Kilkenny GAA Thread

Looks like a Munster All Ireland again. Anybody see the Galway named panel for the Championship think no Niall Burke and no Sean Loftus on it, maybe for other reasons I don’t know. Waterford look very good at the moment but Limerick have their number lately in championship, but the two best teams in the country IMO, Waterford have serious depth.

We’ve a good chance in Leinster but it’ll be close but should end up the top 2. Billy Ryan, Paudie Walsh and Mossy all put in good scores in the league but would expect TJ to replace Mossy in the full forwaed line at some stage. A lot of counties now are allowing the opposition centre forward to drift and pick up scores so the #6 can sweep up and deliver in good ball to the forwards, De Burca, Coleman, Foley. Richie Reid is better hurler, passer and shooter than Paddy Deegan so he should be #6 I reckon with the current game. Can see why A. Murphy and Kenny are inde middle both work hard and good hurlers but Alan has always been a bad tackler and gives away too much frees, granted if there’s no TJ he has to play for the frees tho. Overall a good league IMO and we’ll never be a million miles off with our work rate and style but no matter what manager we have this year we shouldn’t be expected to contend for more than Leinster. Would I be surprised if we won Leinster and lost another semi in similar fashion to the last 2? Absolutely not.

Richie Reid is not is the same stratosphere as De Burca and Coleman etc., he does not have the pace or aggressiveness of these players. He is 29, never a regular, Coleman and De Burca have years of experience playing this role.

Blanchfield and Carey add pace which is great to see but Kilkenny severely lace pace in the middle third, Buckley, Kenny, Murphy, Deegan and possibly Richie Reid all lack pace

100% agree with that we do lack pace around there just my personal preference at 6 would be Reid but Deegan seems to have that spot. Think the players had a weekend away over the last few days. Can’t see Hogan getting much game time myself

We could benefit this year from the change in rules where you aren’t allowed play U20 if you play any senior championship. Anyone know when this rule came in? It’s been in since start of U20 in football as Clifford never played U20 with Kerry.

Henry has 3 Galway U20s (Gavin Lee, Tiernan Killeen and Greg Thomas) in the Galway squad and all 3 could see action in coming weeks which would rule them out.

Limerick also have 3 U20s involved with seniors with at least two of them likely to see senior action in coming weeks.

This also does point to serious conditioning work being down in both those counties to have 6 players on cusp of championship senior starting slots.

All three Limerick players were on a minor team that was hammered by Kilkenny 3 years ago, yet not one Kilkenny U20 is near starting with seniors

Perhaps if they were from the Village or O"Loughlins they would be in already!

The 2019 minor team outperformed all expectations by getting to the minor AI final if I remember correctly and the general consensus prior to that Limerick match was that Limerick were the team to beat at that grade. The majority of that minor team was made up of lads from junior and intermediate clubs which is unusual enough in itself.

It was bolstered by the lads who had another year of eligibility like Timmy Clifford, Billy Reid, Billy Drennan and Zach Bay Hammond (pity he isn’t still hurling). So I’d be expecting next year’s u20 team to have a few lads who won’t be far off making the senior panel.

Strength and conditioning definitely needs to be a greater focus to fast track lads into the senior setup (which seems to be occurring now in the development squads from what I can gather). Still, it’s no harm to have lads play at their own age group since it probably signals that our depth is decent enough at senior level that we don’t quite need the likes of Ian Byrne yet.

Just off topic a little but does anyone know for sure if Kilkenny will revert to minor club being back at U18 next year. This was passed unanimously back in December at the convention but haven't heard a whole lot since.

Certainly having 12 teams plus Naas in the Minor A league this year should strengthen the competition and teams with county players will have them back with their clubs by the end of May.

Move back to under 18 will never happen unfortunately. The powers that be at congress were close to getting their motion through regarding intercounty U-19 and are putting the focus on getting that over the line next year instead.

Every person I speak to in any county would favour a return to under 18 strongly so I don't get where county boards and GAA top brass feel that under 19 is wanted. Seems to be a serious disconnect to feelings on the ground.

Why do you say that it will never happen? If our county board have agreed at our convention then i presume they will have this recognised at congress?

Kilkenny championship panel has been named on sportsfile:

Gk: E Murphy, D Brennan, D Mason

Def: M Butler, D Mullen, H Lawlor, C Delaney, E Cody, T Walsh, D Corcoran, J Burke, M Carey, N Brassil, C Heary, P Deegan, R Reid, M Kenny, D Blanchfield, C Browne, S Murphy

Mid: C Buckley, C Forgarty, J Maher, A Murphy, R Leahy, C Kenny

Forwards: W Walsh, J Donnelly, C Prendiville, TJ, P Walsh, B Cody, A Mullen, T Phelan, B Ryan, J Bergin, T O'Dwyer, M Keoghan, R Hogan, J Walsh, E Cody, S Walsh, C Bolger

Well done. I've never seen a Kilkenny panel before. Great way of finding it.

I had heard there was a wider panel consisting of an extra ten of which 3 opted out. If the additional 7 or so are willing to offer their services fair play to them. Clearly the appetite and interest from the players is there despite all the rumours of unhappiness over the last while.

After all the talk about young lads and picking your team Kilkenny still can't field an up to age minor team.

Murphy the full back is another

In case you just landed from Mars or cane down in the last shower. Its quite obvious we are not good enough for years. For a county that prioritizes hurling to say we can't find 15 lads up to age speaks volumes of either the club coaching or county selection system. These chaos were being talked about when they were 13. No one even went looking for alternatives