Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

Davey should do the decent thing now but his ego is so huge there isn’t a hope…..shambolic and a total embarrassment cemented/confirmed by the total sh1t show that was this pm…😡😡😡😡……..it will be family members and mentors only at the next game

We're headed for a few lean years I think after the displays this year unfortunately....

Why did the Clare mentor get red carded? Internet decided to freeze on me at that point

1. Where was the evidence of Eoin Kelly’s coaching given the lack of scoring potency from proven forwards.
2. How can the county’s Performance Coach be working at another sport during a Championship match?
3. Who was the lad next to the manager during matches and were other members of the management team consulted during the game?
4. What can one point to to demonstrate the manager improving individual performance, tactics or team performance from last year?

Meanwhile, for the Co Board…..

Is four managers and one win in 15 and a clean sweep of losses across - Senior, U20 and Minor in 2023 approaching crisis levels yet. What is going to happen to address?

Posters looking for Davys head obviously have been living on a different planet the past few years... since 2017 waterford hurling has been in decline... save for liam cahill getting team to final in 2020 which now looks like a remarkable achievement.. looking in from the outside those waterford players look like a hard bunch to manage... brilliant brilliant hurlers but egos are out of control... and they just dont want to know about getting stuck into a game.. you know putting their head where they wouldnt put their hurley... think gleeson is a major problem... i could be totally wrong here but he seems to have n influence on other players and management in the same way aidan o'shea reportedly has an influence in Mayo... tis a shame for waterford supporters... to have a team of very good players underperforming...

i would have to ask the question why arent more of the ballygunner lads involved?? barry coughlan and the mahonys i would think have something to offer.

You make some decent points, but saying Gleeson is a potential problem is total nonsense. There’s been 4 managers and 10 years to build a team around him and the only person to get close to doing it, for all his flaws, was Derek McGrath. Fanning didn’t do it, Cahill didn’t do it and Fitzgerald doesn’t look like he wants to do it. The chap is 28 and he looks like he’s just totally fed up with things. It’s hard not to blame him either. If I was after putting down 10 years at inter county level and this is the level of coaching and management being offered I’d walk away from it. I wouldn’t even give it a second thought.

The players have to shoulder some of the blame, no doubt about that, but the Co. Board and the management are the ones this lies with. The board are a total shambles and have been for many, many, many years. We’re in big trouble when the likes of Gleeson, Barron and de Burca call it a day and I think that day is coming sooner rather than later. We don’t have a great panel, I stand by that assessment. I think this could well be Davy Fitzgerald’s last management job as well. Tactically things are an absolute shambles, I don’t think I’ve ever seen worse than the last two games and I honestly mean that.

Davy has questions to answer for sure but so do the players. Liam Cahill was a very good manager who had them playing extremely well and seen as the most credible challenger to Limerick last spring with a brilliant performance in league final. Yeah yeah only the league but still they were playing with style and belief.

What went wrong in last years championship I still don't know, but the rot is still there for all to see this year, under new management. I don't think Davy had them set up right and seems to over think the game completely but the problem here is primarily psychological and is in the players themselves. It is very reminiscent not just of last year, but of the shameful capitulations in Fanning's tenure.

Out if interest what hope?

It was clear as day from the league and cork game that we were done, anyone that had "hope" coming into today was just disillusioned I'm sorry to say

Look at our scoring this year, other than Dublin, Laois and Antrim it had been poor, sure we scored 25 points against Tipp, but no goals other than Dublin Laois and Antrim.

19 points our highest scoring game out of Kilkenny, Limerick Cork and Clare

The throwaway comments about Gleeson are as ridiculous as they are predictable. Seems like every other player is forgotten about and the man was actually one of the few players who looked dangerous for us at times today despite having little to no training over the last few months because of injury. Problems are elsewhere lads.

Austin gets ridiculous comments on a regular basis. The one above here admits he has no idea what's going on but he thinks something about Austin so obviously it must be true. He didn't play well today though outside of Conor Prunty I'd be hard pressed to name anyone who did. And by all means any supporter is entitled to say a player didn't play well. But if anyone thinks that Austin is a negative influence on other players they've clearly no idea about the kind of person he is.

Again I won't make this personal but for me Davy has to go. When you need to make 7 lateral passes to cross the half way líne and then look up to see nobody within the 45, the system is not working.

The players not absolved from blame (aside from Prunty tonight in my view) but can anyone explain the Waterford game plan? 5 league games and 3 championship games in, I've been to them all and I honestly can't.

The guy who made this comment opened his post saying he was ‘looking in from the outside’ so he’s obviously from another county. There are always one or two pr1cks who like to wander into other county’s threads and add in their valuable opinions based on pub talk and social media shite/rumours etc…..anyway it’s all rapped up until 2024 now in every male inter county grade……to save further embarrassment let’s hope Tipp end up not needing a result against us in a couple of weeks time…..:if they do then god help us😡

Austin Gleeson is too easy a target, he always has been and he always will be. Unfortunately with all the talent he has, it’s his downfall as well - through no fault of his own. Over the last 10 years I’ve lost count of the number of times where we’ve been beaten and the first comment from people, most of whom wouldn’t have even seen the game, was that Gleeson must have been poor etc. he is the barometer for the team and unfortunately he bears the brunt of it when things don’t go well.

When you mention tactics and gameplan, it’s fairly simple - there was none. Not to my eye anyway. Now I wasn’t at the game this evening but I was at the league games, a couple of challenge games and the Limerick and Cork games. I honestly could not tell you what’s actually happening or what they’re actually trying to do. I’ve seen nothing consistent across any of the games this year. They don’t seem to be actually working towards anything. Tonight, in the first half alone, there must have been 10 times where a player got on the ball and looked up only to see no team mate within 50 yards of the goal. What other option has a player got only to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, they were hitting the breaks and going sideways or backwards. Wides soon mount up when players are shooting from 100 yards out when they’re off balance or on the run. It’s kamikaze hurling at its finest and how someone with Fitzgerald’s experience could persist with it just blows my mind. Someone with 15 years of inter county management experience in addition to a 15 year career as a player surely has to have the cop on to realise when things weren’t working. Why can’t Davy see it? As for this farce with Eoin Kelly coming in as a forwards coach or whatever he’s apparently doing there, what work is he actually doing? Because our best forward had one shot from less than 40 yards from the goal. Is this the first championship where we could go without a scoring a single goal? I think that says it all.

On a side note, Patrick Curran getting 20 mins tonight when the game was over. What was that about? He came on and banged over 2 points. Granted Clare had taken the foot off the gas at that stage but still, this kind of things sums the whole situation up for me.

Yes actually. And the photographer got a few shots of it which made Flynn irate. It didn't look great.

I agree with 99% of your post. The one thing I'd differ on is where you reckon there were no tactics. I think it's the opposite in that there are too many tactics which leads to our pointless lateral play. However I do agree that it leads to shooting from low percentage positions.

And I agree with all your other points.