off championship 2013 by outmanoeuvring opponents like Walter Walsh and Henry Shefflin in arguably his strongest display yet. In his Irish Independent column, John Mullane stressed: “It's no coincidence Waterford concede goals when Lawlor’s not in the team.” With Lawlor on the field, Waterford have permitted 16 goals in 14 championship games. In all of those outings, Walsh was always on duty at a checkpoint further up the road.
Since pinning down the six slot in 2009, Michael Walsh has rarely missed a beat. In fact, when marked absent from that area it has come with disastrous consequences. When Kevin Downes soloed in for two goals in the 2011 Munster semi final, he retreated to full back for the final. A half time situation of 5-10 to 0-8 stared them in the face. Moving to centre forward during the 2012 partly contributed to three league losses on the bounce. Suspension deemed him unavailable for the Ennis trip this year, the first game that he missed in the last 28 (league or championship). More carnage followed.
He embarks on his twelfth championship season with 51 games already locked in. In his unflustered and calming style, he plays the role of a stopper. He adjusts to judge the next attacking move. The 31 year old doesn’t tend to strike clear too often. Instead, he dishes off possession in that one-handed style to a team mate in less crowded area. It usually falls to one of the wing backs like Jamie Nagle to distribute possession inside. Noel McGrath and Tony Kelly have caused days of uncertainty in moving closer to the midfield area and tempting Walsh away from his comfort zone. Cork favour the traditional type of centre forward with Cian McCarthy selected on Sunday.
Last year, Fergal Hartley put his finger on how the captain plots an escape route when in possession. “He seems to be able to make the game move at his own pace. When he gets that ball, he seems to have that body movement; probably a lot of it comes from his football years as well. He has that body movement and that check inside that he can just create space for himself draw a man and lay it off. He has great peripheral vision in that he sees everything that is happening around him. He must be a fantastic player to play alongside if you are a wing back or a midfielder because he just gets that ball, takes a look, he gets around a player and passes it off.”
The manner of the concessions towards the latter part of the league made for grim viewing. Soft tackles allowed players ghost through unopposed. “They always seemed to have the overlap,” Noel Connors observed last week. These lessons absorbed, McGrath reverts to the central duo responsible for reliable championship results when paired together. They won’t perform the spectacular but these two believe in the simplest form of defending. Protect the red zone.
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