Kilkenny GAA Thread

Butterbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841008#Comment_118841008

Not accurate enough. If we have a puck out strategy, it's one without any conviction - carried out roughly 50% of the time with no repercussions if its not followed

JJs Left Hand

https://www.echolive.ie/corksport/arid-40837685.html

Grats

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841029#Comment_118841029

Surely that's the Manager's doing? I'm convinced he isn't fully committed to any puck out strategy other than long. The few short ones we see are just token efforts on his part. Eoin Murphy is doing exactly what Cody wants him to do.

Butterbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841044#Comment_118841044

You're probably right, after all, Cody's overall strategy is win your own ball. And maybe the puck out gets focused on too much, but it's a pivotal part of the game and watching tonight, especially in the 2nd half, I just put my head in my hands every time the ball went long for the puck out, as Cork came out with it most of the time, and it's getting very familiar! It's so frustrating to watch time and time again. In that regard, Eoin Murphy becomes the easy target. For what it's worth, I think we need a change in management.

Alonzo Moseley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841038#Comment_118841038

At face value that looks a really good result for Kilkenny, especially as team looks very young with a good few players even U18.

Joe Fitzpatrick playing U20 centre back while U18 is serious and a reminder that depsite a lot of gloom, we do still produce serious hurlers.

What we do with it is the big question

black and amber rock

The better team with the better tactics won tonight. Both Carey and Butler were very solid under a lot of pressure, but you can't beat a top team when we are giving up so much possession mainly from our own puck outs. On the positive side when we do go through the lines Cody and Ryan are well able to finish, the problem is supplying our inside line for the full 70 minutes.

The attack has to come from the halfback/midfield line like cork were doing and we were doing in the 1st half. In the 2nd half the ball wasn't going through blanchfield and carey enough. If we learn from this we can compete against any of the top teams.

Billy Ocean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118840651#Comment_118840651

Jesus wept, there's Waterford supporters close to 70 who've never seen their county win Liam McCarthy

PeggyShippen

I wouldnt be overly critical of Murphy. At least some of the long puck outs have an intended target. A few scores were got off broken ball. The half forwards disappeared in that second half. If anything his short puck outs are the problem. They are either to the fullback line or no one. He needs to hit some halfbacks and midfield. Kilkenny haven't had a very good midfield in a long time. Its ironic because 5 or 6 years ago midfield play looked obsolete.

TJ will make a difference ,especially with those long bombs. Kilkenny don't have the time to fine tune hitting the half backs.

brookville

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841119#Comment_118841119

Was there many from the u20 missing or is that it

brookville

Very dissapointing second half last night it was a pity because we done some great things in the first half and it was the best we played in a while. We were out on our feet in the last ten and needed to use the bench more but didn't. We drove a few bad wides at critical times I remember deegan and blanchfields effort drained us. Billy Ryan was throwing his hands up inside. The fear was we'd go back to route one when the pressure came on. We also gave away a few cheap scores from puckouts and as someone said here the other day Darren brennan is probably a better distributor.i thought we were the better team for a lot of the match but we were out on our feet in the last ten mins and the longer it went on the better cork got. Another thing is we should of being futher ahead at half time but a few handy frees kept cork in the game at a time were dominant. The blanchfield dummy handpass was the joke of the night.13 frees to 2 in the first half but someone must of said something at half time. The cork goal was a killer think it was 8 or 9 steps. Padraig was very quite last night. Id much prefer to see darren mullen corner back than delaney.The few positives is we've a had a decent league and a few new comers have done well.The puckouts and our distribution when the pressure comes on is still a huge concern and we won't make the next step till these are rectified but we done some very good things last night its not all doom and gloom. It's obvious what the problems are.

Marrooned

First of all let’s put things in perspective, I’m 60 years of age and have been traveling to pairc ui chaoimh the old and the new one. I cannot recall us ever winning down there even with the best team that ever was. I remember a draw once .most of the matches were close and were often swayed by a home town decision. I certainly was not that confident going down there yesterday.there is just a few things I would like to point out.

1/ The referee was an absolute scandle 13 frees to 2 in the first half.

2/ when the ref gave so many frees our defence are under pressure (it’s like getting a yellow card)and it upsets there game.

3/ Cork were floundering in the first half and only relied on the refs generosity (half there scores in the first half came from frees 7 out of 14 we had 1 point from a free.)So we were the only ones fouling

4/ the Cork goal from the build up should have been a free out for a throw pass and Fitzgibbon also over carried twice on the way in.

5/ the Cork county board supplied the ref Seán Stack with a penthouse apartment in the Metropole hotel with three hookers and a bag of cocaine.

Anyway besides all that in the the second half we gave away three or four points trying to roll rise the ball and got turned over and the tactic with Cian Kenny up the wing didn’t work out with the supply been intercepted every time.Cian was called ashore after having a good first half Padraig Walsh wasn’t in it at all . And everything else puckouts etc. will have to be looked at and lessons learned. Finally I don’t think we’re that bad ,look at the first half. Cork only took the lead in the 62 nd minute and we wrestled it back to lead by a point before the goal was scored in the 68th minute.

therealdonster

Firstly, my old bugbear- the throwing. If the rules of the game had of been properly applied last night by a competent referee then I estimate we would have had at least 20 frees last night that that we didnt get. There was one throw last night where the Cork player threw the ball high up in the air over two Kilkenny defenders, a lob basically, that led to a score. I could not believe it. Anyway that ref was probably the worst inter county ref I have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on and that is saying something. He didn't look like he knew what he was doing and was really inconsistent from start to finish.

Aside from that I wouldn't be overly disappointed. The game went pretty much as I though it would, especially in terms of the end result. But we could actually have won it too if we had kept our heads a bit better in the second half. As other posters have mentioned I think we could have emptied the bench a bit quicker when some players were clearly struggling. A switch of Deegan and Delaney is one change I would have made and I would also gave brought Richie areid on instead of Buckley earlier. Plus we definitely reverted to type in the second half with stupid shots from distance and long balls played into the forwards when a bit of cuter play might have made a difference.

Our full forward line destroyed their full back line in the first half and we should probably have been further ahead at half time with at least one more goal. The ref kept them alive during our period of dominance in the first half and was a complete disgrace (wait till you hear the Munster mafia Daly, Cusack etc defending him tonight on TV) and I hope to never see him officiate an inter county game involving us again. He was a homer and played up to the crowd for practically every decision in the first half and it was farcical stuff.

One thing that worried me was that I thought we tired badly near the end. Management should have seen this and introduced fresh legs which I think would have made a big difference down.the stretch.

To summarise our league campaign and year to date I think we have made incremental improvements from game to game. We have introduced and developed some excellent backs which for me was an area that was a huge problem in the last few years. Also some forwards are stepping up and we have developed our game tactics and style for sure. If you had said at the start of the year we would have been within one score of a flying Cork without TJ I would have been surprised.

My hope is that we continue to develop at this rate which we have seen so far this year which would have us as a contender at the business end.

Pigeon Chaser

Very negative tone overall on the thread in reaction to the game.

Looking at the positives. Butler and Carey were awesome.

We were very good, and it was close enough to full tilt championship pace.

Our game plan fell apart a bit when we came under pressure and we reverted to type. A relatively natural reaction .. but something we can and will learn from.

A lot more positives than negatives. Embed the build up strategy a bit more, learn from yesterday, introduce TJ and we are every bit as good as anyone out there.

It was a wonderfully thrilling and entertaining game.

The throwing of the ball is unbelievably frustrating and disheartening to see it go unpunished.

I gave out about the ref during the game but to be fair while there were 3 or 4 completely phantom frees given against Kilkenny in the first half, a good few of the 13 frees awarded were actually legitimate fouls, albeit soft. He was not penalising Cork for similar however. He did penalise Cork for their repeated time wasting on one occasion and didn't fall for their attempts to get men sent off, going down holding the head and throwing off the helmet.

What is inexcusable is the blind eye turned to the throwing of the ball on most occasions, the throwing reached farcical levels last night. If I recall correctly there was one Cork move which ended in Cork being penalised for throwing, but that was the third throw in that short move. I won't even mention steps, except to state that the faster you can run the more steps you can take it seems. 

I'm more depressed about the state of the game as it is being played than the loss to be honest

Rosita

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841463#Comment_118841463

Just on the very last point you made about the closeness of the scores, while that is true I'd be slow to read much into it or let it obscure other issues. In reality Kilkenny built up a sizeable lead early on and had two goals against zero for the majority of the game. Of course the scores were going to be relatively close. But every game has its own dynamic and sometimes they are close but it doesn't always tell the full story.

In the 2013 football semi-final Kerry led Dublin in the 69th minute because they had a two goal cushion for most of it even though they were being outscored for the previous half hour. As it turned out the two teams were on very different long-term trajectories which the closeness late on covered up.

Cork were within a referee's whistle of being All Ireland champions in 2013 but got battered in the replay. Again, that was about goals. They had 3 while Clare had none in the drawn game. I think the goals distorted the nature of the game last night and Kilkenny are probably a fair bit behind Cork.

Rosita

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841611#Comment_118841611

Just on the "introduce TJ and......." point, do you think that Kilkenny are as good as Limerick? I'm not so sure.

blackcard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841699#Comment_118841699

If throwing of the ball was penalised and overstepping punished, the gap would narrow considerably. It is beyond a joke at this stage

Rosita

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841728#Comment_118841728

It would certainly put huge pressure on Cork for certain.

Mad about baa baas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841711#Comment_118841711

I definitely think kilkenny would give limerick more of a game than Cork....

Cork are only interested in a non contact type of game..the reaction to contact yesterday was ridiculous. Soccer like clutching of heads and rolling as if were shot..

It's almost as if they tried to get people sent off😳

Cork will shy away from limerick in a way that Kilkenny most certainly would not

jimmythesulk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841119#Comment_118841119

Joe is a great prospect but no way the rest of last year's minors should be playing under 20 this year, bar maybe Gearoid Dunne. They have not even played adult hurling yet and didn't exactly stand out at their own age group never mind a few years ahead. Where are all the minors from 2019 gone?

Amprodude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841769#Comment_118841769

🙄

kilkennyboy

I think cody will have plenty to work on over next few weeks setting-up aproper rattle at galway in May.tj back training this week is a plus.was always going to be difficult to get a result last night but thought our first half was really good .competition for places in training will crank up a gear from here .

Looking forward to championship

brookville

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841778#Comment_118841778

I agree where are all these minors gone. I know some players make it and others don't but we had a couple of minor teams that got to the all Ireland.Liam Moore mustn't of came back which is dissapointing. Were they missing many last night?the championship is only a few short weeks away.

Nedflanders02

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841778#Comment_118841778

When you look at the team there’s a lot of lads from Kierans on the team and maybe this was the first proper chance they’ve had to look at them over the last few months! If they could get Liam Moore back and bring in the likes of Aidan Tallis, Cathal Beirne, Gearoid Dunne and Danny Glennon they’ve the makings of a good panel! Does Zak Bay Hammond not hurl at all now?

PeggyShippen

I'm a Limerick supporter myself. I'd be concerned that Cork will get reffed like yesterday against limerick. You really need to put Cork away early if you can. The ref prevented any notion of that yesterday. He was shocking. He's a nephew or son of the great Sean Stack from Clare..the fantastic centre back of the 70s and 80s.

Rosita

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841769#Comment_118841769

Yeah, based on last night I would not be convinced about Cork. It's a very under-20 style they play, and I said already it is a style very sensitive to mistakes in handling and passing accuracy, as in they will be punished severely when moves break down. Also a team that can maintain the intensity for a full match against them will cause them big problems especially with their full back line.

Limerick play a broadly similar style at times in short passing/throwing but they have big physical players to mix the style up too. Cork's biggest challenge with Limerick is maybe having to play them three times on the way to an All Ireland title.

And that's not to even get to the question of if Cork could beat Waterford, Clare, or even Galway in a knockout game. The right to the nods, winks, and eyerolls of Cork supporters at anything less than complete praise of their team have not yet been earned I believe.

Billy Ocean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841836#Comment_118841836

Zak was with Waterford soccer u19s i think, don't know the story now.

Marrooned

Could anyone post up the u20 team yesterday. I only saw the second half and only regonised Timmy Clifford, Harry Shine and Joe Fitzpatrick.

Grats

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841769#Comment_118841769

Correct on my opinion. I think Cody missed the opportunity to beat Cork by not using the five subs. Cork ran riot when our lads tired after their massive workrate in the first half.

As for the Cork players over reaction when fouled, pathetic. They did their best to get Kilkenny players sent off. Really looking forward to meeting them again, on neutral territory next time.

Grats

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118841065#Comment_118841065

Totally agree. In the meantime the selectors need to rattle Cody's cage and stop sitting back watching what we're all watching.