Kilkenny GAA Thread

All minor teams are made up of lads from two years. Dublin has a million people yet will still have 16 year olds on their team. I wouldn't be leaving off the outstanding 16 year old simply because we have an older lad.

How many 16 yr olds on the cork team. This is the bar now

Ah I think that's a bit OTT.

We have contested 3 of the last 4 Al minors. Also beaten by a just a point in 2017 AI semi, and robbed of an AI in 2015 by ref.

I am not surprised the Minor team is a bit young, Kieran’s seem to have an outstanding team at u16 level. CBS are good at u16 too, and Eoin Lyng of Rower despite being Under 16 played in Senior Colleges AI semi-final for Good Counsel, and was apparently outstanding in recent u16 match with Kieran’s.

I feel constantly saying "we just don’t have the talent" is a cop out and is helping to whitewash what looks to me to be the real issue, we have poor structures in place and we have poor management teams.

Look at some of the players now thriving as senior IC players in Waterford, many of them were at best average at underage, 3 or 4 curernt Waterford seniors couldn’t get on to Fitzgibbon teams a few years ago.

Those lads wouldn’t have been a patch on the Mullens or Donnelly or Richie Leahy or Evan Shefflin or Ciaran Brennan as 18-20 year olds but are all now flying while not one of our group is a nailed on starter and some arent even near the panel.

What Waterford and Limerick and Cork are doing in developing hurlers in the 18-21 year bracket is the big difference.

Ourselves and Tipp seem to be stuck in the old "if they are good enough they will come through, no need to be molly coddling them"

You counteract your own argument there saying lads brought in at u14 are still there at u21 but yet a few 17 year olds brought in at 14 years of age are not starting for the minor team and younger lads are starting instead of them.

To be honest you come across like parent of a 17 years old who hasnt been picked.

Saying that I agree we are well behind the new standard required for bringing through youths players with proper tactical coaching and s&c. But id be of the opinion that if a player 15,16, or 17 is good enough then they should be playing.

Would you have turned around to an Eoin Kelly or a Joe Canning and said you can't be a 3 year minor as we want to play older lads to play?

Cant say I heard to much about this KK team, We have an u16 on the bench. Plenty of talk about Murphy and Mcevoy in the forwards.

That's a great looking panel on paper atleast.

If everyone was fully fit and on form would go along lines of:

E Murphy (though I definitely think Brennan deserves a few games and see what way puckouts in particular go)

M Butler

Lawlor

T Walsh

M Carey

R Reid (uses Ball way better than Deegan)

D Blanchfield

J Maher

C Kenny

A Mullen (Will have to Prove it if not J Donnelly or Wally I imagine)

P Walsh

E Cody( think I'd be reguarly rotating him with Mossy/ TJ)

B Ryan

M Keoghan

TJ

Subs: D Brennan, D Mullen, C Delaney, Deegan (will be in 1st 15 either way I think), C Browne, C Fogarty, C Buckley, R Leahy, Wally, J Donnelly, A Murphy.

Despite what some people on here say/think i think we have a very strong squad overall, Wouldn't rule out B Cody being on 26 or having a look at him in one of 1st 2 games either. Wonder will We see R Hogan feature in any of the 1st 2 games either if not then I persoanlly think that could be it for him but we seen last year in ET against Cork what he can do without regular game time but time is running out.

Was listening to a very informative interview on Kilkenny Community Radio with the Kilkenny Minor manager Niall Bergin. His fellow selectors are Willie O'Dwyer, Paddy Hogan, Davy Buggy and Jimmy Coogan. They brought 150 young players in for trials and narrowed it down to 42. Those 42 were given gym programmes which involved 3 gym sessions per week for a number of months. The management team attended post primary school matches and while some players were involved with school teams, the remaining panel players had training and friendly matches against various counties.

It would appear to me that a huge effort has gone into the process. I sincerely hope it goes well for management and players beginning tomorrow. They deserve it.

Only following on Twitter Community Radio Kilkenny City seems to be all full up such is the demand to listen online. A good first half after going 2 goals down early on. 2-7 a piece is good for us playing away from home.

Absolutely.

Looks like we’ve the makings of a decent minor team! Good comeback after a bad start against a team that had a good win last weekend in Dublin

Great performance after a bad start, some talented boyos Our lads had a lot of wides in the second half and more than double Wexford’s tally. The ref kept Wexford in it as they were poor in the second half,but maybe that was due to our dominance well done on a great performance well worth the trip.Next Saturday we are supposed to play Dublin in the minor at 2 o’clock this does not leave much time to get to Mullingar.Could it not be put back an hour or two.

I don't think any of the Kilkenny U20 team that lost to Westmeath a few years ago will be starting next week?

Correct - Kilkenny: D Brennan; E Cody, C Delaney, H Lalor; P Lyng, J Cleere, P Deegan; C Browne, E Kenny; L Blanchfield, S Morrissey, N Mullins; B Ryan, A Murphy, J Walsh.

Subs: A Gaffney for Kenny (h/t); K Blanchfield for Murphy (49); T Phelan for Mullins (59).

From what I remember of that match, Westmeath had extremely good fielders of the ball in the half forward line. They also dropped to the half back line on Kilkenny puckouts and won a lot of these. Deserved win by Westmeath. Andy Gaffney missed a late penalty to rescue the game

That was our last All Ireland minor winning team as well. Definitely a huge shock a the time but from what I remember Westmeath were good value for it. We started poorly and were unable to turn it around.