Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

I agree. And the creation of five school clusters of excellence is point 1b in the strategic plan. These five clusters are DLS, rest of the city & Tramore, Kilmac, Dungarvan/Rinn/Youghal environs and Blackwater/Clonmel environs. The date for establishment of these is Q4 2021/Q1 2022. I'd imagine if asked for an update our county board would proudly tell us they're still working towards those dates.

I didn't realise that. In that case then while I still don't think he's responsible for the poor results at underage until now as he's not in the role long enough, he's most certainly responsible for missing any milestone deadline.

I can only see the presentation online. Perhaps there's a more comprehensive document somewhere that I can't find. I'd link the presentation but I'm on the phone, if you Google Waterford rising you'll find it though.

Last evening, the difference in fitness levels between both teams was stark, particularly in the 2nd half.

Given recent performances at under age, it might be slim pickings for those lads making senior level.

Ballygunner are virtually rampant at under age so I'm surprised that they haven't produced (so far) and stand out players, with the honourable exception of Patrick Fitzgerald. Maybe they are there, I just haven't noticed yet .... or is there an anti Gunners bias in the selection process !

I'm following Waterford long enough to remember going to Division 3 games against the likes of Mayo& Roscommon and losing to both. The same failings existed then as now, we happen upon decent teams we don't create them. We only got out of the misery of the 80s when a good crop of young fellas came along in the early 90s and we went outside the county and got someone in Gerald McCarthy who actually knew what he was doing. We are sliding into the same oblivion now. We do this by ignoring the obvious failings of our hurlers and also by blaming others (Cahill worked them too hard before the championship)

Technically we are miles behind other counties- basics like ball control, dropping ball, missing the pick, and an inability to contest high ball have been ignored for years. The first thing Cahill highlighted was this after our first league game against Cork. When McCarthy came in he highlighted the fact that players coming onto the senior panel were not physically at the level of other counties.

We are at crisis point at underage, the same lads that can't buy a win now will be seniors in the near future- won't be their fault - they have been set up to fail by a county set up that has in my many years following the team always been a shambles.

For what its worth our record for the last 10 years underage:

Since 2013

Minor - played 28 won 7 (25%)

u20 -played 17 won 6 (35%) One win since winning the All Ireland - against Kerry.

Abysmal.

The Dubs are actually acutely aware of the Superclub problem and how it limits the development of intercounty players. The reasoning goes is that playing on a team like that, you only have to play 6/7 out of 10 every day to win. Where as if you're the sole intercounty lad on a smaller team, the player has to be 10/10 every day to compete with the Superclubs. The latter supposedly is more beneficial for elite player development.

The county needed that performance but sadly a heartbreaking 1 pont loss which ends our season with one game to spare

Lets hope its not the same for the seniors on the 14th May

The ‘Waterford rising’ project is probably only 2/3 years into a 10 year plan (was drafted prior to covid so added another year or 2 onto it) and in reality the whole project is about fixing the issues that should have been done in the 20/30 years previous anyway; eg proper financial planning, upgrading the stadia and introduction of more all county competitions. There’s no point even thinking about moving forward until some of these absolute basic structures are in place otherwise there’s no incentive for young players to even play our games in the first place. The big elephant in the room now is dwindling playing numbers in clubs across the county and the whole Ballygunner debacle. forget about pumping money into coaching young players to win primary possession which is the default complaint, starting point is getting more players out playing (FORTHEIR LOCAL CLUB) not the nearest super club.

my concern about the rising project is do we have enough quality personnel behind it making the decisions for the future of the game and uplift of hurling and football in the county. Or is is the same clueless buffoons trying to fix issues they were responsible for in the first place

Would Covid have any effect on the school clusters? I can't see how it would, if anything they had an extra year or two to work it out and should have been ready for this year. Am I missing something?

lads counties like limerick and Waterford and anybody really don't need to be winning underage titles, of course it helps but not a necessity.

I'll say it again Waterford have too many good players to be written off as they're been, Mark my words

I take your point on underage titles but we aren't even competitive. We are the 5th team in Munster consistently underage. That's going to catch up with us if it hasn't already

Well the week is finally upon us, the be-all and end-all that is the championship is finally upon us this weekend. No more holding things back or keeping things “up the sleeve”, it’s do or die time. How is everyone feeling?

Personally I can’t remember going into a championship more downbeat and even not looking forward to it. Maybe it’s the poor league showings coupled with the loss after loss of the underage sides in recent weeks but it really feels like we’re stuck in a rut that only a big championship win could pull us out of. I can only hope they do have something big in the locker that they’ve been working on the last few weeks/months that we’ll see over the next few weeks but it remains to be seen.

I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing we’ve Limerick up first, suppose the good news is we get the fixture out of the way early but it would probably be preferable to face them later on when they have likely qualified and have one eye on a Munster final. Either way, our championship will be defined by how we go against the other three so that’s why I’m not overly concerned that we’re missing a few players for Limerick. Would much prefer them to be available for those games than what I see as a “free hit” this weekend.

I’m going into this championship not expecting much so anything good that happens would be a bonus. Negative I know but I just see another early exit but very happy to be proved wrong.

I think the underage results have been a big factor for me. Losing 6 out of 6 is abysmal but it should be separated from views of the senior team.

I was probably alone in that after the last two matches in the league I was happy enough. After falling behind against Tipp we dragged our way back in until the red card.

Unless you were at the Kilkenny game you wouldn't believe how bad the conditions were. We couldn't convert out chances so we lost, and we had far more chances than Kilkenny. Both sides were also down 7/8 players though the analysis only seemed to recognise the Kilkenny players missing. Speaking of that analysis despite slamming Davy Fitzgerald for his tactics that day, James Skehill came out after the league final and said the only way to beat Limerick is to pack the middle and force turnovers. Which is how Waterford set up.

I don't see us beating Limerick so really the Cork game is make or break for me. We need Austin, Iarla, McNulty, Bennett, Kiely available again. We need to win some of our own puck outs. And we need to use possession better.

If something like what happened in the snooker tonight happens on Sunday do we get a point if the games abandoned ? 😄

its very hard to tell when you have such a ‘wound up spring’ in charge….I would say there have been genuine injuries but whether they have all healed now is another question…..there hasn’t been such certainty over the result of a waterford fixture in years…..hard to see anything other than a 12-15 point win for LK