Kilkenny GAA Discussion Thread Mod Warning Post # 5885 #4894 & #5202

U16s beaten by Dublin in the final after extra time. Beat Cork, Tipp, Laois and Wexford. Believe they would have been missing a few key players through injury and involvement with the minors

Under 14s winning 1 5 to 2 at half time

Final score 2 16 to 2 5. So under 14's and 15's win their competitions, under 16 narrowly beaten in final and under 17's hammer Clare. Pretty good day

savannahkat wrote: »

Any other results for under 17s as Limerick also hammered Clare.

Limerick beat them by 2 points

Kkboy wrote: »

Final score 2 16 to 2 5. So under 14's and 15's win their competitions, under 16 narrowly beaten in final and under 17's hammer Clare. Pretty good day

Hahaha and then they say we have nothing coming through underage because of 2 bad Minor teams and an U21 team

Hitchens wrote: »

Kerry into the Football Final. Kilkenny usually win the hurling when Kerry are in the SF Final.!!

It's always comforting to see the opposition 'clutching at straws', next thing you will be telling us that you read the tealeaves and saw Cody with the Liam McCarthy over his head! (the only chance he has of lifting anything like that is if he does the ice bucket challenge!):D

realdanbreen wrote: »

It's always comforting to see the opposition 'clutching at straws', next thing you will be telling us that you read the tealeaves and saw Cody with the Liam McCarthy over his head! (the only chance he has of lifting anything like that is if he does the ice bucket challenge!):D

We've seen it nine times already, why not once more?

As an aside, we're going to hear some ****e this week in terms of omens and signs from all sort of obscure sources.
Jaysus I can't wait, you just can't beat the craic and the banter in the build up in AI Final week.

It's All Ireland week!! Bring it on. Hope to see good crowds in Nowlan Park on Tueday and Friday-they will be tame training sessions but the players deserve to see the support they have, they're used to a hyped build up. A week of restless nghts ahead for everyone ;-)

7 squads in action for KK yesterday. A logistical headache for somebody in the KK CB. Some great wins incl finals is the reward. Kudos not only to the players but also the respective back room teams who give of their time for the cause.

Michael Rice on Henry Shefflin
http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/rice-shefflin-good-for-a-starting-role-284295.html

Come on lads help the exiles. It is less than a week away for both minor and senior. Lets hear the rumors, the thoughts and the opinions. Both camps are fairly media shy which is new(ish) for Tipp with no articles from lar and even less about Lar. They must be taking it a bit more seriously this time round.

Zero on the rumour mill. Had just been talking to a friend in the UK today saying that its strange that there's nothing being heard.

Something just has me thinking there may be a surprise or two when the team is named on Friday as that seems to be how cody has operated in quite a few games this year (like tommy starting replay v galway, conor fogarty starting midfield, mark kelly v limerick). What those surprise calls are (if any) is anyones guess.

aidankkk wrote: »

Nice Article for Sticking up on the dressing room wall before the match in the Indo.

"they had to go to the UK for parts" about the hand injury that Michael Rice got..

Its not online unfortunately. He is also saying Henry is as fit as he ever was..

Indo article

Despite the slings and arrows of misfortune, Michael Rice remains an incurable hurling romantic. Cut him and you imagine the two-time All Star midfielder from Carrickshock would bleed black 'n' amber.

Yet that horrific hand injury he suffered in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final against Tipperary meant he wasn't sure if he'd ever hurl again.

And, after battling back to full fitness last year, he finds himself looking on from a distance at a third All-Ireland final in three years, sidelined by that mind-numbing slow crawl back to full fitness that is cruciate rehab.

Yet nothing, apparently, can douse his passion.

Curiosity

The latest intake of 'baby DJs' and 'baby Henrys' arrived into St Kieran's College a week ago, and their new economics and Irish teacher cannot hide his curiosity about what may emerge from these chrysalises.

"One lad rang the secretary and asked if it was alright if he brought in his hurl the first day!" he marvels.

No surprise then that he has taught Liam Blanchfield and Jason Cleere, who have starred for the Kilkenny minors who contest their first All-Ireland final in four years next Sunday.

"It is a great thing," he says of the enduring hurling ethos at St Kieran's. "I went there as a chap myself and I loved it, it really helped my development.

"You go in from a primary school where you might be always the best player and then you find 'Jesus, I'm not, I need to work on my game'. It actually probably sorts out a lot of lads."

Rice loves driving through the gates every Monday morning "and all you see is sliotars and hurls flying around the place".

"We do a bit of education there as well!" he stresses, with a laugh.

If anything embodies the ego-free zone of this great Kilkenny team it is Rice right now, who forces himself to keep away from training some nights.

"It's probably not healthy for me to be in there the whole time. It's nice to get in and have the craic with the lads like normal, but also not to be there moping around.

"I don't want to be that fella that a lad is afraid to . . . 'Oh Jesus, here's Rice again and he's going to be giving out about his injury!' I don't ever want to be that lad," he explains.

If he was sitting in a corner bawling 'woe is me!' you wouldn't blame him.

Two years ago, after a challenge from Tipp's Padraic Maher, he suffered the horrific hand injury that seriously threatened his hurling career.

Bones were exposed and smashed to smithereens in his knuckle. A team of specialists were needed for the tricky reconstruction.

It was touch and go for a few days, but he bats away the bad memories with the same easy humour that helps him cope with his current lay-off.

"For the first four days they didn't operate. It was like a bad car, they had to bring in parts from England for it," he chuckles with remarkable humour.

"It was a worry alright, because it was so close to the joint," he confirms of the initial diagnosis. "But, in fairness to Patricia Eadie (the plastic surgeon in St James'), she did a fabulous job."

His other hand bears an equally ugly hurling legacy from playing for UCC: a swollen and unbendable fingertip which is held up by internal steel scaffolding.

Yet arguably the most ill-timed of his injuries was the one he suffered chasing back in training this summer, two weeks before Kilkenny's Championship opener against Offaly; a torn cruciate that put him back on the Via Dolorosa again.

By coincidence, the man in the next room to him in Waterford's Whitfield Clinic, undergoing the same operation with Shefflin's cruciate surgeon Tadhg O'Sullivan, was Peter O'Donovan, a former Kilkenny minor from Castlecomer.

"We were saying it was the most immobile midfield you'd ever get because all we were looking for at that stage was a drop of morphine," Rice jokes.

In the past two months they've taken virtually every step of recovery together, rehab buddies whose teams are due to meet in the next round of the county championship where "we'll be marking the corner-flag together!"

"We head to the gym together most days and tip away at it. It could take an hour, or an hour and a half, between swimming and a few things. You would need a partner in crime for something like that," Rice concedes.

"There's no end of advice.The one thing I have taken is they (cruciates) are all different. You can't say this'll work perfect for everyone. No one size fits all but hopefully February or March."

He's now 30 and, having missed the two-game thriller against Galway in 2012 and now this final, was the cruciate not the final straw?

"No, you just think if it's meant to happen, it's meant to happen and look forward. Put a line through 2014 and think about '15," he says stoically.

"To miss the final two years ago was probably worse because that was so close," Rice says.

"There was zero hope (this time) because Henry and Tenno (John Tennyson) had tried it before and that didn't work out. They've been the crash-test dummies so I knew my year was over.

Harder

"This year it happened a long way from the big match but, as the matches got bigger, they've been harder to watch."

Shefflin, he reckons, is ready for a full 70 minutes if needed. "He's fitter than ever from what I've seen of him. I don't think there could be a professional player that could mind himself more than that man."

After last year's early exit, with Cody and Shefflin going for the 'Perfect 10', and a few more headed towards the Exit sign, were Kilkenny always primed for a special onslaught this year?

"Every individual has his own motivation," Rice insists. "Generally it is a belief that you can go on and win an All-Ireland, and one of the big factors, I think, is that lads just love hurling.

"I don't think you can get away from that. Lads love hurling at the top level. While you can do it, you want to do it," says a man still very much in love with the great game.

Indo Sport

Closing the training sessions was a necessity. We all know we've dropped back into the pack and every little advantage is vital. In the days leading up to the Limerick game word got out about M Fen going to the wing, TJ going to the corner and Colin at centre forward. It turned out to be a fact. I would think that Cody would have been most disappointed with it and will have everybody warned this time. We slipped into the Final without showing our hands which may stand to us now.

savannahkat wrote: »

Come on lads help the exiles. It is less than a week away for both minor and senior. Lets hear the rumors, the thoughts and the opinions. Both camps are fairly media shy which is new(ish) for Tipp with no articles from lar and even less about Lar. They must be taking it a bit more seriously this time round.

Just to bring you up to speed Sav. Everyone fit & raring to go in Tipp. There will be another open training session on Thursday next. The team will be the same as what started against Cork. Like I say, beating Cork in that historic meeting in croke park was mega for us, anything else will be a bonus.