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24th July 2016
10:33pm BST
What will Brian Cody have learned in Thurles?
That Austin Gleeson is capable of scoring wonderful points while also hitting seven wides (five in one half)?
That Shanahan and Patrick Curran together make up one of the most isolated forward lines in all of Christendom?
That long, raking diagonal balls towards a target man like Lee Chin (or Colin Fennelly) is a promising way of circumventing the deep De Burca and sweeping Kevin Moran and Brick Walsh?
That Stephen O'Keeffe is prone to the odd wobble?
That Waterford will employ a running game that will have Michael Fennelly and Conor Fogarty licking their lips. As we watched Gleeson make a lung-busting 60-yard run deep into the Wexford defence former Clare forward Jamesie O'Connor remarked, "the Kilkenny midfielders would bury him".
It is hard to disagree.
This is not an issue of taste or aesthetics. McGrath has built a defensively sound team, but the recent evidence suggests that solidity comes at a cost.
Waterford's attackers could not have asked for better opponents against whom to fill their boots and recharge their confidence. Liam Dunne's team seemed perplexed by Waterford's defence - pucking ball after ball down the throats of Moran, Walsh and De Burca, who between them were swallowing up Chin.
Waterford had all the possession they could hope for, facing a Wexford defence that has been weakened by illness and injury, yet their go-to tactic seemed to be shots from distance, low-percentage shots from distance.
Wexford goalkeeper Mark Fanning had a good game but that was down to his confidence under the high ball. A fumble by the Glynn Barntown man seemed the only way Waterford were going to score a goal.
Cork, in 2013, are the last team to beat Kilkenny in the Championship, and they did it without scoring a goal, as they limited the Cats to just 14 points in an All-Ireland quarter-final.
Cody teams however, tend to rack up good totals and providing some sort of a goal threat is considered key to beating them - think of all those battles with Tipperary in the last seven years.
Waterford did not have that against Wexford. Curran ran tirelessly inside but was time and again a spectator as balls flew over his head and (often) wide. At one point in the second half he made a superb run away from his marker only to be ignored by Jamie Barron.
Jake Dillon left the crowded dugout for the isolation of the Waterford full-forward line. Replacing Shanahan with 20 minutes to go, he should have been able to cut loose, but any time he received the ball he was 40 yards from a team-mate with Matthew O'Hanlon breathing down his neck.
Waterford's blunt attacking edge kept Wexford hoping deep into the second half. Kilkenny would have obliterated that hope by half-time, as they have too many times before.
That is the difference and that is why Brian Cody was most likely smiling as he made his way back to his car on Sunday evening.
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