Kilkenny GAA Thread

Charlie69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119094711#Comment_119094711

We have the players to do an awful lot better than that but unfortunately we've been playing brainless hurling for a long time now, especially when under a bit of pressure. I actually still give us a decent chance in the Leinster final and you couldn't say that if we didn't have the players. That was absolutely soul destroying to watch today though... absolutely brainless.

Ballpaddy

A hard watch no doubt, It had the feeling of wexford s need been much greater and that kilkenny were already through, we are lucky Dublin are so bad,

Pigeon Chaser

We shouldn't wait until we lose the LF and the AIQF ..

We should just get rid of Cody now. Anyone of us on this thread would make a better fist of it at this stage ...

jimmythesulk

Thank god we only have to beat Laois, Westmeath and Dublin to reach a Leinster final.

KK Supercats

Just desperate this evening. Continuously landing the ball in the most congested area of the field and giving Wexford the opportunity to break at speed as a result. We can’t continue on this way for much longer surely? We just look so badly coached and one dimensional. Also giving Padraig Walsh and John Donnelly 5 mins or less to try and impact the game? Well done to Wexford but really dispiriting from a Kilkenny point of view

PeggyShippen

Even leaving Cody out of it completely the onfield decisions in the halfback line are so poor. Richie Reid and Paddy Deegans passing is atrocious. The trajectory on the ball is just way too high and its neither deep not short. It's neither

davidx40

That will surely be Brian Cody's last game in nowlan park .....he can't take all the blame either ....county board coaching at underage has been absolutely shocking last 10years ..... appointments of some of the mentors was a joke ...same faces every couple of years ......county board set up needs a complete change of personnel and separation of duties ..... to many boys on it making decisions to favour there own club in a host of different ways .....

davidx40

There was 6/7 minute spell towards the end of the match where Ritchie Reid got loose ball on 4/5 occasions and looked up and hit each one up in clouds and straight down middle and each one was caught and cleared .....Eoin Murphy and Paddy Deegen done same it was like watching something out of Father Ted

JJs Left Hand

3 points from play for the starting forwards.

Last 15 minutes I'd say every ball went long, high and central but even before that every time Reid got the ball he tried to go long, high and diagonal to the opposite corner and every time the Wexford spare man had moved over there anticipating the delivery.

And people think we'd put it up to Limerick if they had an off day shooting. They'd murder us.

Philip82

Its Cody's way or the high way. There is no on the line decisions been made once the ball is thrown in. Bad coaching and tactical awareness is one thing but stand back and watch Cody on the line, he walks up and down the line barking all day but never ever does he stand back and actually analyse whats happening with backroom. Comeford and McGarry make the odd attempt to engage with him through the match but he doesn't hear any of it. He then gets word look there's only two minutes left and decides to try obvious substitutions that should be made a he'll of alot sooner. We aren't world beaters at the moment but at the same time we don't know what heights we could actually achieve if we perfected our movement and ball distribution in an era of hurling where this means more than raw talent. Next question is who would be the perfect man and backroom team ready at this point in time to do so??

usualstripes

First of all this was a championship match where if we got beaten and Galway were beaten we were out. We were lucky Galway won and fair play to Wexford. They played to their strengths but we made them look so much better than they are but they fully deserved that win this evening.

Eoin Murphy is a super keeper but is not a fool. He has coaches in charge of him so either they are fools or they have no coaching ability to come to terms with the modern successful game. It must be to do with coaching. How else are we where we are.

Our full back line did well considering how Wexford were moving.

Our half back line with Ritchie Reid as sweeper were poor. Mikey Carey one bright light.

Take both richie and deegan. When in possession they don't travel forward through the lines. They move more to the side or back. Richie got on an awful lot of ball but opened the shoulders and landed it wherever. Deegan got caught in possession an awful lot.

Midfield completed out of the game. How we could look at them and only change with 10 mins into 2nd half I don't understand. Maybe more clued in posters here can tell me?

Out half forward line was very poor. Wally had some moments as did TJ but in general they weren't being fed the right ball.

Tom phelan started left half forward but for the life of me I can't understand why.

Padraig walsh got 3 mins. Yes a full 3 mins. Tom is new to this level and he doesn't have the cuteness yet that Padraig has. If it's a case of punishing Padraig for a poor outing the last day then it's a shocker.

Eoin Cody had to come out too far to get in the game. Ditto mossy. They just weren't being fed. What is wrong with our hurlers when we have to delay delivery into forwards. The space in front of our full forward line was there ad Wexford congest the middle but did we take advantage of this? My god it was shocking.

Padraig got a point and he was only on for a few mins. Donnely only got a few mins either. I wouldn't be happy if I was any of those 2.

So bitterly disappointing this evening. How can we both be more progressive in our play. Some may say we don't have the hurlers of 15 years ago and yes they're right but we have players that are miles better than that performance tonight. We're just not coaching them right and nobody here can convince me any differently.

I've been going to inter county matches for 35 years and I can honestly say we are completely rudderless at the minute.

What ever happened to David blanchfield that he couldn't keep his place?

Whatever happened to a hurlers natural instinct to pick out his forwards with a diagonal low ball out in front of his man. Richie reid is a club colleague of eoin Cody. I'm sure they would have spoken about the best way to get the most out of each other and our other forwards.

Leave it to Billy Ryan who only got 15 mins. First touch might not have been excellent but bring these lads into the game for gods sake.

Hopefully Huw lawlor is fit for leinster final and we can try and turn things around.

Blanchfield starting wing back.

Padraig starting wing forward.

Bring in Billy Ryan and donnelly ASAP if we're not going well but Christ let's see some thought go into getting more from our danger men and for God's sake get to fcuk with the hail Mary's. Trust your hurling to do the right thing.

And if our coaches are not doing this then God help us.

Charlie69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119095164#Comment_119095164

I feel your pain and echo almost everything you say there... we know those players are capable of so much more, very very frustrating.

corner back 2

Some baffling decisions on the line today and it's surely time for change. Discarding Padraig Walsh after 1 poor performance against Dublin, moving Mossy Keoghan to wing forward where he got cleaned out after looking dangerous close to goal, leaving Alan Murphy midfield for so long without him picking a ball, failing to get Eoin Cody any supply of ball and many others which defy belief. Centre Back and midfield have to addressed. Adrian Mullen is a wing forward and moving a scorer like him further away from goal makes no sense. David Blanchfield was probably Kilkennys best player in the league and has far better use of the ball than Deegan. I would leave the back four as it is. Carey, Lawlor and Blanchfield with Deegan and Browne midfield. Mullen, Padraig and Wally with Cody, Keoghan and TJ. It's possible that it's either TJ or Mossy full with a worker like Buckley at 15 to come out and occupy the opposition centre back and stop teams breaking forward.

usualstripes

Murphy

Butler

Lawlor (if fit)

T Walsh

Carey

Reid

Blanchfield

Maher

Deegan

W walsh

P Walsh

Mullen

Cody

TJ

Kenny

B Ryan

Donnelly

Maher

A Murphy

Delaney

Leahy

jonniegoogle

Unbelievable. To be fair a lot of supporters have been talking about this for the last couple of years. Surely the players can dictate what happens with the ball when they have it.

There's club teams out there who know how to deal with a sweeper but we seem to make heroes out of them.

The game has become much more than a "manly game"!!

Ballpaddy

From memory the first time I came across a "sweeper" was 04 versus Clare, Alan Markem, I remember my father saying at the time," they are playing with an extra defender we may keep the ball away from him" 18 years later we still haven't got it figured out!!!

oneeyefromthebog

Lots of talk of Richie Reid.in first half his deliveries were on the money.he always delivers quality ball for shamrocks so we're u think he got this aimless habit in 2nd half of driving it long and blind only from Cody and Co.who thought they would get lucky like they did against Dublin

kk.man

We don't have a Henry, Larkin, Richie Power or Eddie et al that could win a 50 50 high ball in this team but we do have decent players who deserve to be given a fair crack at a national title. This high ball n hope has got to end for all concerned.

Fred Daly

You would think that the players could dictate what happens with the ball when they have it, it must have been the worst performance in the park by a Kilkenny team in an age. Holy god could you imagine belting balls down on top of the Limerick half back line like to night . The Galway centre back full back were made heroes in Salthill the Mahers had a field day in an Ireland with the same show, you think we were the third team to night fair play to Wexford but its baffling the way we are going on.

conor05

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119095463#Comment_119095463

Id say Matthew O'Hanlon, Paudi Foley and Liam Ryan couldn't believe the amount of aimless high ball they were allowed catch time and time again tonight in the second half.

Hitting looping high balls in on top of Wexfords 3 biggest men and Cody standing looking in at it time and time again.

Compare that to the inch-perfect height cross-field passes Damien Reck & Dee O'Keeffe hit into Rory O'Connor, that done the damage.

Comerman

How do you beat one of the greatest hurling counties ever? Sit back and let their goalie or any of the six backs have the ball and let them drive it into the sky to a half forward line that won't win 9 out of ten balls and put it back over the bar. Simples. I was embarrassed today.

The_Tank

It’s sad to say this about people you admire and look up to but we were a disgrace today. I’ve always been a staunch fan of Cody, believing that spirit and attitude could overcome the obvious limitations in personnel. Believing in the ultimate simplicity of the game and rejecting the trendy spoofers who are claiming expenses by the cone. But he stood there and when correction was needed , when an overarching policy needed to be reset or reoriented and he couldn’t or wouldn’t make it. It was like sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountain only to see it roll back down again. Toil and effort completely wasted by humping ball down on forwards like kids throwing sods of turf into a trailer. The players failed to correct it. Cody failed to correct it by correcting them. That’s pretty much it - theres not much to be said about the individual performances, the incidents, the referee, the substitutions because this match and the determining statistics behind it (4points from play for the forwards) was sealed by a frankly wreckless abandonment of any nuance or tactic in favour of ritual suicide through primitive distribution. North Korea has space programmes that land safer and more accurately than our long range deliveries. At one stage Wexford looked like they were going to be obliterated, but credit to them they hung in, turned it into an arm wrestle, and probably couldn’t believe their luck to watch Kilkenny literally impale themselves on the same basic trap over and over. Ok, I get the fact we coughed up a rake of scores to Galway with turnovers under pressure- so we went with a mix of the pragmatic longer stuff and shorter off the shoulder stuff to bamboozle Dublin. But today it was like a step back 5 years. The job was the fix what went wrong against Galway. Double down and improve what went right against Dublin. Not reset the clock to 1979.

Alonzo Moseley

One of the crudest and ugliest Kilkenny peormances I have ever seen

I found myself hoping Wex would win with 10 mins to go, as I just didnt want to see such utter caveman hurling get rewarded.

There is simply no method to our hurling except flake it and hope for best, especially if playing with wind in a tight match.

Mullen numerous times in 2nd half made himself available for a medium range puck outs on sideline at Grace Stand, acres of empty spce around him, but was ignored all half and instead Murphy hit the clouds.

Depressing stuff and worst result right now is an honourable semi defeat like last year. That will preserve the status quo.

Rosita

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119095332#Comment_119095332

"Surely the players can dictate what happens with the ball when they have it".

The problem with this is that it raises the question of what the point of a team management is if the players can dictate anyway. Obviously there's an important element of decision making out on the pitch as the opposition will insist on doing their thing rather than respecting every plan you have made, but it appears that use of the long ball by Kilkenny is a deliberate strategy and they simply don't trust the ability of the players to deliver the 'through the lines' game.

Wexford more than matched Kilkenny for intensity and Kilkenny now lack the key players to escape the effects of this. For example it looks like TJ Reid is finished at this level.

This was a level of performance Wexford had not previously shown. Fair play to those on here who predicted it when I dismissed it. But the inability of Kilkenny to escape the clutches of a situation like this despite a good start shows the team is limited. From 1-4 to 0-2 up, they were outscored 1-20 to 0-14 which is a eye-opening pattern. It still wouldn't surprise me if Kilkenny go further in the championship than Wexford as Galway have left Kilkenny off the hook many times in recent years including a few weeks back.

In the longer run it looks like a slow rebuild is in store for Kilkenny. Bringing that to successful fruition would surely be Brian Cody's much-threatened 'greatest achievement' .

Fred Daly

DJ Left Henry declined the offer of going in as a selector Galway took him does this not show signs to Nowlan park that things are not right players like David Blanchfield and others just left to rot on the side line build up confidence then control them.A selector there for just on ten years you have to wonder what he is there for. I would love to say more but like everybody last night that defeat in the park was the last straw.

usualstripes

Generally being am optimist I'm hoping that frailties in our play from last night will be acted on. Of course I'm not sure this will be the case. After tipp beat us in the all ireland a number of years ago we were talking about the same frailties. Ditto Cork last year in the semi final. Its happened too often with different players that we've gotten lost in the modern game. One thing I might add is that delivering pinpoint ball into forwards is not something that had just happened in the last 15 years. Wevevbeen doing it for decades. We just have no coherent plan at the moment and haven't had fir a considerable time. I'm shocked I'm even saying this here but when we play a team that works a sweeper system do we just go "well we have one aswell and shur we will be ok" because that's the way it seems. Most of our deliveries were chronic to sat the least and you have to wonder if we even discuss these things on the line or do the team take these things on board.

Anyway as I said at the top the optimist in me hopes we turn it around and beat Galway in the leinster final. Hope to see blanchfield starting and put padraig walsh in from the start. No more bullshit with team selections.

citykat

Limerick are diving already

citykat

Nice to see Limerick throwing getting blown for a change

citykat

Great catch by Purcell

kksaints

What on earth is that umpire at our end doing? Gave a point when the ball wasn't over the ball and then gave what looked like a good score as a wide.