You’ll struggle to see a better wide ball.
James Barry mopped up tidily before Paudie Maher pinged a sweet one into a roving Noel McGrath’s path. Inside, Seamie Callanan was dancing.
Grass is green and Noel McGrath dropped it on the exact blade the Drom and Inch man had pointed to. Obviously.
1-2 to his name already, Cork will do well to get out of here scot-free. With all the looks of a man thinking about what he was going to do next, Callanan runs out over it though and Mark Coleman and Eoin Cadogan are in each other’s way trying to clear it.
The youngster scoops it up onto his hurley and sprightly sprints out the field. The Rebel forwards are moving now but Seamie Callanan has other ideas.
The 30-year-old hounds down the half back nine years his junior and just as Coleman goes to sling one off the left, Callanan reaches in with a brave, desperate hook.
Where had he even come from? He’s out on his feet now but not finished yet.
Coleman is horsed out of it under the stand before Daniel Kearney and three Tipperary men are beaten to the break. Callanan gallops on and rifles just wide.
Forget the wide, that was a momentum-shifter, this is why he’s Tipperary captain.
For a sharpshooter of Callanan’s ilk, it was an uncharacteristic miss but everything else about this passage of play was standard. Callanan just isn’t known for it.
And many other of the game’s most stylish scorers are victims of the same misconceptions. Take Tony Kelly for example. The Ballyea man was Clare’s top scorer and main man in Walsh Park on Sunday and his Rolex wrists, slick striking and graceful movement were rightly lauded. What will be quickly forgotten however are the hooks and the turnovers he forced on the other end of the field through sheer desire and a manic work-rate.
There are no handouts in inter-county hurling. Every score is hard earned but you can take it as gospel now that whenever the strikes don’t split for Kelly and the touch isn’t on the money, the reason will be that he’s not working hard enough.
Same goes for Callanan. Show too much and they’ll expect miracles.
Seamie Callanan ran hard all day long in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday and with 1-4 from play, he got his reward for it. You can expect the hard work every game but don’t take 1-4 from play as a given.
Knowing Callanan, he’ll probably score more.
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