Kilkenny GAA Thread

That wasn't directed at you. In fact I agree with your post regarding Harry Shine. Hopefully his recent surgery will be the end of his ongoing injuries.

Re underage why not make 2 Divisions for a league and let the top 8/10 teams in league battle out Roinn A.

Next placed teams in B or the top dozen teams in Division 2.

Then the bottom tier/Roinn C/Roinn D for the rest of Division 2 teams.

Plenty of games and that's what young lads need.

Another suggestion first round championship losers could drop down a grade then maybe. But what I would suggest is that if a team has won a league/championship at a certain grade they shouldn't be allowed compete at a lower level. An example of which would be say the Village won U15 A league then if at U17/Minor they lost the first round of championship they shouldn't be allowed drop back to C. The same for Roinn B, C, D winners of past age groups.

Don't bite my head off lads lol, only suggestions. A lot better than 4 teams in Roinn A and Roinn A calibre teams pasting genuine Roinn B teams for a handy bit of silverware.

The problem arises then though with a lad playing U15 & U17 with the volume of games. You can't win it seems with some aspects of GAA underage but surely a better system is out there than 4 Roinn A teams. That will tell at county level of left like that

Too late now

Great game today but very frustrating from a KK point of view. Wexford have the Indian sign on us it would seem. Having said that the first penalty looked soft.

Watched him destroy mikey butler must have something

way above mossy Ryan Donnely as a hurler

look at mossy again today very poor

Ryan very poor

we manage a draw against Wexford and everything in our favour

home

ref if first penalty giving against use we be giving out

even the wind done use a favour

young Drennan brilliant dead ball has not showing anything otherwise

look at our return from play not good enough

I suppose j Walsh should have been playing 🤣🤣🤣

The ref played with Kilkenny.

Wexford looked average in the first half and then Kilkenny looked average in the second half, although wind was a factor.

Entertaining second half, Lyng still searching for his first win over the yellowbellies.

Still looks like KK are going to be reliant on Cody, Mullen & TJ again this year.

7 points from play tells it own story. Wexford will have to tidy up on the discipline but both teams will feel they should of won. Wexford seemed much sharper and had men on the overlap while we seemed stuck to the ground. You can see jason ryans influence but infairness they got some very good scores

Its early but we gave away alot of scores trying to work the ball out. Eoin Murphy made a lot of mistakes. The ball going into the foward alot of the time was poor and more of 50/50 or a defenders ball . Obviously the fowards were poor but this didnt help.Puckouts are still a huge problem. We are desperately short a good coach and after today its a goal keeping coach but we are very predictable and easy to play against.

We need a good goalkeeper coach and a new goal keeper.....his distribution as has been the case the last 6/7 years is just not good enough .... everyone can see it especially the opposition

Regarding the goalkeeping - their first job is to stop the ball going in the net and Murphy pulled off two great saves. But the puck outs were ropey - as was the mix up on the sideline with Blanchfield. Point of detail - start of the second half against the wind his first one was 10 yards short of the target (Heary). Why not come out 5 minutes early and get your range. We talk about analysis and inches... a little bit of common sense and planning to get an edge.

The first goal conceded was a disaster but I haven't seen it back to see whose it was. And to be honest I'm not sure if I even want to. Conceding a second in injury time was equally dispiriting. I had the impression that despite the fact we had an extra man and were against the breeze and needed to protect the goal that there was an acre of space around our defence. Who takes responsibility for that?

Prior to that Billy Ryan missed a sitter and here is the nub of one of our biggest problems. Our lack of top quality finishers. We're all perspiration and very little inspiration. Of course it's just February, but I don't need any more evidence that we just don't have the quality - particularly in the clutch moments. Mullen was head and shoulders the best forward we had today - he could catch a ball for starters and he had composure and end product in most situations.

Mossey's penalty was soft but Wexford spend most of the day dragging our forwards down whenever they got a run on them so fair is fair. Credit to Mossey for taking on the back - one of the few times we did that from the corners - but he looked to have lost control. I'm open to correct on that one.

Eoin Cody to my mind was poor enough in general play and looked pretty rusty. Did well on the frees. But I didn't see him do much in the second half. Not something to be concerned about at this stage but just underlining our lack of options.

Conor Fogarty came on and just looked out of sorts and way off the pace. I am a fan of his and the work he does to win dirty ball. But he wasn't right. Buckley looked more mobile and productive.

Billy Drennan was behind his man though he was great on the penalties and I note a poster commenting that he is carrying an injury. He's put on a fair bit of beef too. The free was unlucky but if the wind was a doubt it might have been better to bring up Murphy to take it. Easy to say afterwards but it never looked like going over.

There was an awful lot of back and forth and delaying the ball before driving it into the corners. A lot of retaining the ball for the sake of retaining the ball. And some players just have the bad habit of putting it on their hurls before they hit it in - losing the full forward line that vital second on the run. It's frustrating and needs to be fixed. If the pass it on - hit the fecking thing. If the plan is to hit the corners - then fecking hit them - you don't need to take a few touches or look - the corners don't move. Look before the receive the ball - hit it early and make the forwards take responsibility to get in front. You can be both fast and intelligent. At the moment we're slow and trying to be clever.

Kilkenny shut the Wexford runners down around the middle well in the first half. But in the second half they were free men queuing up to take shots and most of their scores came from that range. To be honest it's the point wexford score over and over against us. In contrast we just fecked around with the ball, endlessly recycling it and slowing it down before delivering in. No long range shots. Maybe Paddy Deegan will change that.

Molloy was ok for a first game and made an important run to stop pressurise Lee Chin into a mistake in the first half. He was finding his feet and made a run in the second half but over carried.

I thought Cian Kenny was very good and made a right nuisance of himself around the rucks and loose ball. Best game he's had in a while.

Harry Shine had a tough day and seemed to be hooshed out of it a lot (though he does look strongly built around the legs). Wasn't solid under the high ones and didn't break the ball either. In other words it wasn't sticking or breaking and we needed another option there. Or maybe there wasn't much of a plan. In my opinion I don't have a problem letting a lad learn from that and he obviously has potential. He hit a brilliant pass over his shoulder at the start of the second half and also setup one - and I think he's better suited to harder ground. But we needed a more traditional ball winner on the day. Paddy Deegan in there would have been the best of what we have I think but on the other hand it would seam a bit 'Crazy Gang'. OR maybe Blanchfield will be able to do it. I dunno. But we need something because our full forward line, despite the delivery, needs surgery. And guile.. did I mention that?

I'd also add our fielding in the forwards was way off. Heary worked hard and I think that's worth persisting with. But I thought he would be effective on puck outs but he wasn't and I don't know why. We seamed to have a physical edge but we didn't make it pay when going direct.

I'd be interested to see where Tom Phelan is at this year and how he's developed. Anyone know?

I'm kind fed up playing Wexford now. Each time I know we are the better team (sorry Wexford fans but we are). Each time we let them back into it and we draw or they nab it because ultimately we don't have the quality to kill them off and they have Lee Chin who always delivers in the clutch moments. And yeah I know it's February but we're gonna need to score 4 goals to win an All Ireland final and I'm not seeing where they are coming from. It might just be because I watched the Richie Power Laochra Gael during the week and it hurt to see a player who could score a 30-70 chance (we had a whole forward line and a fair few on the bench)

Wexford made much better use of possession, they were much better at getting a man free. Even though we passed the ball around a bit, we still ended up hitting high ball into the forwards. Both of the goals conceded were extremely poor from a defensive viewpoint.

Having said that, I wouldn't be discarding anyone based on a game on a windy day in early February

The tapping of the ball onto the hurley and only then releasing it is awful stuff. I dont think any limerick player does that. Richie Reid does it and its pointless. Like the poster said.. release the pass early either to the man or into the corner. That part isn't the rocket science. It's Limericks coaching by Kinnerk that makes everything look like its flowing from the goalie out to the corner and the men getting the ball in their stride...the likes of Gillane making the runs and actually getting the ball on a plate then. That's the hard stuff.

If Kilkenny are to challenge this year then it can't be left to Eoin Cody ,Mullen and and 1 other for the bulk of the scores from play. Drennan is a concern..hes as slow as a wet week. Tom Phelan needed a few kilos ,maybe that's why is not on for the early rounds..

Head to head results over the last few years show Kilkenny are definitely a better team than Clare but Wexford are a better team than Kilkenny.

It’s a strange one to work out I must say.

How in gods name is Conor Fogarty still playing for Kilkenny. The man contributes nothing. We are very average and as long as lads like Conor Fogarty are still playing we are going nowhere. We absolutely robbed Galway and Clare last year and is covering over the cracks. If we were in Munster we would be under serious pressure to win 2 matches

Jason Ryan's influence??

Wexford have been playing this style of running game for the last number of years and we can't deal with it. In fairness they are flying fit and were full of energy anytime I've seen them play this year or indeed the last number of years.

Our "traditional" style is still their to see. From our current goalie not being able to ping puckouts to our use of the ball outfield, it's a process that takes time but I thought we'd definitely see improvements by this stage.