Kilkenny GAA Thread Part 3 **MOD NOTE POST 1***

tbiggertycome

bruschi wrote: »

I wont quote your post tbiggertycome, but it is an honest and fair appraisal. Its like in most sports, if you have weaker players or less talented, you need to make up for by having a better game plan and team ethic and that is essentially what Wexford did. Man for man, bar TJ, there wouldnt be much between the skill levels or quality of both sides on Sunday. Most match up quite well but the tail end of Kilkenny is getting that bit weaker. To compensate for that, they need to work more on the team play and tactics. When you have a team of all stars, all you need to worry about is winning your 50-50 battle and you will most certainly win. Those days are long gone and teams are gone a long way to figuring out how to play their opponents. As I said earlier, I think Wexford took a lot more from the first day than Kilkenny. Took Padraig Walsh out of the game and rotated McGovern with O'Keefe to bring him into it as a change up in their attacking midfield tactics. Having our most potent and exciting forward on your wekest defender is a classic Cody tactic, but he didnt see it when it was put back on him.

I do know there is and has been a lot of work done in terms of video analysis and tactical awareness within that Kilkenny set up, but how much of gets implemented or taken on board is a whole other story.

Another thing I noticed in the minor game was similar to your last point too, I felt the Wexford players had a much better standing start to acceleration than Kilkenny. The last goal for Wexford really epitomised that when Lawlor ran 60m after catching a Kilkenny puck out and no one could catch him until he was poleaxed. But throughout, they had the better of picking up the ball and getting out into space.

I obviously think if our players were in the same shape as Wexfords and had a bit of way of playing then I think we have better hurlers but thats only natural;). However the record shows and rightly so that ye are the better team so far.

Village87

Quality and knowledgeable article biggertycome i fully agree with you. Davy Fitz made a reference after the match about how the younger generation are so different mentally nowadays and how he has adjusted his approach working with younger men. Cody's old school style of mentally bullying, looking for a reaction, not talking to players, not coaching, not putting an arm around players doesn't work anymore, creates a negative environment and players playing with fear.

tbiggertycome

Village87 wrote: »

Quality and knowledgeable article biggertycome i fully agree with you. Davy Fitz made a reference after the match about how the younger generation are so different mentally nowadays and how he has adjusted his approach working with younger men. Cody's old school style of mentally bullying, looking for a reaction, not talking to players, not coaching, not putting an arm around players doesn't work anymore, creates a negative environment and players playing with fear.

I think the ultimate example of a player playing with fear was Ger Aylward he won the ball he had Colin to his right and Billy (I think) to his left with one defender and a keeper to beat. What does he do? he goes for the shot to try and secure his spot for the next day. A few years ago that would have been passed to either side and ended up in the onion bag.

bruschi

Hawkeye6 wrote: »

Even Wexford who their first since 1985 are hardly mentioning it

very much untrue. Come down to Wexford and see how important that win is viewed, particularly at club level and within the coaching staff. If you were to ask most people, heavily involved in GAA or coaching in Wexford, if they had to pick one win from the 2 games Sunday, the vast majority would have said the minor. This minor group is coming from the first steps of a whole new coaching set up so it was a huge boost both to club and coaching staff that it has given success when it came to minor, which is often the assessment point of where people rate effective coaching. There has been huge work to change the coaching structure and set up and to see success come is great and is very much a huge thing to come out of Sunday.

Grats

Are we getting a bit carried away with so called modern day tactics? Or is there something more fundamental wrong with Kilkenny hurling at present. For all the talk about Davy Fitz's preparations and approach his team would have lost last Sunday had their opponents been more accurate. Kilkenny created 9 more scoring shots but also had 9 more wides.
Total shots for Kilkenny 39, scored 23 = 58‰
Total for Wexford 30, scored 24 = 80%.

Those stats suggest to me that our loss on Sunday was down to poor shooting rather than lack of modern day tactics.

While I agree that we do need to embrace new ways, we ought to keep things in perspective.

JJs Left Hand

Gizzy Lyng and Liam Griffin were on OTB saying how important it was as well.

unrealtime

It’s a long time since I posted but years ago I said that Cody was the problem. Nothing has changed in the interim. TheBiggertheycome writes so well about it but the same could have been written anytime since 2016. We are going nowhere but a new man would be a change for the better. Cody will have to be removed before we can get our mojo back. We will never again have a crop of players that were the best of all time but with what we have we are underachieving right now.

tbiggertycome

Grats wrote: »

Are we getting a bit carried away with so called modern day tactics? Or is there something more fundamental wrong with Kilkenny hurling at present. For all the talk about Davy Fitz's preparations and approach his team would have lost last Sunday had their opponents been more accurate. Kilkenny created 9 more scoring shots but also had 9 more wides.
Total shots for Kilkenny 39, scored 23 = 58‰
Total for Wexford 30, scored 24 = 80%.

Those stats suggest to me that our loss on Sunday was down to poor shooting rather than lack of modern day tactics.

While I agree that we do need to embrace new ways, we ought to keep things in perspective.

100% agree with you. I'm not looking to have us play with a sweeper or anything like that but the sweeper has been figured out for years and yet we've only played effectively against it once in my recollection. We don't need to change hugely but with young inexperienced players we need some kind of a system to aid them in tight matches. If we have system or a plan it's the most covert system ever put in place. I have great belief in our players, unfortunately I'm having less and less in our management. However I believe the reason we're having so many wide's in games is the pressure these young lads are under. It's ok if you only have 2 or 3 young lads in a team they can sink or swim but if you have team with lots of young lads they can easily loose their way trying to make an impression. Especially trying to make an impression with a manager known for his ruthlessness in team selection and when your dropped from the panel your rarely ever called back in. Unfortunately our more experienced players don't appear to be very vocal leaders apart from TJ and Scruffy (I could be wrong there but that's how it seems)

Given these issues I think a few simple things could get these guys firing on all cylinders but I'm very doubtful they will happen.

brookville

Great post with great detail and some depressing reading to be honest and I'm sure it will get alot of attention.We all know cody is stubborn and the longer lads tell him the opposite he will stick in heels but im not suprised to hear the treatment to some players cause I remember in 15 richie power was gone only for a few people and he ended up winning us that all ireland
I was shocked he moved padraig walsh from 3 despite the whole country telling him he was wasted there.
Cody isn't and shouldnt be exempt from critism.Last year against limerick playing lyng and lennon was absolutley awful decision.
against galway were absolutley cleaned out by mannion despite him doing the same last year and whelan inside and then takes off young tommy before murphy was sent off.
The other day was awful on the line the less said the better.
I dread to think if cadigon and horgan go to town on us how long before we react.
Now the players have to take some of the blame aswell.experienced players like murphy,fogarty and wally have really struggled for consistency.There not robots and should be able think on there feet and deliver good ball in.Lads on the panel a few months like lawlor and mullen have really stepped up.
The distribution into the fowards is awful and alien to us like the short passing game.We're driving in head high ball thats 50-50 at best.
Cody cant be blamed for the wides the other day that game was 50-50 till the stupid penalty it could of being easily prevented .
Id be very slow to run cody out after all we habe won we see in differant sports be very carefull what u wish for i think he needs to change his backroom team and for the first time in his career take the advice on board.We all know since the time of john Henderson was selector it was his way or the highway.
As I said the other day something kinda stinks when the team is names at 9 o clock we all knew buckley couldnt walk out of wexford park and its up here at 10 o clock this would of never of happened a few years ago I dont care what lads say bout social media.
I wouldn't be one bit afraid to throw darren mullen in his plenty good enough.
This isn't sour grapes cause wexford have being starved of sucess and i was one of the first to congratulate them here the other day.

conor05

bruschi wrote: »

Hawkeye6 wrote: »

Even Wexford who their first since 1985 are hardly mentioning it

very much untrue. Come down to Wexford and see how important that win is viewed, particularly at club level and within the coaching staff. If you were to ask most people, heavily involved in GAA or coaching in Wexford, if they had to pick one win from the 2 games Sunday, the vast majority would have said the minor. This minor group is coming from the first steps of a whole new coaching set up so it was a huge boost both to club and coaching staff that it has given success when it came to minor, which is often the assessment point of where people rate effective coaching. There has been huge work to change the coaching structure and set up and to see success come is great and is very much a huge thing to come out of Sunday.

Yes it comes from the Rackard Leagues and Hurling 365 in the primary schools right up the way. This is not going to be a once off with Wexford, they are so determined to stay at the top table in hurling and they are heading in the right direction.

They seem to be producing ferocious athletes down in Wexford mixed with high skilled level. Monitored S & C is big from under 16 to under 20.

MfMan

unrealtime wrote: »

It’s a long time since I posted but years ago I said that Cody was the problem. Nothing has changed in the interim. TheBiggertheycome writes so well about it but the same could have been written anytime since 2016. We are going nowhere but a new man would be a change for the better. Cody will have to be removed before we can get our mojo back. We will never again have a crop of players that were the best of all time but with what we have we are underachieving right now.

Any truth in the rumour Mrs.Cody is really picking the team?

Grats

MfMan wrote: »

Any truth in the rumour Mrs.Cody is really picking the team?

She's doing a better job of it than Mrs Donoghue!!!

tbiggertycome

bruschi wrote: »

I do know there is and has been a lot of work done in terms of video analysis and tactical awareness within that Kilkenny set up, but how much of gets implemented or taken on board is a whole other story.

I do video analysis for my own club and I know the power but also the limitations of it. You can bombard players with too much information so our management normally pick a few things we need to work on, do more of this, do less of that, exploit their weaknesses here or there. We then pick out examples and show the team as a group usually 3 to 4 days before a game a 15 minute session.
We also do some one on one sessions where we highlight the good things a lad is doing but also when he took the wrong option. This is very powerful as a player can't deny it when it's playing on a screen in front of them. Whereas you could have tried to tell the same lad the same thing before we had video analysis and he would not believe you that he does that.

All I know about our county set up is that the few of our club players in the county set up last year, thought the way we utilised it was better than what they got from the county set up. I'm sure the county set up has moved on again, I know we have.

greenspurs

And Wexford U20s in the Leinster final now also....

Something is going right in Wexico (East Waterford) ……….

brookville

Huge night tonight for our u20s the county needs a lift after a bad week.Best of luck to all involved

JohnCougar

Cody's biggest line to players in training is " How do you think your going" , players know then a bollicking is coming ....!!

Sad behaviour from him and there was at least 5/6 Village supporters around me on Sunday saying he is there too long and needs to move on and give someone else a chance...!! The days of traeting players with an iron fist and with contempt is long gone.

citykat

JohnCougar wrote: »

there was at least 5/6 Village supporters around me on Sunday saying he is there too long and needs to move on and give someone else a chance...!! .

That means sweet fa. There’s probably more Cody haters in the Village per capita than any other club.

C__MC

Someone made a great point on here about s and c.
Alot of teams right now seem to be more explosive and athletic then kk. It's more based on power for that explosive burst. Its disappointing mick Dempsey hasn't added this to kk. It's amazing though how light some of the kk players are in comparison to other counties as well.

Personally I felt the last two games against wexford were big games for cody. The fact that Davy got the better of him again surely hurt. Knocking wexford out two weeks ago would have been huge for kk but they couldn't see it out with a huge wind advantage.

I mean since 2017 dogs on the street know how wexford set up. And yet kk still go with the mantra of route one ball against the sweeper.
Stone age stuff. I'd love to see a coach like Paul Kinnerk work with kilkenny.

JohnCougar

Why should Cody be allowed stay on ??

He is there since November 1998. He has been fantastic for so long but surely he has to step down at some stage.

Other managers deserve a chance and the whole set up needs to be freshened up.

The_Ghost

I think most would like to see Cody step down to save his own legacy. Are we any better than where we were last year? It’s hard to know we’ll always be competitive. Huw lawor and Adrian Mullen have been very good but neither where close to the team last year and the other younger lads havnt improved much. Leahy has been a little better but still not near his true potential. Billy Ryan, donnolly blanchfield havnt either got the chance or havnt impressed when they have. Tommy Walsh was going well but don’t think we’ll see him this year again. Scanlon and Mossy are nowhere to be seen, they both started games last year. Cleere doesn’t seem to be trusted even though looking alright when he plays. Pity about Delaney. Alan Murphy seems the same, good skillful player but missing something at the moment. That’s disappointing now maybe their not being given the chances or treated fairly but I had high hopes for some of them this year. They might come good yet. I know Adrian Mullen was putting in a big effort in the gym last year he looks the most physical outta everyone.

Under 20s really need to win tonight or else it will be an awful few days for us. Hopefully the backs stay tight and we work the ball into our dangerous forwards. Best of luck to them

ghostumpire

Well done and congratulations to Wexford. Serious work being done down there and it needed to be done given how far they had slipped . It matters not a jot how Davy and his team play: facts are that they have won a Leinster title and that’s all the history books will record. Minors too, who played a nice style of hurling, imo.
Kilkenny. I’m around long enough to have lived through barren years. So perspective is maybe needed. But there has been a slippage these past few years and it’s not all down to the senior management team. But understandable as it might be that many people look to senior hurling as the barometer of success and hurling mastery, we should instead look at what and we are at and where we are at with coaching and schools hurling and our widespread disdain of football, at club and county level.
How many of who post or read on here are coaching underage with our clubs? I ask this not as a hammer to beat people over the head but rather what are we doing coaching and games wise with our young players? Are we doing the same things that we have done for a year or two or three or more? How many of us look to what we could learn from football and coaching elements of that game, by playing it and then incorporating it into our coaching and games? Yes, hurling is our first game and always will be but is there a danger that we overlook other opportunities for learning and development? I know that it took me a while to even consider it and serious resistance from the club to even get a few footballs. Our old refrain that football is for muck and dirt in January and February and for other counties to stick to the football denies us the opportunity to look at what we could learn from the game that is applicable to hurling. As an aside, the Kilkenny minors three year football project reached an end in the loss to Carlow in the minor shield: no one thought those players were ever going to win a championship but it gives a glimpse of what can be achieved and anecdotally I’ve heard that other clubs see improvements in their players who played limited football. I say limited because in playing counties like Louth, Carlow, Kildare and Wicklow, those young players are playing teams who have good quality competitive club games, almost all year around development phases etc, etc. People may snigger and be snide about it but Kilkenny should continue the football project, regardless of this years results. Any boy or girl who puts on the Black and Amber jersey should, at the very least, be respected for honoring the tradition and culture of our county. They have trained for it, they have made themselves available and their parents have made the effort to get them there; an old fashioned idea perhaps but like I said at the top, I’m around a few years.
Many of the posts here refer to rows or disagreements in the senior set up. I don’t know anything so I wont comment other than say that our senor manager should have retired in 2015 after Eoin Larkin and Mick Fennelly dragged and pushed us over the line v Galway. In my book, a great achievement to win that final. The loss of Larkin and Fennelly and JJ and all the other greats (including Richie Power, an absolute classic Kilkenny hurler) is now keenly felt. Tipp in 2016 was a game so far removed from what we were at that the message should have been heard loud and clear. But wasn’t. This recent crack of naming dummy teams and having injured or unfit players starting or on the bench is one of the most unKilkenny things that I have seen.
The struggles evident v Galway and Dublin and Wexford this year underline some our challenges. We are static, we are stale and the default option remains to drive the ball with little or message it to forwards, in the main, who are not the ball winners we once had. It should have to be said that players who have made huge contributions in the past number of years owe nothing to us as Kilkenny supporters.
Either there a dramatic change in approach in terms of coaching at club level our struggles will continue. Cork are ordinary but there is every chance we will make them look extraordinary. Every chance unless the change in approach and tactical nous is immediate at senior level in the next week or so. Changes are needed in the backs. If Mullen and Delaney are fit they should start. If it’s their last inter county match this year, it certainly won’t be their past last inter county match for years to come. If Conor Browne is fit to start then he should start . He was very good in Fitzgibbon, a very good minor and while he might not be the Cody type of player , he has the potential to bring something different. If these players start and Paul Murphy and Joey Holden and Conor Fogarty and Paddy Deegan are dropped, so be it. If that’s the ruthlessness we need then let’s have it. If Richie Hogan is fit to start then he should start and let’s see what happens. Likewise Buckely, if fit start him and if not fit then no. if Walter is not for them so be it. He doesn’t start.
Kilkenny hurling belongs to us, in our clubs. It is our job and our responsibility to ensure that our young players are exposed and experience quality coaching and have the opportunity to learn if that opportunity lies outside our norms( football). Brian Cody and his selectors and those who have gone before them have made huge contributions. But we move on. Or at best we standstill and continue to get overtaken.
I may well be wrong about our senor inter county set up. I hope I am. But evidence to date illustrates a problem and a stubbornness to almost slavishly adhere to a plan that is not working. I will be there supporting them v Cork (assuming Westmeath don’t produce a miracle). If we win that I will be there the next day too.
Last thing: intercounty is the top of the tree. But the roots are clubs and schools and that’s all schools in the county and all clubs in border areas because we need investment there. Weak roots and the tree falters and eventually falls.

MfMan

Grats wrote: »

She's doing a better job of it than Mrs Donoghue!!!

Debatable given our most recent head-to-head. However, I asked in semi-seriousness given a 'duirt bean liom' story I heard at the weekend from a good KK source.

Grats

Darren Mullen and Conor Delaney are being mentioned as starters by some posters. On the other hand we have posters giving out about playing injured players. Since we can't attend training sessions we haven't a clue with regards injuries. All I know about Mullen is that he hasn't lined out for his club in months. He may be flying in training now but he has very little hurling done. Delaney is making his way back from a serious injury. He too may be flying in training but again, he has no hurling under his belt. Richie Hogan has ongoing issues which has to be frustrating for him and for the manager.

Grats

MfMan wrote: »

Debatable given our most recent head-to-head. However, I asked in semi-seriousness given a 'duirt bean liom' story I heard at the weekend from a good KK source.

Well Mrs Cody got us to a Leinster Final and we're still in the championship. Mrs Donoghue's team were eliminated.

Nickindublin

I think the best thing to do is ignore all rumours. Unless you hear it directly from someone who is involved with the senior set up.

greenspurs

Lots of new accounts posting ? Hmmm ….

BENDYBINN

Grats wrote: »

Well Mrs Cody got us to a Leinster Final and we're still in the championship. Mrs Donoghue's team were eliminated.

Ah yes, but Mrs Donoghue’s team bet Mrs Cody’s........Mrs Cody should be gone....

mountgomery burns

MfMan wrote: »

Debatable given our most recent head-to-head. However, I asked in semi-seriousness given a 'duirt bean liom' story I heard at the weekend from a good KK source.

It's a pretty ridiculous rumour to be fair

Nickindublin

BENDYBINN wrote: »

Ah yes, but Mrs Donoghue’s team bet Mrs Cody’s........Mrs Cody should be gone....

Ah but Mrs Cody has 11 All Ireland's to Mrs Donahue's 1

Grats

And Mrs Donoghue should be sacked since Mrs Kenny beat her!!!!