FORMER OFFALY HURLER Michael Duignan has revealed his disillusion with the advent of sweepers and defensive tactics, claiming they’re needless and are dumbing down the game.
The two-time All-Ireland medalist and popular pundit said that management teams are too eager to control players and aren’t allowing the best players in the game to express themselves.
“The thing I don’t like that’s emerging is that if you’re critical of it, you’re accused of being old-fashioned and of not understanding the game,” said Duignan. “With all due respects, I’m around the game all my life, I think I understand it.”
Clare, Waterford and Limerick have all enjoyed relative success this year by playing with sweepers while Dublin have developed a strategy that relies on short puck-outs and hand-passing, aspects of the game Duignan also doesn’t appreciate.
“I just think with sweepers, how do you expect at the end of the day to win?” asked Duignan. “I understand why Waterford did it for a while because they’d been hammered below in Cork a few years ago in the Munster final and Derek McGrath came in and he’s very bright and he said, ‘look, we have to stop getting hammered, we have to build from here’.
“But I think they’ll move on from it. They have a lot of very good players that can really hurl and can hurl their man on their own. I think they’ll evolve.
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“It’s just something coming into the game that, to me, doesn’t make any sense because it’s a very spontaneous game. Only one team can win the game anyway, so you might as well lose playing the game as losing by tipping the ball around your full-back line.
Tadgh De Burca has been employed as a sweeper by Waterford over the past couple of years. Ken Sutton / INPHO
Ken Sutton / INPHO / INPHO
“Maybe there’s something wrong with the way I look at it but when you see Tony Kelly, to me, maybe the most complete hurler in the game, well one of them anyway, TJ (Reid) is probably a step ahead of them all still, but he’s up there in a brilliant era for hurlers.
“If these lads weren’t able to hurl you’d say, ‘we’re playing this way because we don’t have the players’. But these are incredible players. When you see Conor McGrath being taken off with 15 or 20 minutes to go, one of the best forwards I’ve seen. And Tony Kelly taking puck-outs from his goalie and they four points down against Waterford. That doesn’t make any sense to me.
“It’s just a control thing from management teams over great players. They’re not allowed think for themselves now on the field or do anything off the field.”
Duignan revealed his fears for the game generally and noted the increasing commitments being foisted upon top players.
“Where are we going with the game?” he asked. “And how are we allowing it to happen? What Joe Brolly has said in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been saying that for a long time. He used the word last Sunday in the paper that players are ‘commodities’. I used it a couple of weeks before that. I really feel that.
“Players might feel themselves that it’s all fine, especially in the top counties, because they’re getting so well looked after. But look what’s expected of them. How does it make sense to have players training 25 times in a month from a sports science point of view or from any point of view?
“You hear stories of players asking for a night off from training because of work commitments and that being held against them. It’s happening all over the country. That’s madness.”
Duignan’s native Offaly face Galway in the Leinster semi-finals on Sunday. The Faithful County are considerable underdogs after high profile losses to Kerry and Laois in games this season.
“It’s a bit depressing for someone who was involved in All-Ireland wins in the 1990s but at the same time there’s an ambition there to try and get back,” said Duignan. “This is our last chance saloon because if we slip any further back we’re in big, big trouble. I don’t think we can get back out of it. This conversation is going on 10 or 12 years now. It’s going on since 2002, 2003 and it’s getting a little bit repetitive, it’s time for action.”
—–
All-Ireland winning stars Brian McGuigan and Michael Duignan were at GAA Headquarters today for the launch of this year’s Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour Series. The duo are among an array of GAA greats who will host tours of Croke Park as part of the 2016 Legends Tour series, an event that offers GAA fans a unique chance to experience the stadium from a player’s perspective. For more information about this summers’ GAA Legend tours, log on to www.bgeu21.ie
'If you're critical of a team using a sweeper, you're accused of being old-fashioned'
FORMER OFFALY HURLER Michael Duignan has revealed his disillusion with the advent of sweepers and defensive tactics, claiming they’re needless and are dumbing down the game.
The two-time All-Ireland medalist and popular pundit said that management teams are too eager to control players and aren’t allowing the best players in the game to express themselves.
“The thing I don’t like that’s emerging is that if you’re critical of it, you’re accused of being old-fashioned and of not understanding the game,” said Duignan. “With all due respects, I’m around the game all my life, I think I understand it.”
Clare, Waterford and Limerick have all enjoyed relative success this year by playing with sweepers while Dublin have developed a strategy that relies on short puck-outs and hand-passing, aspects of the game Duignan also doesn’t appreciate.
“I just think with sweepers, how do you expect at the end of the day to win?” asked Duignan. “I understand why Waterford did it for a while because they’d been hammered below in Cork a few years ago in the Munster final and Derek McGrath came in and he’s very bright and he said, ‘look, we have to stop getting hammered, we have to build from here’.
“But I think they’ll move on from it. They have a lot of very good players that can really hurl and can hurl their man on their own. I think they’ll evolve.
“It’s just something coming into the game that, to me, doesn’t make any sense because it’s a very spontaneous game. Only one team can win the game anyway, so you might as well lose playing the game as losing by tipping the ball around your full-back line.
“Maybe there’s something wrong with the way I look at it but when you see Tony Kelly, to me, maybe the most complete hurler in the game, well one of them anyway, TJ (Reid) is probably a step ahead of them all still, but he’s up there in a brilliant era for hurlers.
“If these lads weren’t able to hurl you’d say, ‘we’re playing this way because we don’t have the players’. But these are incredible players. When you see Conor McGrath being taken off with 15 or 20 minutes to go, one of the best forwards I’ve seen. And Tony Kelly taking puck-outs from his goalie and they four points down against Waterford. That doesn’t make any sense to me.
“It’s just a control thing from management teams over great players. They’re not allowed think for themselves now on the field or do anything off the field.”
Duignan revealed his fears for the game generally and noted the increasing commitments being foisted upon top players.
“Where are we going with the game?” he asked. “And how are we allowing it to happen? What Joe Brolly has said in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been saying that for a long time. He used the word last Sunday in the paper that players are ‘commodities’. I used it a couple of weeks before that. I really feel that.
“Players might feel themselves that it’s all fine, especially in the top counties, because they’re getting so well looked after. But look what’s expected of them. How does it make sense to have players training 25 times in a month from a sports science point of view or from any point of view?
“You hear stories of players asking for a night off from training because of work commitments and that being held against them. It’s happening all over the country. That’s madness.”
Duignan’s native Offaly face Galway in the Leinster semi-finals on Sunday. The Faithful County are considerable underdogs after high profile losses to Kerry and Laois in games this season.
“It’s a bit depressing for someone who was involved in All-Ireland wins in the 1990s but at the same time there’s an ambition there to try and get back,” said Duignan. “This is our last chance saloon because if we slip any further back we’re in big, big trouble. I don’t think we can get back out of it. This conversation is going on 10 or 12 years now. It’s going on since 2002, 2003 and it’s getting a little bit repetitive, it’s time for action.”
—–
All-Ireland winning stars Brian McGuigan and Michael Duignan were at GAA Headquarters today for the launch of this year’s Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour Series. The duo are among an array of GAA greats who will host tours of Croke Park as part of the 2016 Legends Tour series, an event that offers GAA fans a unique chance to experience the stadium from a player’s perspective. For more information about this summers’ GAA Legend tours, log on to www.bgeu21.ie
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defensive systems GAA Michael Duignan Sweeper Waterford