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

JJs Left Hand

Spoke too soon. Pathetic

Neewollah

Awful performance so far

tbiggertycome

We had a bad patch just after halftime and totally lost our shape and style of play that had done so well for us in the first half. Got back up on the horse and growing the lead again. Deegan was very panicky on his man and was leaving us wide open.

VelaSupernova

All credit to Antrim there as I thought Kilkenny would win at their ease but that was an absolutely atrocious performance by the team today. Need to take a long cold look at themselves and realise they hurl for Kilkenny and stop showing respect to everyone.

blackcard

Extremely disappointing display. Conceded 3 goals and could have been a few more. Very few players could have been even half satisfied with their display today. The positives were James Bergin and Eoin Cody for 25 minutes each, getting another match into Adrian Mullen, a first start for David Blanchfield, Padraig Walsh did okay.

teamddr

blackcard wrote: »

Extremely disappointing display. Conceded 3 goals and could have been a few more. Very few players could have been even half satisfied with their display today. The positives were James Bergin and Eoin Cody for 25 minutes each, getting another match into Adrian Mullen, a first start for David Blanchfield, Padraig Walsh did okay.

We (Antrim) were very poor compared to last week. Completely missing in the first half, must be the traveling. Kilkenny the better team for sure and got the scores easier. These games are invaluable for our improvement.

brookville

As I said the other day it was a no win situation today but no doubt antrim could of being closer.Missed a penalty and a few other very decent goal chances.We will be disappointed thevway the second half went.We hit a good few wides.I hope antrim keep up the great work and have a good league
On ourselves it was a great opportunity for lads to lay down a marker.James bergin and alan Murphy probably the pick of the forwards but our gameplan went out the window in the second half.
We will have a much better idea after the wexford match where we are at but anyone looking on today could see we looked very jittery under the high ball in the full back line that was a concern.

Fred Daly

It must be a first Paddy Deegan been replaced since he started hurling with Kilkenny . Darren Brennan was on form to day he saved a penalty certain goal the first half.

Grats

Fred Daly wrote: »

It must be a first Paddy Deegan been replaced since he started hurling with Kilkenny . Darren Brennan was on form to day he saved a penalty certain goal the first half.

Paddy Deegan is just not comfortable as a back at county level.

Brennan's puckouts were generally top class too

Village87

Grats wrote: »

Paddy Deegan is just not comfortable as a back at county level.

Brennan's puckouts were generally top class too

Paddy Deegan has been tried at midfield, corner back and last year out to the half back line. How do some of these lads get so many opportunities when clearly not up to it. He gave one of the worst performances ever seen in a Kk jersey v Waterford last year. Got the run around again today. Kk wont be winning much when lads like Deegan are guaranteed to start no matter how poor they play

Grats

Village87 wrote: »

Paddy Deegan has been tried at midfield, corner back and last year out to the half back line. How do some of these lads get so many opportunities when clearly not up to it. He gave one of the worst performances ever seen in a Kk jersey v Waterford last year. Got the run around again today. Kk wont be winning much when lads like Deegan are guaranteed to start no matter how poor they play

I wouldn't disagree. Who in your opinion should be in on place of him?

mullinr2

I have said this on here many times, but unless there is an excellent minor/u20 team on the way in the next 2 years, Killenny will go a decade if not more without winning an All Ireland. We are just no where near the standard to compete with Limerick, Galway and Tipperary. We need an u20 team like Tipps 2010 u21 team. They got great players from that team. We need to find at least 4 great players to win another All Ireland.

robwen

Grats wrote: »

I wouldn't disagree. Who in your opinion should be in on place of him?

Darren Mullen surely deserves an opportunity, is he available?
In general people get to worked up about the league every year & especially this year it's not much more than pre season friendlies

Grats

robwen wrote: »

Darren Mullen surely deserves an opportunity, is he available?
In general people get to worked up about the league every year & especially this year it's not much more than pre season friendlies

As we know, the league would normally take place from end of January. We're in the middle of May. Most of the fitness training is done with by now. The championship is around the corner. League matches do seem like friendlies but there isn't much time for catch up.

Yes, D Mullen and C Delaney.

robwen

Grats wrote: »

As we know, the league would normally take place from end of January. We're in the middle of May. Most of the fitness training is done with by now. The championship is around the corner. League matches do seem like friendlies but there isn't much time for catch up.

Yes, D Mullen and C Delaney.

I know Delaney is injured is Mullen, is he part of the panel end of last year story here was he had walked off the panel?

Grats

robwen wrote: »

I know Delaney is injured is Mullen, is he part of the panel end of last year story here was he had walked off the panel?

Mullen was in the stand in Parnell Park last week.

robwen

Grats wrote: »

Mullen was in the stand in Parnell Park last week.

Injured aswell then, hopefully he gets a chance to stake a claim next few games. James Maher not getting a chance so far in midfield is disappointing

brookville

Hard to disagree with the comments above but we will have a better idea where we're at after the wexford match.I do think we're a bit behind limerick and Galway and these teams.
I know Richie Reid and leahy got injured the last day but that's two games both midfielders replaced.Buckley started great but went out of it.Surely this is an area that was highlighted as a problem area.Teams are only back collectively a few weeks so of course there will be dirty petrol but as someone said we need to try find at least 3 or 4 starters for the summer.
Our full back line had a bad day especially under the high ball but I think lawlor would be better on the half back line but delaney is injured but id like to see joey,delaney and mullen in the full back line.Unfortunatley mullen is injured aswell.We are lucky Darren brennan is a very good goalie he made a few very good saves.
We played some good diagonal ball into lads like bergin in the first half but this dried up as the match went on.
We need a good performance next week a few fringe players will be disappointed but well done antrim they will take great encouragement from today.

Alonzo Moseley

mullinr2 wrote: »

I have said this on here many times, but unless there is an excellent minor/u20 team on the way in the next 2 years, Killenny will go a decade if not more without winning an All Ireland. We are just no where near the standard to compete with Limerick, Galway and Tipperary. We need an u20 team like Tipps 2010 u21 team. They got great players from that team[/B]. We need to find at least 4 great players to win another All Ireland.

Like who?
No one from those teams could be remotely considered "great", certainly not as yet.

I watched a number of them (Cadell, Brian Mc Grath, and Kehoe in particular) up close in 2020 Fitzgibbon and was not overly impressed.
Morris is the most highly rated of those teams but I think he can be hot and cold
I'd take Donnelly and the two Mullens over any of them.

Kilkenny have produced good minor teams for the last 7 years
2014 Won
2015 Robbed
2016 Unlucky, mugged by a last min goal in Parnell
2017 Beaten by a Pt by AI Winners
2018 Beaten in final after taking out both Munster finalists
2019 Beaten in final (by one of the biggest and best underage teams I've ever seen) after seeing off both Munster finalists again.
2020 Looks like a very classy and pacy team

U20/21 has been disappointing but the idea that we have stopped producing good hurlers is nonsense

Look at the best Fitzgibbon squads, littered every year now with Kilkenny players.

Saying we are "nowhere near the standard to even compete with Galway, Tipp and Limerick" is just incorrect
We demonstrably are very near in standard to the first two
And on basis of what I have seen last two weeks, Limerick are not miles ahead of everyone, far from it.
People are copping on to them, most importantly of all, refs are copping on to them
Limerick have some serious thinking to do before the championship
Their rate of fouling is atrocious.

Alonzo Moseley

Next week will tell a lot

But as I and others have said here in recent weeks, it is strange to see players who have been exposed on a number of occasions in the last year or two constantly being retained or shuffled to new positions.
We'd all love it to work out well for Deegan and Buckley, they are classy ballplayers, but the evidence of the last 2 seasons and more is hard to argue with.
No one will ever turn down a Kilkenny jersey but I doubt Deegan relished being handed the number 4 these last two weeks.
I would like to see a totally new full backline, today's one looks like a time bomb
Browne, Delaney and D Mullen would be my preference and send Lawlor to CB.


On the general fare of play last two weeks, I am really concerned about hurling.
The size and conditioning of the players, the overcarrying, the handpassing, the ridiculous length the ball is traveling, the incessant fouling, the high tackling.
Everyone ooohing and ahhing about lads hitting points from 120 yards out but I really don't like what I have seen in the 4-5 games I have watched last two weeks.

JJs Left Hand

He said the 2010 team which meant the Mahers etc

Alonzo Moseley

JJs Left Hand wrote: »

He said the 2010 team which meant the Mahers etc

Ah thanks for the correction.

Jeez, every county would like a collection of players like that.

But too much gloom for me on the talent within the county.
We are up with the best and have at least as many good hurlers 17-22 than any county and probably more than any bar Galway maybe.

I feel issues on lack of success at U20 and senior in recent years are not related to available talent, or at very least not solely related.

randd1

Alonzo Moseley wrote: »

Ah thanks for the correction.

Jeez, every county would like a collection of players like that.

But too much gloom for me on the talent within the county.
We are up with the best and have at least as many good hurlers 17-22 than any county and probably more than any bar Galway maybe.

I feel issues on lack of success at U20 and senior in recent years are not related to available talent, or at very least not solely related.

There's a distinct lack of development at that age. As has been pointed out, we are actually producing good minor teams, and better than any really bar Galway.

What's has been happening at U21/U20 has been us standing still, while others develop players for senior. So when we do reach senior, we're playing catch up.

I don't know how we sort it to be honest. One way maybe?

- Have 6 regional sides in the county (made up of 6/7 clubs) of U19 players.
- Each club sends in 5 players for intense training over three months in January-March, with an emphasis on speed of play and wrist work.
- Each player would be given a standard physical and conditioning development programme.
- Each club sends one volunteer to assist with the coaching side of things.
- A league will be played between the 6 regions. Games would consist of 4 20 minute quarters where all 30 players play at least 40 minutes.
- The matches would be played on different nights so the current U20 manager would see every available player.

The four goals of the above would be to:
1. Continue development of players for inter-county after minor.
2. Provide the U20 manager with as wide a range of intensely trained player options for the year ahead.
3. In the event of our U20's not having a long summer, that there's still high quality games at their own level to play.
4. Clubs over a 10 year period should have roughly 30 players you would have gone through this training, with the hope it would help increase the standard and quality of club hurling at all adult levels in the county.

robwen

https://twitter.com/KilkennyCLG/status/1394575245055496192?s=19

tbiggertycome

Apparently there's a couple of cases of Covid in the Wexford camp. The game is still going ahead as of now could change though if things get bad down there.

tbiggertycome

Alonzo Moseley wrote: »

Ah thanks for the correction.

Jeez, every county would like a collection of players like that.

But too much gloom for me on the talent within the county.
We are up with the best and have at least as many good hurlers 17-22 than any county and probably more than any bar Galway maybe.

I feel issues on lack of success at U20 and senior in recent years are not related to available talent, or at very least not solely related.

We can still compete at minor but I expect that to change in the next few years if the changes being made aren't seen through and built on. I was talking to two of our U20's set up since the Galway defeat and the main difference was not skill wise I think the first half shows we have the skill to take on any of these teams its physically where we're falling massively behind. The lads who saw the Galway U20's up close said that if Shane O'Neill deemed any of them good enough to play Senior for Galway this year that all those Galway U20's were ready physically for the step up. He said the only player we had that was in similar condition was Eoin Cody but even he hadn't the same base these Galway lads had done.

Unless we take lads at 14 and introduce them to the proper S&C setup and build them slowly up along we're going to keep thinking that we're not producing the players. The problem we're running into is that other counties start developing their guys physically from 14 so by the time their 19-20 they have a great base laid down. Our lads start doing real S&C when they enter the senior setup at 19-20 so their trying to make up 5-6 years of work in a few years and very few can do it. The last young player that we had that came through and made the step up to senior without much bother was Adrian Mullen. While his talent was without doubt what most people didn't know was that Mike Dempsey had been working with him from 15-16 to have him ready. Unless we make this more widely available to all our underage players their going to struggle when they come up against the teams who have this setup. Limerick and Galway have had it a good 5 years or more. Cork will be coming very strong again as they have been at it a 2-3 years now and other counties like Dublin and Wexford have all got a head start on us.

Contrary to what many on here think the reason we can still beat or compete with these teams at underage is actually because we still have greatly talented hurlers but we're sending them out with one hand tied behind their back. Until they can physically match the players their playing against then we'll continue to struggle to win titles at all ages.

This lack of preparedness has cost young lads their opportunity with Kilkenny, even the likes of Donnelly, Mossy, Billy Ryan, Tommy Walsh, Richie Leahy haven't looked as impressive as they could have been because they were playing catch up on the physical front. Most of those players only getting to the required level in the last year or so. It's not something that can be rushed you have to build up that strength over time and we just start our lads to late simple as.

Hopefully it's a change Kieran Muldowney brings in along with all the other work he's doing.

JJs Left Hand

But they are doing S&C in the development squads and have been for the last 5 years anyway. It starts with bodyweight and they introduce weights as they go along. I'm not an S&C expert so I can't say whether or not it's too easy and they're not being pressed enough but to say there's no S&C in the development squads is incorrect.

And, let's not forget, these are still kids. These are not professional athletes.

Alonzo Moseley

JJs Left Hand wrote: »

But they are doing S&C in the development squads and have been for the last 5 years anyway. It starts with bodyweight and they introduce weights as they go along. I'm not an S&C expert so I can't say whether or not it's too easy and they're not being pressed enough but to say there's no S&C in the development squads is incorrect.

And, let's not forget, these are still kids. These are not professional athletes.

Galway manager 2018:

Having started out in January, Lynskey says the players worked incredibly hard over the past few months.

"We had 70-something pitch sessions, 40 gym sessions. That's how much we wanted it this year. There is no secret to it, it's hard work."

110 collective training sessions in just over 7 months, including 40 pure gym
For 16/17-year-olds, all of whom would have been training with club and school too during this time.

You gotta worry if that's where it is all going

formerlyET

Alonzo Moseley wrote: »

Galway manager 2018:

Having started out in January, Lynskey says the players worked incredibly hard over the past few months.

"We had 70-something pitch sessions, 40 gym sessions. That's how much we wanted it this year. There is no secret to it, it's hard work."

110 collective training sessions in just over 7 months, including 40 pure gym
For 16/17-year-olds, all of whom would have been training with club and school too during this time.

You gotta worry if that's where it is all going

I think Galway have won 8 out of 13 minor All-Ireland final appearances in the last twenty years. One senior All-Ireland in that time. Conversion rate is not great. It might be too much. But, maybe, that conveyor belt might start reaping rewards over the next five years. Who knows.

tbiggertycome

JJs Left Hand wrote: »

But they are doing S&C in the development squads and have been for the last 5 years anyway. It starts with bodyweight and they introduce weights as they go along. I'm not an S&C expert so I can't say whether or not it's too easy and they're not being pressed enough but to say there's no S&C in the development squads is incorrect.

And, let's not forget, these are still kids. These are not professional athletes.

I'm no S&C expert myself but I know a few of them and from talking to them it's the structures as much as the setups. Definitely these guys are young but when this its done properly you have guys who are ready to play senior and are not burnt out. Doing S&C properly is as much about rest and recovery as building strength. It's not about flogging lads doing laps or turning them into gym monkeys, it's about getting these lads the right body attributes, speed, flexibility, agility, acceleration and strength to play in the their desired position. A good S&C coach also keeps it varied to keep the guys interested so they don't become jaded with it all.

The point is I can't think of any player who has been ready physically to play Senior at 19 or 20 other than Adrian Mullen and we know why he was ready. Most of our lads are still not ready at 22 or 23. So something is obviously not working properly. The game has moved on in the last 5 years or so because other teams have put these structures in place (ironically so they could compete with us but we've fallen asleep at the wheel so they've passed us out). To be honest don't I like a lot of the hurling we see at the minute but we can't get back to playing our style of hurling effectively until we have 20 to 25 guys how are physically ready to face a Galway or Limerick etc.

I've talked to a few younger players who've been through the development squads in the last few years and have gone on to college and they see a huge difference in approach and methodology between the college teams and what they had been exposed to in Kilkenny. They also see their behind a good few of their counterparts on College teams. I'm not saying we have 15 DJ's or Henry's laying in wait to be discovered but I do think the young players we have could be playing at a higher level if they were up to the pitch of it physically.