Kilkenny GAA Thread

I was at the Wexford and Dublin games and this team seems to have gone backwards. Decision making, first touch and shooting were way off the required standard. Laois didn't even have to play that well to beat them. Hard to know where it went wrong but in reality they weren't good enough.

A shocker, no rhythm in their play all day, never even looked like scoring a goal, terrible wides. Ball in to forwards yet again for a Kilkenny team, simply atrocious.

Lyng at CB looks a real prospect but hard to see anything else beyond that.

Well done to Laois but the standard of that minor match compared to what we saw from likes of Cork or even Galway last year was miles off

Laois and Offaly to contest final, neither county has a school playing in A. Incredible 

Badly need the U20s to give us a lift

Today is further confirmation that Kilkenny hurling is in its biggest crisis for a long time. We are not producing young hurlers with adequate skill levels. Add to that at older levels, our strength and conditioning is not good enough. Further, our game plan is totally outdated.

The latter 2 could be fixed in a couple years with the correct regime in place. The production of young hurlers is the most serious concern. A crisis committee is required to address this issue

Have to agree on this re development squads. 1 trial game for many lads before they got shoved out the door. Have a look at minor club matches this year and you will see. Certainly if there were south/north development sessions for a month or 6 weeks with 3 times the numbers then you could assess better.

One thing that was very noticeable was the striking to hand which was very slow and boring accurate enough. Lads having to control a ball off the ground or when the pass doesn't go to hand accurately.

Then the layoff under pressure seems to get intercepted too often.

These are simple things to sort if the will and time is there.

To sick to comment on that display today But just one thing for now how can anyone send in a chap 4 foot tall on two Laois backs and expect him to score and two lads eight foot tall doing f... all looking in at him ,now Rory Glynn tried his heart out. We had more wides in the first half than they had in the whole match. As for the free taking it was appalling to watch. I’m signing off now before I say something I could regret.

Wonder would it do Leinster good to have Galway competing at u17 too.

No, but he is not blameless for the ethos that now dominates Kilkenny hurling, the style of hurling we undertake, particularly when chasing a game.

The ballooned ball in to forwards today was yet again stone age. That template of hurling has become ingrained in to Kilkenny hurling and needs to stop.

That team today has some fine hurlers but they had a horror day on shooting and then panicked when chasing the game. Most are U16, but to be honest the sooner we move back to a single underage level (U19) the better. U17 is too young, U20 now too old (as shown by the number of players ruled out as they are already playing senior.

Kilkenny has always had hurlers and at a time when I doubt we have ever had more young people playing it, that points clearly to poor coaching. IE If we could produce consistently good hurlers and teams for 120 years, why cant we when we have never had more players? Statistically it doesn't make sense. That therefore points to coaching. The template for how we play hurling has become predictable and crude at all levels, led from the top.

Letting Cody continue endlessly citing a poor production line, essentially a strategy of "at least he will keep us competitive" is a total kop out solution for me.

Once they keep it as round robin or league it would be good

The U16 schools had an AI competition up til 2019 and was inexplicably dropped after a number of terrific finals.

I'd support efforts to bring Galway schools in to Leinster and also their minor team (but the round robin has suited them really well and I doubt they will give it up).

I am not a fan of combined schools teams . I'd say most lads would prefer to win a B or a C with their school than play in A with lads they dont even know, that's just a county team in reality.

This idea that schools hurling, and Kieran's in particular, is doing damage to Kilkenny hurling is in my opinion madness. Schools is about the only area of underage hurling where we are still winning. About the only area of underage hurling where opposition dont laugh at how we try to play the game.

Derek Mc Grath who helped out with Laois today, will have told them not to be overawed, stick to how they were coached, what they practised. The hope being Kilkenny would revert to crude hurling if Laois could get ahead, and we did.

I'm not saying we are awash with talent but feel the biger issue is that the county (at all levels) has a template for how to play and it's failing, being exploited by people who are actually thinking smartly.

Jack Charlton got great results but no one would suggest the way he asked the senior team to play would be a proper template for underage.

It's depressing, even when we were only winning an odd AI we were still regarded as the stylists, we always played a great brand.

Has anyone blamed the ref Yet?

Personally I feel that the current u17 process is wrong. First of all they are still young kids and need as many games as possible to develop. But with the current system the kilkenny u17 squad are not released to play in the club u17 league games. To me that is sending the wrong message to young players. Club comes first.

I don't have great hopes for our U20's even if they win the Leinster final. Galway were the better team on the day even though they had a couple of their best players with the senior team. We got a freakish amount of frees and a lucky goal. To me, Limerick,Tipperary and Munster in general look to be miles ahead at U20 age and Munster look to be miles ahead at minor level. We are falling further away from the top table.

Would love to be proved wrong

What games were you at dzer2? While KK minor game was on in Portlaoise our U16s minus those involved with the minors were hurling in Nowlan Park. There are at least 10 players underage again next year so the team in Nowlan Park will be supplemented by these players.

I believe that some posters need to really to have a think about their comments. Saying they don't blame the players and them naming them or referring to them by their positions is surely unacceptable. Most of these lads are either 15 or 16. Our county minor team is mainly made up of lads doing junior cert or transition year. They don't look like kids but they are. Although they might not read these pages someone else will and pass it onto and show them the comments. It is essentially a form of bullying and lads needs to consider the potential impact and consequences of their comments.

I was in portlaoise yesterday and it wasn't our best performance but those lads put in over 90 team sessions and probably as many individual sessions themselves. They trained as hard as any other team and gave their best. They were as proud to wear the Kilkenny jersey as any other girl, boy or adult that went before. Their pain is fair greater than anyone's here. I've watched many of them since they were 5/6 years of age and like most previous teams, winning or not, some will progress to senior county hurlers, most won't.

I do believe that we need a change in the development squad model to involve more players, more coaching, more qualified and different types of coaches. This would cost money but if we don't we are will continue to struggle. The players are willing but they need to be supported.