Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

Brilliant. Nice half way point for both teams

https://twitter.com/PaMulSport/status/1505585240852553733?s=20&t=SeaOeATvdn_eRdWapQh2ow

Looked back on it now pity first 20 mins or so we could have gone 7 points up but at this level against this team it’s all about goals , 2 realitivly soft goals for them and our inability to score goals for us . Play our best team and take our chances and we are still as good as any of them . Nothing as changed hate losing to that Crowd but much bigger days still ahead . On to the semi hopefully in Thurles .

https://twitter.com/cronin_conor/status/1505586161082896388?t=AfrSrzuCYWmtSeIza9huww&s=19

Bit of a disjointed display yesterday, a mixture of very good and very poor - lots of silly handling errors and individual mistakes. We worked two very good goal chances and should have taken both, and gave away two soft goals which for me were a culmination of individual errors. Do not want to be over critical of Nolan for the first goal, but the strike was from a decent distance, and not sure what Billy was doing outside the square, given that there was a defender between him and Buckley, and being three or four yards off his line would certainly reduced his reaction time.

For the second goal Aussie let the ball roll under his hand and, I think we got a half hook /block which resulted in the shot dropping short to Ryan and then I felt Darragh Lyons got completely wrong side and ended trying to reach around Ryan going off balance, leaving him loads of space to steady himself and get his shot off.

We also had two other good potential goal chances in the second half when Dunford over-carried instead of trying to release Shane Bennett and then Kieran Bennett just failed to gather Aussie's pass when through on goal - it is nice to be creating those chances, but most disappointing for me was that we did not bring a save from Murphy on any of the four occasions.

On the plus side yesterday, I thought Daly had a reasonable outing at full-back and looks a viable option if required. Fagan continues to improve at wing back, while Conor Dalton, is settling in nicely. Catharach Daly continues to show promise at midfield, while Darragh Lyons if he can reduce his errors is showing he can perform at the highest level. Also Neil Montgomery is continuing his upward trajectory and improving with each game. Also good for me to see Micheal Harney getting a run and he did not look out of place in his short cameo.

Despite what some people may have thought, we were never going to go to Nolan Park, with such an experimental side and turn KK over without any problems. Even with our full side, it was always going to be tough, particularly as KK needed a result to be sure of progressing. Being realistic, from our starting line up, we were without Connor Gleeson, Prunty, Kenny (not sure what happened there), Calum Lyons, Barron, Prendergast, Curran, Hogan, Stephen, Kieran and Shane Bennett , that is 11 players all genuinely capable of a securing a starting position. and is a massive hole for any team to cover, never mind going to Nolan Park not too disappointed at all.

Despite what some have said on here i would be happy to see Cahil continue to experiment and get competitive game time into as many fringe and returning players as possible, in whatever games are left in the league be it one or two. I think he has a fairly good idea of his starting 15 for the championship, but is also aware how this can all fall apart after the first game, (remember Clare in 2018) and we need to have a panel prepared to deal with this.

One final interesting observation was to see Jackie Tyrell's assessment of the result on League Sunday - it is a long time since I had seen any of Brian's lads so upbeat about a strong KK side beating, what was potentially a second string Waterford side on their home patch, I thought Ursula Jacob was going to fall off her seat before she brought back a bit of reality to the discussion.

I think Waterford are the nearest to Limerick with Cork Third. Yesterday's match wasn't a game to judge Waterfords progress but I will say that the corner backs need changing. It's been Waterfords achilles heel since forever. The 2 boys that started in the corners aren't good enough. They've been roasted by Limerick time and time again. In my opinion if the corner back problem is solved then Waterford will win the All Ireland.

Should have played double header in Thurles

which corner backs are you talking about specifically? Cian Wadding started CB yesterday has never played there before

From a selfish perspective living overseas, I would have much preferred a Saturday evening game, it makes for much more convenient viewing. I don't think we've had a Saturday game this season so far.

Isn't there someone from Waterford involved with the Wexford backroom team ?

Any talk of the football this year? Who is hot or not...usual suspects?

Think that was only a windup, please god its not true if ever we needed a player it's Stephen Bennett with the form he's in

He was messing with landers because landers has his in the fantasy team.

I was thinking he was messing at first but then thought that he surely wouldn't be joking about that in the media so wasn't sure. Yeah very poor taste. Thank feck he was joking though!

Last Sunday’s game between Waterford and Kilkenny does not merit serious analysis, as it was a classic case of one team really wanting to win it and one not too pushed one way or another. There is talk of Waterford having put in a punishing week of heavy training beforehand. One also wonders whether Liam Cahill was keeping tabs on events in Wexford Park where Wexford were going well. Cahill would definitely have preferred a semi-final against them rather than Cork.

The upshot of it all was that Kilkenny, with close to a full-strength team on the pitch (apart from TJ Reid, Paddy Deegan and Eoin Cody who was introduced early in the second half) were working much harder, to a well-rehearsed game plan, and on a different plane regarding first touch and decision-making. And, as always seems to be the case, it was the more committed team who always seemed to get the breaks, as with Billy Ryan’s goal. They also appear to have unearthed some new players in the likels of Mikey Butler, David Blanchfield and Cian Kenny who definitely look to be an improvement on the players they have replaced.

The Waterford team, by contrast, had a make-shift look about it, with no clear game plan, and their performance was riddled with errors. Their work ethic also left a lot to be desired, with Kilkenny repeatedly finding their men in open space. For the first Kilkenny goal, no one tracked Cillian Buckley as he moved into space to take the pass. Even then, I was disappointed that his shot got past Billy Nolan. At this level, nobody should be finding the net with a hip-high shot hit at an agle from 17 metres out.

Waterford’s lack of focus was apparent from four successive episodes between the 12th and 16th minute. First, there was Cárthach Daly’s ill-judged effort to handpass the ball across goal to Dessie Hutchinson instead of taking his own score. Then we had Darragh Lyons reacting to being fouled, leading to the cancellation of a scorable free. Next was Austin Gleeson’s missed goal chance, when he had all the time in the world to turn and pick his spot. Then there was Pauric Mahony’s missed pickup as he ran onto the ball with the goal in front of him. Earlier on, we had Daly’s failure to hold onto Michael Kiely’s pop-pass, when his momentum would probably have got him through for a shot at goal. A couple of goals from these incidents would have given the game a different dynamic.

In the second half I thought Waterford’s effort became really lazy, with a lot of long ball being hit into the Kilkenny defence which was repeatedly mopped up by the player lying behind the one going up to challenge for the incoming ball. With the advantage of whatever bit of wind assistance there was, Waterford should have tried to work the ball to players to take shots from around midfield, as they had been doing in the first quarter. Waterford tried just two long-distance shots in the second half, both hit under pressure, and both wide. And when they needed a goal to get back in the game late on, they could have tried to drop at least a couple of balls into the Kilkenny goalmouth, rather than trying to work a goal from out the field which was never going to work against Kilkenny’s hard-working defence.

And yet, despite all this, there were still only three points between the teams going into the closing stages. And Waterford did have some players who put in a big effort throughout, none more so than Austin Gleeson, who worked his socks off from beginning to end. I also thought that Jack Fagan had his best game since being relocated to wing back, while Neil Montgomery and Darragh Lyons also did well.

As regards other individual performances, this was my first time seeing Conor Dalton in a senior county shirt. He certainly seems to have the hurling, and he also has that other quality which Liam Cahill greatly values: pace. Obviously he needs time to develop experience and conditioning, and while he did show some good touches, he had nowhere like the impact on the game as his opposite number, David Blanchfield, another newbie, who was man of the match. Cárthach Daly is another novice with hurling and pace, and a bit of an edge to him, who is coming along nicely. I could see his searing runs through opposing defences becoming a feature of the forthcoming championship.

It is still hard to see what role Liam Cahill sees Michael Kiely playing. As an under-age player, and senior with Abbeyside, he seemed destined to become one of the great full forwards, able to win ball high and low, score or find team mates with a pass (a useful quality when you share the full forward line with Dessie Hutchinson and Stephen Bennett). However, Cahill is not using him in this position. Last Sunday, in the first half, Waterford sent three long high balls into the Kilkenny goalmouth, but on none of these occasions was Kiely in the vicinity, thereby giving Huw Lawlor basically a free catch.

DJ Foran must be showing up well in training, seeing how many chances he has been given by Cahill, but once again he failed to produce the goods last Sunday. In his 25 minutes on the field he got two possessions. For the first, he was easily hooked as he tried to shoot for goal and for the second, his attempted ball through to Dessie Hutchinson went astray, and in a desperate attempt to retrieve the situation he ploughed into Mikey Butler and got red-carded. As against this, Michael Harney certainly made the most of his recall to the colours, even in the unaccustomed position of midfield, and for just fifteen minutes. He settled in right away, made some good plays, and I would not be surprised to see him getting a lengthier spell on the field, or even starting, in the League semi-final.