Waterford GAA Discussion Thread 2011-2012

Straight Talker

I think i'll buy myself a copy our rivalry with Waterford has been the greatest hurling rivalry of the modern era.Of course sadly Waterford in that time failed to land that elusive all ireland but i suppose it's the taking part not the winning that counts.:pac:

Straight Talker

Mountainlad wrote: »

Yeah agreed. All that was in it was one or two moments from O Halloran and Paudie Mahony, John Dee hitting over a sideline, and Stephen O Keefe pulling off a brilliant save.



Yeah I think if we'd gotten a goal late on when we were 5 points down or so we could have snuck it. Mullane was a big loss. To be fair, Kilkenny probably deserved it when you think about the amount of wides they hit, we were just abysmal. Shefflin scoring a goal where he was camped in the square didn't help though.

http://www.sportsfile.com/id/149938/

Waterford were good enough to win the all ireland in 98 04 and 07 but for whatever reason they couldn't get past the finish line.I think a lack of a decent full back and a lack of composure at the business end of the championship were Waterfords undoing in those years although it was hard on Waterford playing three sundays in a row in 07.

Straight Talker

WumBuster wrote: »

'98 was our best chance i think.I have a feeling that if we werent pipped by KK in semi final we would have gone on to beat Offaly. Dont know why, teams were more evenly matched that year and the that fact we were riding on a crest of a wave like Wexford and Clare from the previous years might have given us the belief to get over the line.But its all ifs and buts of course.
'04 i think we would have lost to Cork in AI final as they had lost the final year previously, and the way they lost the munster final against us they was no way they would have let us beat them twice in one year. We wouldnt have beaten KK in '07 had we got to the final, although it would have been a lot closer than the '08 game.

The Waterford team of recent times reached their peak in 07.I think they would have beaten Kilkenny that year if they weren't caught on the hop by Limerick.Henry Shefflin and Noel Hickey also went off injured in that years final.Then again would Waterford have frozen again at the sight of Kilkenny?Oh well we'll never know the answer to that question.

Deise Tom

Straight Talker wrote: »

The Waterford team of recent times reached their peak in 07.I think they would have beaten Kilkenny that year if they weren't caught on the hop by Limerick.Henry Shefflin and Noel Hickey also went off injured in that years final.Then again would Waterford have frozen again at the sight of Kilkenny?Oh well we'll never know the answer to that question.

In 07, under Justin I dont think Waterford would have frozen. The team were at their very best at that stage. Waterford had beaten Kilkenny in the League final at Thurles earlier that year which I think is something that would have given them so much confidence going into an All-Ireland against Kilkenny.

deisebhoy17

Deise Tom wrote: »

In 07, under Justin I dont think Waterford would have frozen. The team were at their very best at that stage. Waterford had beaten Kilkenny in the League final at Thurles earlier that year which I think is something that would have given them so much confidence going into an All-Ireland against Kilkenny.

I agree that was our best year and we looked like we could go all the way but looking back on it now I dont think we would have beaten Kilkenny in the final anyway. I dont think people appreciated at that stage how good this Kilkenny team was and having beaten them in the league final they would have been more than ready for us in an All Ireland final.

The system definetly let us down that year 3 games in 3 weeks defeinetly didnt help our cause but we have to admit that a fairly poor Limerick team caught us and outfoxed us. If we werent good enough to win that day we were never going to be good enough to beat Kilkenny.

Jarjohn

Dont buy in to this " what if " dreaming at all. Despite the great team(s) that Waterford had 1998 on, still only good enough to reach one all ireland final and got hammered in that. There seems to be an excuse and " what if " for every defeat over the past 14 years. Annoys the bejaysus out of me when i read it. Unlucky on a few occasions - yes. Not good enough on most occasions - yes. Enouugh grounds to belittle other teams victories - No. Just smacks of sour grapes. Look to the future lads and ladies.

IanVW

Any word on the 2013 senior hurling panel?

Straight Talker

Jarjohn wrote: »

Dont buy in to this " what if " dreaming at all. Despite the great team(s) that Waterford had 1998 on, still only good enough to reach one all ireland final and got hammered in that. There seems to be an excuse and " what if " for every defeat over the past 14 years. Annoys the bejaysus out of me when i read it. Unlucky on a few occasions - yes. Not good enough on most occasions - yes. Enouugh grounds to belittle other teams victories - No. Just smacks of sour grapes. Look to the future lads and ladies.

Im a Cork fan and i think Waterford fans are well entitled to feel hard done by about some of their defeats.That team of McGrath Flynn Browne Shanahan and Mullane were well worth one all ireland.It's a pity that they didn't as for belittling other teams victories i have always found the vast majority of Waterford fans to be very gracious in victory or defeat.

randd1

deisebhoy17 wrote: »

The system definetly let us down that year 3 games in 3 weeks defeinetly didnt help our cause but we have to admit that a fairly poor Limerick team caught us and outfoxed us. If we werent good enough to win that day we were never going to be good enough to beat Kilkenny.

I suppose what goes around comes around, Limerick had to play Waterford in the Munster final which was their fourth tough game in 5 weeks, two of which went to extra time.

It was the defense again that let Waterford down in that AISF, they were clearly better than Limerick but just couldn't defend that day.

Based on that defensive performance, which was not unique with Waterford that year because they were conceding a lot of goals in games, I'm not sure myself either would they have beaten Kilkenny, Kilkenny had basically won that final in 8 minutes and did enough after that, and they looked like they always had a gear or two more if needed. Add in basically the same teams faced off in the final the following year and well...

Straight Talker

deisebhoy17 wrote: »

I agree that was our best year and we looked like we could go all the way but looking back on it now I dont think we would have beaten Kilkenny in the final anyway. I dont think people appreciated at that stage how good this Kilkenny team was and having beaten them in the league final they would have been more than ready for us in an All Ireland final.

The system definetly let us down that year 3 games in 3 weeks defeinetly didnt help our cause but we have to admit that a fairly poor Limerick team caught us and outfoxed us. If we werent good enough to win that day we were never going to be good enough to beat Kilkenny.

Deisebhoy that bit in bold gives a real insight as to why Waterford could never beat Kilkenny.Ye were good enough in 98 and 04 to beat Kilkenny but ye didn't believe that ye could.Waterford played the best hurling all year in 07 and if the players believed in themselves they probably would have beaten Kilkenny that year.Then again would that dodgy full back line have held the Kilkenny forwards.That Waterford team always conceded loads of goals.For all the negative talk about Justin McCarthy in Waterford the team reached their peak as a playing group that year under him.That Limerick team actually gave an account of themselves in the 07 all ireland final.They were the better team on the day in that semi final but it's hard to keep going for three sundays in a row.I think Waterford would have beaten Limerick if that match was put back a week.

randd1

Straight Talker wrote: »

Im a Cork fan and i think Waterford fans are well entitled to feel hard done by about some of their defeats.That team of McGrath Flynn Browne Shanahan and Mullane were well worth one all ireland.

It's a pity that they didn't as for belittling other teams victories i have always found the vast majority of Waterford fans to be very gracious in victory or defeat.

I thought their hurling, the great games, the passion and hype their supporters brought to hurling, and the great atmosphere at the games would have been well rewarded with an AI.

That said since 98 Waterford have played 9 semi-finals (98,02,04,06,07,08,09,10,11) and won only one where they were duly trounced in the final. You cant deserve an All-Ireland if you don't get to the final.

Its a pity they didn't make more finals, their fans were great craic win or lose and deserved more days in September.

Straight Talker

randd1 wrote: »

I thought their hurling, the great games, the passion and hype their supporters brought to hurling, and the great atmosphere at the games would have been well rewarded with an AI.

That said since 98 Waterford have played 9 semi-finals (98,02,04,06,07,08,09,10,11) and won only one where they were duly trounced in the final. You cant deserve an All-Ireland if you don't get to the final.

Its a pity they didn't make more finals, their fans were great craic win or lose and deserved more days in September.

In 08 i think Waterford were past their peak and the team were in no fit mental state to play in an all ireland final.There's no doubt that the statistic of 1 all ireland semi final win out of 9 attempts sticks out.I put that down to mainly a lack of composure at the business end of the championship,bad luck and a lack of a settled full back and goalie although the number 1 shirt was sorted when Clinton Hennessy came on the scene.Still though that Waterford team played some great hurling on their day,they captivated the nation and they raised the standards of Waterford hurling that's some legacy to leave behind.Maybe in time the likes of McGrath Browne and Mullane will be the inspirations for the next Waterford all ireland winning team.

randd1

Straight Talker wrote: »

they raised the standards of Waterford hurling that's some legacy to leave behind

And that's what its all about, there'll be young lads in Waterford hurling because of these guys that might not have hurled at all and that can be only good for Waterford in the long run.

deisebhoy17

Straight Talker wrote: »

Deisebhoy that bit in bold gives a real insight as to why Waterford could never beat Kilkenny.Ye were good enough in 98 and 04 to beat Kilkenny but ye didn't believe that ye could.Waterford played the best hurling all year in 07 and if the players believed in themselves they probably would have beaten Kilkenny that year.Then again would that dodgy full back line have held the Kilkenny forwards.That Waterford team always conceded loads of goals.For all the negative talk about Justin McCarthy in Waterford the team reached their peak as a playing group that year under him.That Limerick team actually gave an account of themselves in the 07 all ireland final.They were the better team on the day in that semi final but it's hard to keep going for three sundays in a row.I think Waterford would have beaten Limerick if that match was put back a week.

Dont agree with that at all. in 04' i dont think anyone didnt beleive we had the beating of Kilkenny. While they were going for 3 in a row they werent the powerhouse they proved to be 3 or 4 years down the line. They had a bit too much for us on the day, our fullbackline was found out a bit, conceded a couple of goals early on and it was curtains then really there was too much to do. In 98 Kilkenny hadnt won an All Ireland in 6 or 7 years they were only about 4th or 5th team in the country so there was definetly no inferiority complex there either.

Agreed ever since the AI defeat in 08 waterford seem to go out on the field against kilkenny already a beaten team but to be fair were not the only ones. But prior to 08 I dont think there was ever any real fear of them.

mccarthy37

randd1 wrote: »

I suppose what goes around comes around, Limerick had to play Waterford in the Munster final which was their fourth tough game in 5 weeks, two of which went to extra time.

It was the defense again that let Waterford down in that AISF, they were clearly better than Limerick but just couldn't defend that day.

Based on that defensive performance, which was not unique with Waterford that year because they were conceding a lot of goals in games, I'm not sure myself either would they have beaten Kilkenny, Kilkenny had basically won that final in 8 minutes and did enough after that, and they looked like they always had a gear or two more if needed. Add in basically the same teams faced off in the final the following year and well...

Yes Limerick did play three Sundays on the trot before the Munster Final but they had the cushion of the back door if they failed where as we played three hard games that were all knockout.
I felt very uneasy before meeting Limerick in the Semi Final as I felt it was a real banana skin. If you look back on the Munster Final of that year it was a very close game until Dan's hat trick which put a gloss on the final score. Brian Begley was very unlucky in the first half of that game not to score a goal and if that had gone in Limerick could have won.
All looking back now and we had some great days and we all had money in our pockets. Did you notice how many people were dining out of the boots of their cars this year. Some change from the days when we had to queue to get in to the best Restrauntants or pubs in Thurles Cork and Dublin. Looking forward to better days.

Straight Talker

deisebhoy17 wrote: »

Dont agree with that at all. in 04' i dont think anyone didnt beleive we had the beating of Kilkenny. While they were going for 3 in a row they werent the powerhouse they proved to be 3 or 4 years down the line. They had a bit too much for us on the day, our fullbackline was found out a bit, conceded a couple of goals early on and it was curtains then really there was too much to do. In 98 Kilkenny hadnt won an All Ireland in 6 or 7 years they were only about 4th or 5th team in the country so there was definetly no inferiority complex there either.

Agreed ever since the AI defeat in 08 waterford seem to go out on the field against kilkenny already a beaten team but to be fair were not the only ones. But prior to 08 I dont think there was ever any real of them.

In 98 and 04 Waterford were good enough to beat Kilkenny but for whatever reason they didn't.In 98 they just seized up.In 04 they started a rookie goalie who conceded two poor goals and Paul Flynn was the only forward that performed.Oh well that's all history now.

Mountainlad

What's done is done, and what's won is won, and what's lost, is lost and gone forever.

mccarthy37

Mountainlad wrote: »

What's done is done, and what's won is won, and what's lost, is lost and gone forever.

But I still love my Dirty Old Town

Jarjohn

Those were happy days, in so many many ways...

deisebhoy17

Straight Talker wrote: »

In 08 i think Waterford were past their peak and the team were in no fit mental state to play in an all ireland final./QUOTE]

probably not a bad assessment of it actually. Tony Browne even said as much in an interview a while back. waterford kind of snuck into the final that year without actually playing very well. bar the semi against tipp the draw was kind to us. we drew offaly and wexford avoiding teams like cork and galway, and while in someways it was kharma for the previous year in the end it proved to give us a false sense of where we were really at, until we got to the all-ireland.

P0rn0King

I can see waterford not winning any games in the forth coming championship

solarith

P0rn0King wrote: »

I can see waterford not winning any games in the forth coming championship

Great story, would read it again.

Deise Tom

deisebhoy17 wrote: »

I agree that was our best year and we looked like we could go all the way but looking back on it now I dont think we would have beaten Kilkenny in the final anyway. I dont think people appreciated at that stage how good this Kilkenny team was and having beaten them in the league final they would have been more than ready for us in an All Ireland final.

The system definetly let us down that year 3 games in 3 weeks defeinetly didnt help our cause but we have to admit that a fairly poor Limerick team caught us and outfoxed us. If we werent good enough to win that day we were never going to be good enough to beat Kilkenny.

We will never know now if we would have beaten Kilkenny in 07. It is harder to beat a team second time around that it is the first, and Kilkenny after the league final defeat would be up for the game, to get one back on Waterford and all that, but you could also argue that Waterford would have gone into a game against Kilkenny believing that they could have beaten Kilkenny, having beaten them that may. Whether we beat them then or not as i said is something that we will never know, but if we did not beat them, one thing could be assured is that things would have been much closer than they were in 2008 when we as a county were embarrassed with what happened, the game plan or lack of one and all that.

What a pity that we cannot find out if someone one the county board after the tough games with Cork, had not made contact with Officials in Croke Park to see if the game with Limerick could be put back to the following Saturday afternoon. Maybe in time we will find out, and if we did, maybe we will also find out what reasons were given for not putting the game back.

Deise Tom

randd1 wrote: »

I suppose what goes around comes around, Limerick had to play Waterford in the Munster final which was their fourth tough game in 5 weeks, two of which went to extra time.

It was the defense again that let Waterford down in that AISF, they were clearly better than Limerick but just couldn't defend that day.

Based on that defensive performance, which was not unique with Waterford that year because they were conceding a lot of goals in games, I'm not sure myself either would they have beaten Kilkenny, Kilkenny had basically won that final in 8 minutes and did enough after that, and they looked like they always had a gear or two more if needed. Add in basically the same teams faced off in the final the following year and well...

Nobody could argue with what you are saying there, but Limerick did have the back door system to fall back on if they lost against Tipp in any of the games that they played in. In the semi finals Waterford did not have it.

While it could be argued that the Back Door thing is a good thing, I am not in favour of it. I much prefer a straight knockout competition. I dont think you could call it fair that a team that plays a game and looses up to and including a provincial final gets a second chance of reaching an All-Ireland if they loose, but the team that wins the provincial final when they loose their first game they are kicked out of the competition.

deisebhoy17

Deise Tom wrote: »

What a pity that we cannot find out if someone one the county board after the tough games with Cork, had not made contact with Officials in Croke Park to see if the game with Limerick could be put back to the following Saturday afternoon. Maybe in time we will find out, and if we did, maybe we will also find out what reasons were given for not putting the game back.

hindsight is great but being on the crest of the wave at the time im sure a lot of people thought at the time that when the momentum is going if its not broken dont fix it

IanVW

Anyway where alls finnished talking about the past any news on 2013 squad?:)

Motivator

From talking to players past & present 2004 is the one that got away, everything went wrong on the day. Mullane missing, the plane fiasco, the weather, early goals etc. everything went wrong on the day. 2007 is the year that everything thinks back on but 2004 was the year to win an All Ireland & god knows when a better one will come again. In 2007 KK were too strong & they probably could have beaten Waterford by the same margin as 2008. In 2008, Cody & KK were out to get revenge for Waterford "talking down" KK after the league final the year before. They waited a year to get revenge. In 2007, KK just kept a bit of distance between themselves & Limerick, they killed the game off early & took their foot off the pedal & in their own words "enjoyed the game". In 2008 Cody basically sent them out to humiliate Waterford. Apparently he told the panel not to look at the scoreboard, don't listen to the crowd, don't listen to Waterford just go & "put them in the ground".

culbaire666

When it boils down to it lads we didn't preform to the best of our ability when it mattered 04,07 and 08.This generation of players from 1998 on wards have given us some great days out and memories.We probally over achieved in the last 15 years looking at our history.

Ando's Saggy Bottom

Agree that 04 was the big chance. It sickens my hole that we had lost that game before we ever got the pitch and that simple things like pre game travel and preparation were botched so badly. How f*cking hard can it be to organise a trip up the road to Dublin? Its hard enough to win an AI without handicapping yourself further with bad organisation. As long as the county is the shambles it is off the field we haven't a hope of every seeing Liam cross the Suir again. Sad to say it continues to this very day with the financial situation the county board finds itself in and stupid stupid sh*t going on like that botched festival in Fraher Field.

As Roy Keane says, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. The structures aren't in place for success in the county. Its a miracle that we did as well as we did dince 98 tbh and a testament to the natural talent of that generation that they did what they did in spite of the shambolic way GAA is run in Waterford. No wonder they laugh at us in Tipp, KK and Cork, while paying backhanded compliments to our "golden generation."

deisebhoy17

Motivator wrote: »

From talking to players past & present 2004 is the one that got away, everything went wrong on the day. Mullane missing, the plane fiasco, the weather, early goals etc. everything went wrong on the day. 2007 is the year that everything thinks back on but 2004 was the year to win an All Ireland & god knows when a better one will come again. In 2007 KK were too strong & they probably could have beaten Waterford by the same margin as 2008. In 2008, Cody & KK were out to get revenge for Waterford "talking down" KK after the league final the year before. They waited a year to get revenge. In 2007, KK just kept a bit of distance between themselves & Limerick, they killed the game off early & took their foot off the pedal & in their own words "enjoyed the game". In 2008 Cody basically sent them out to humiliate Waterford. Apparently he told the panel not to look at the scoreboard, don't listen to the crowd, don't listen to Waterford just go & "put them in the ground".[/QUOTE]

what utter rubbish