Another 3 in a row coming up for Kilkenny

Clareman wrote: »

I think KK are rightly the favourites but I don't think it's worth discounting all the rest so far, my thoughts on the "others" would be (in no particular order)

Galway - Players will be fully bought into whoever comes in, they have the hurlers but have struggled to be a team for a while, the curren situation could be what's needed to gel it together.
Tipp - Need to stop focusing on KK and just concentrate on themselves for a while.
Waterford - Showed that they are a top 3 team, need to come up with a Plan B though.
Cork - They have the hurlers but need to find 2 or 3 players down the middle
Limerick - They are the dark horses, they won't fear anyone and have plenty of experience.
Dublin - If they can get organised they will be challengers.
Clare - have the players, last team to win an All Ireland, don't "fear" Kilkenny but are more interested in coming up with new stuff than just playing hurling, if they play their own game and let the opponents worry about them rather than worrying about the opponents then they'll take beating. I do think the Clare forwards have the "potential" to cause serious problems for the the KK backs, but "potential" isn't worth anything if they don't play them.

tbiggertycome wrote: »

There is no lack of talent coming through, there was a few lean years there at U21 level but even these teams will add 2 or 3 players to the seniors (Kevin Kelly, Chris Bolger, Joe Lyng, Robbie Lennon). Senior hurling is about blending existing talent with those coming through and any team worth it's salt has a core group of lads in the 27 to 29 age range who have been hurling intercounty for 5 to 6 years. You can get a break through like Clare did in '13 but I wasn't a bit surprised it couldn't be sustained. They lack an older core there to help guide them through (it also doesn't help they have a unusual [thats as nice as I can be] manager). Wexford may have beaten us in U21 the last few years but the U21's haven't been our best bunch. The main reason we struggle at U21 is very few of our U21's get a place in the senior team (as we don't need them). If you look at the Wexford and Clare teams that beat us they all had a good sprinkling of lads who were making their respective senior teams. As pointed out in another post this gives guys a huge advantage at this level but it tends to be negated as they all get to the same level at senior. Just look at what Kilkenny did to Wexford last year at senior. I can't honestly see Wexford seniors beating us (in the manner they did our U21's last year) for another good few years (like 5+ years). Our last decent U21 team beaten by Clare in the AI has seen the likes of Walter Walsh, Cillian Buckley, Padraig Walsh, Ger Aylward & John Power all win Senior AI's most with two medals. The crop we have going into U21 this year are very good. They may get beaten, as again they will be up against lads training and playing senior intercounty regularly but I would stake my house on a lot more of them becoming household names once at senior than those that might beat them. We have some excellent talent coming through like Luke Scanlon, John Walsh, Evan Cody, Liam Blanchfield, Enda Morrissey, Jason Cleere, Tommy Walsh (another one), Richie Leahy, Darragh Joyce, Shane Murphy, Conor Doheny. All of which can and should play senior at some stage if they keep their wits about them and don't go off the rails which can happen.

Michael Fennelly will play on and will do just fine.

I know a good 4 or 5 off the current panel they don't care what the fans or anyone else think, do or say they do this for themselves. The HUNGER will be there.

No Tipp/Galway shouldn't have won it, They could have won it- BUT they didn't

Kilkenny had a very hard start to the year last year. 6 retirees with some of the best hurlers we may ever see play the game retired. This left a big hole in the panel which had to be filled at a time when we had very little at U21 bar Evan Cody and Chris Bolger. We had some lads on the scene who were really just filling places. I see that being radically altered this year and even more so the following year the type of talent coming through is really impressive. We also had 5 lads missing with Ballyhale winning the club AI and Jackie, Larks, R. Power, Michael Rice all injured for some or all of the league. For almost all the league we were missing 13 lads, 9-10 had been starters in the 2014 AI with the other 3 or 4 on the bench. Name me the county that could sustain that level of losses and not get relegated? The fact we didn't was due to the Ballyhale lads back and a few of the lads recovered along with the teams cohesiveness and pride not to be relegated on their home patch.

Eoin Larkin is a veteran and is playing a unspectacular role but he will be one of the biggest losses when he retires most people don't see the work he does which is just vital to Kilkennys success. Plus this winter he's gone away with the Army to Syria the last time he did that was in 2007 to Kosovo and he came back the following year and won Hurler of the year.
Richie Power could be gone alright he's knees are very bad but he owes Kilkenny nothing and we have plenty of talent to help ease this huge lose if it happens.

I don't know if I could agree with you on Galways forwards being the best but they have some very good forwards but only two can win their own ball!!!

Don't agree about Tipp they have two or three very skilfull players but not necessarily the best in the country TJ Reid, Richie Hogan, Tony Kelly, Joe Canning, Patrick Horgan and ar8e loads more I'm leaving out. Tipps problem is the supporting cast is not up to scratch at all.

Again over the top statement about Waterford they have some great hurlers but I would disagree and say Kilkenny and Clare have better young hurlers. Waterford actually have something a lot of other teams don't and thats a good mix of young and old players which will stand to them.

I don't share your optomism about the Clare situation I can see it ending tears with two very strong characters. It would be great if they can make it work as hurling needs another few serious challengers.

I'll agree with you on Limerick.

Cork are Cork, and that saying now means their mediocre to sh**e!

Theres nothing new there in that Cuala team for Dublin to take advantage of.

If you think our standard is going to drop, I'm afraid the opposite is about to happen. I'm not saying we won't be bet and will win forever or anything stupid like that but we're not going away ye have to catch up to us.

However if you prefer bury your head in the sand by all means work away.

CrabRevolution wrote: »

You have to wonder where people get their ideas about how changing the Waterford/Kilkenny border will force Kilkenny clubs to play in Waterford. Administrative boundaries are ignored as far as the GAA is concerned.

Ignoring the obvious "they should have split them" arguments, was Dublin GAA cleaved into 4 parts when it split into 4 counties in the 1990s? Ballaghadereen play in Mayo despite being in Roscommon for the last 120 years. Moneygall is in Offaly yet play in Tipperary competitions.

The most obvious example of them all is propbably the 6 counties. None of the 6 counties up north have existed at an administrative level since the 70s. The counties (Fermanagh aside) were abolished in 1972 and replaced with 26 new authorities. The north didn't then start fielding 26 different teams because of a government boundary change, nor did they start fielding 11 this year when they reduced the number of local authorities to 11.

The county borders as they were in the 1880s are pretty much here to stay, whether that's the best solution for some counties in the long term is another discussion though.