Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

may as well give up on the season if we don't keep it to 3 points , only march am sick of davy already

Bloody wides

Were playing OK otherwise

Dunno what game you're watching

A real league game and we could of won if it wasn't for all the wides. Lots of bad play from both sides. Dessie is struggling with this style of play

Hard to belive our next game is the Championship and what a challenge it is

Overall not our best league campaign

Davy has destroyed this team

From April last year onwards has been a shambles. Not all the blame lays with Davy Fitzgerald. We’ll see what the Championship brings but it’s not looking good at the moment. Whatever went on with Cahill after the league last year it’s been desperate since.

He didn’t blame Cahill.

Waterford have gone backwards under Davy.

Shapeless and directionless.

Dessie is being completely wasted which is not acceptable. He is top class and a tactical priority should be getting the ball to him.

You guys aren't getting out of Munster this year with those tactics. It's all abit '10 years ago' . Davys tactics have not changed one jot. You have to be sympathetic to the players you have. Davy doesn't do that. And the playing out from the back with loopy hand passes. Hegarty will laugh as he intercepts and passes it over the bar. Shambles

Kilkenny man. Just back from the park. Waterford are clueless under Davy. Handpassing the ball up the pitch. Crazy stuff. Yere best player Dessie Hutchinson playing as a midfielder. I am afraid ye are going no where fast. Whoever appointed him should be sacked. Fairly obvious that his tactics wouldn't suit Waterford as I believe ye have some good forwards. Ye were lucky Kilkenny had an off day today.

Poor game. Kilkenny were very bad and made it look like we’ve improved since the last day. The positives being that we conceded no goals and that Paudie Fitzgerald is a little dinger on the frees.

I’ve been saying that I’ll judge on championship and after last year you’d be silly not to. However, I think we are absolutely awful and while I do have a lot respect for Davy, it’s not working so far. Who in their right mind persists with Dessie that far out the field. Maybe it’s tactical genius to confuse the opposition before championship but to honest, he’d be better off starting 15 defenders for that type of game.

I’m sick of seeing our full back giving away his yard of space and start soloing up the field under pressure to hospital hand pass the ball and turn it over.

Too many people on here judging us on glorified friendlies ( league ) this is even worse then the pontification of greatness thrown at the team after last years league success . It won’t be long to see what we really have the trip to cork will be a must win after playing limerick by then you will see what we really have . One thing we nearly all agree on we need our strongest experienced players out there like Aussie , TDB and Jamie Barron playing at their very best to have any chance to progress . Fair or unfair Davy will be on a short leash with the supporters , let’s hope the management and the players are up to it .

The team that beat us did lift Liam McCarthy…. e.g Limerick

We’ve nothing else to judge on right now. We’re clearly not going well and Davy has a lot of work to do. The team isn’t settled in any of the lines and the game plan is all over the place. It’s not like we know what to do but just aren’t executing it. It’s a bit more worrying than that. The only games that matter are the championship ones so there is still time to get it right. Let’s hope we give it our best shot.

Some people seem think the league is some sort of big shadow boxing experiment by Davy, I can’t see it myself. Limerick can do it, as we’ve seen, because they’ve won so much over the last few years they’re full of confidence and trust what’s going on. Experiment or not, losing games damages confidence of players that aren’t used to winning and we’re not used to winning.

Even if Dessie Hutchinson was given instructions to stay out the field today with the knowledge that he’s going back to the corner for the championship a game like total will still knock confidence. 4 weeks out we need to be building confidence not knocking it.

This place is some barrel of laughs. Haven't had much time to watch Waterford so far this year but got to watch the Tipp game back on Friday and the KK game today. Much as I dislike Davy, the criticism on here of the "style" of play is based on his reputation and not on the games on display. The reality is that Tipp put 12 men in their half on our puckouts and KK put 14 men in their half on puck outs today. There is no way ball should be going into double marked full forwards unless we run at defences and start scoring from far out to make space inside. It was actually encouraging to see Dessie being brought out today to try and get him on the ball rather than being ineffectual inside. If anything the criticism I would have of Davy's tactics is that we are too offensive minded going man for man in their half of the field rather than our half backs keeping their positions and our midfield dropping into our half. As a result we struggle to find a man in space in the middle third to create a shot or hit accurate ball into full forward line ala Diarmuid Byrnes or Hannon for Limerick. This would also help our short puck out but potentially we're keeping that for championship.

On the other hand we are creating shed loads of chances against very limited/defensive set up teams, our backs are playing from in front and winning their 1v1s most of the time, our decision making is good most of the time, we are creating plenty turnovers in the middle third and it's literally the sharpness of our touch and 20/30m striking that is letting us down the most. The hurling errors are leading to turnovers and leading to easy scores. We are also missing a lot of easy shots. Significantly reduce these and we win the games. The million dollar question is, are these errors due to conditions, a different focus in training or the tactical approach of pushing up and going man to man with the opposition. And what's going to change between now and championship.

Finally another soft tissue injury for Iarliath Daly today. In this day and age, it is quite frankly professional negligence for an S&C setup to have this amount of soft tissue injuries over the last 2 years. Maybe the players got bad advice at a younger age and have too much muscle but it's extremely frustrating to see this amount of soft tissue injuries.