The Tuesday night after the 2014 drawn All-Ireland final, Kilkenny met for a recovery session in Nowlan Park. Afterwards, the goalkeepers, defenders and midfielders were asked to stay behind for a discussion with management about what had happened.
It was an epic game but in management’s eyes, conceding 1-28 was unacceptable. Brian Cody never liked free-scoring, open shootouts. When Kilkenny played training games, when the contest was absolutely savage, when neither team was scoring much, Cody and Kilkenny knew they were ready. Primed.
When they were shooting the lights out, Cody often interpreted that type of internal game as a dereliction of players’ duties, in that they were not working hard enough, or marking tightly enough.
Tipperary only scored one goal in that drawn 2014 final but they could have had five. Kilkenny went away and thought deeply about their approach for the replay. Kieran Joyce and Padraig Walsh were introduced into the half-back line. Kilkenny changed their match-ups around.
They got it right.
The Kilkenny defence swallowed up the Tipp attack, limiting them to just 2-15, 12 less scores than they managed in the drawn game. That concession rate was more in line with what Cody believed it should be but his teams couldn’t keep rowing back a raging tide in a rapidly evolving game; when Kilkenny met Tipperary in an All-Ireland final again two years later, Tipperary blitzed them for 2-29. Tipp could have had five goals only for three brilliant Eoin Murphy saves.
A raging scoring tide has kept increasing ever since.
When Cork and Tipperary met in last year’s Munster championship, the great GAA statistician Leo McGough showed how the combined total of points scored (53) was a new high for white flags raised in a single senior championship match.
Despite the huge change in modern hurling, with sweeper systems, layered defences, increased physicality, and the greater overall focus on defence, the standard of shooting continues to rise
The total number of flags raised (56) equalled the previous best recorded when Kilkenny annihilated Offaly in the 2014 Leinster championship.
Tipperary hit 1-26 against Cork that afternoon in May 2017. It would have been inconceivable in previous years to think that a team could score 1-26 and still lose by four points. But that is how hurling has now gone this decade.
Despite the huge change in modern hurling, with sweeper systems, layered defences, increased physicality, and the greater overall focus on defence, the standard of shooting continues to rise.
In 2017, it reached a whole new level; more points (white flags) per game were registered in last year’s championship than any other in history. And yet, it’s gone to an even higher level again this summer, peaking over the weekend with the Clare-Galway and Cork-Limerick score-fests.
"A truly astonishing score" - Peter Duggan hits a spectacular point as Clare try their best to stay in the game.
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 28, 2018
Watch highlights on The Sunday Game at 9:30pm on RTE 2 tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/yjLgwIbeZ2
There were 130 scores recorded over the 197 minutes. In total, there were 214 shots at the target, an average of just over one per minute.
Staggering numbers.
The Cork-Limerick game was off the charts for scoring statistics. The 56 scores in normal time equalled the highest number ever recorded over 70 minutes. The combined total of points scored (54) was a new record for white flags raised in a single senior championship match. The 68 scores after extra time was the highest number ever scored in one game.
Again, it’s hard to believe that a team could score 2-31 and lose by four points. This level of scoring, especially point-scoring, was first flagged earlier this year in the league semi-final between Tipperary and Limerick.
Tipperary won a shootout after extra-time by 2-31 to 1-31. It was the first time in hurling history that two teams hit more than 30 scores in one game. The sides were level at 0-26 each after normal time.
That game was played in late March, when the pitch was heavier and players hadn’t yet reached peak fitness and hurling sharpness. In that context, what happened at the weekend was no surprise. The steady increase in point-shooting has been building over the last decade.
The 2009 All-Ireland final epic between Kilkenny and Tipperary is the perfect starting point. Kilkenny’s tally of 2-22 - with both goals coming in the closing minutes - secured them a five-point win.
In so many ways, that 2009 All-Ireland final was a groundbreaking match. In the history of All-Ireland finals, two teams had never hit more than 21 scores. That 2009 final produced 47 scores, which equalled the highest number ever recorded in an All-Ireland final – set by Kilkenny the previous year in their destruction of Waterford.
Kilkenny had 10 scorers from play, which was the greatest spread of scorers on an All-Ireland winning team. At the time, that 2009 final was considered the greatest ever, one that might never be repeated. Yet compare that standard to the quality of the drawn 2014 final?
The accuracy was off the charts that day. The tally of 54 scores was the most recorded in an All-Ireland final. There were 20 different scorers from play. Like so much of the modern game, Kilkenny played a key role in shaping it.
During their quest for five-in-a-row between 2006-2010, Kilkenny took point-scoring to a totally new level. In 2006, they became the first team in history to hit 20 points (white flags) or more in four consecutive championship games. Now? Every day a team plays, they expect to hit 20+ points.
That threshold though, is being pushed even higher, to 25 points (white flags) and above. Prior to 2014, there were only eight occasions when a team had hit 30 points (white flags) or more in a championship game. And only two of those games involved two top-nine teams. Yet in the last four seasons, that 30-point (white flags) total has now been breached an additional eight times, albeit four of those came at the weekend after extra-time.
Given that the nature of defending has changed, with sweepers and layered defences, more free space is often available out the field allows for more long-range point scoring.
Prior to 2016, 32 points had been the most white flags a team had raised in a 70-minute championship game (Kilkenny put 32 points on Galway in the 1974 All-Ireland semi-final in an 80-minute game). Yet Galway exceeded that total with 33 points against Offaly in the 2017 Leinster semi-final. And yet that record only lasted two weeks when Waterford hit 35 points against Offaly in Tullamore in the qualifiers.
The comparisons within a decade have been startling. In the 2007 championship, only five games contained 40 points (white flags) or more. During the 2017 championship, there were 15 matches in which 40 points or more were scored.
To date in this championship, 18 of the 28 games played have produced 40 points (white flags) or more. The trend change has increased scoring spreads and redefined the primary scoring zone.
Given that the nature of defending has changed, with sweepers and layered defences, more free space is often available out the field allows for more long-range point scoring.
That overall increase in long-range striking and scoring has come about through a combination of advanced weights training, better hurleys, lighter sliotars.
Another theory is that the ball has become so light now that it enables players to regularly fire the sliotar over the bar from 100 yards. Heading into last weekend, one of the standout features of the four teams involved was their focus on supplying their inside forward line with quality ball.
That was one of the reasons for so many spectacular scores, and such high scoring numbers; of the 214 shots taken, only 16 (which includes frees) were launched from beyond the 65-metre line.
The most impressive aspect of Limerick’s superb performance was their composure, and adherence to their gameplan, when they trailed by six points with eight minutes of normal time remaining. They had a grip on possession in that period but the easy option would have been to start taking Hail-Mary shots for points, or bomb balls into the square in the hope of bagging a goal.
Limerick didn’t. Of their last seven scores in normal time, four were sourced from inside, or just marginally outside, the 20-metre line. Peter Casey was fouled in the central channel beyond the 45-metre line while Aaron Gillane and Shane Dowling’s points from play were from just outside the D.
It was a supreme example of good forward coaching, patience and composure under extreme pressure. And an exhibition of brilliant point taking on the greatest 24 hours of scoring in the GAA’s history.
