Kilkenny GAA Thread Part 2 **MOD NOTE POST 1***

davidx40

Its not a knee jerk reaction , we just dont have the quality players its as simple as that ,and we wont have them for a few years , we havent being competive even at under 21 for last 3 years so it was bound kick in to senior team , we had unreal time over last 15 years but theres a very tough few years coming

ThaiTanic

worring times for Kilkenny ahead

windy shepard henderson

ThaiTanic wrote: »

worring times for Kilkenny ahead

the same was said of clare and dublin last week after there defeats , its the nature of the league , kilkenny will have there backlash against cork the next day , cody wont allow them to go 20 minutes with out a score again ,besides its only the 19th of February

brookville

windy shepard henderson wrote: »

the same was said of clare and dublin last week after there defeats , its the nature of the league , kilkenny will have there backlash against cork the next day , cody wont allow them to go 20 minutes with out a score again ,besides its only the 19th of February

The backlash was suppose to be today tho its not as straight forward as that.We seem to be a good bit behind the rest while not missing a huge amount of players.considering most of the senior players played walsh cup it expected more especially today

randd1

windy shepard henderson wrote: »

the same was said of clare and dublin last week after there defeats , its the nature of the league , kilkenny will have there backlash against cork the next day , cody wont allow them to go 20 minutes with out a score again ,besides its only the 19th of February

While it is only the 19th of February, it's the 19th of February for everyone else too. The difference is that every other side has shown at least some sort of form and creativity up front. We have played Galway, Waterford and now Clare (who wouldn't be the greatest defensively) over the last three weeks, and the closest we've come to a goal is a missed penalty today. That's not counting the reliance on frees for points.

Every other team look like they're trying to vary their ball forward, from high ball, low fast ball, a runner through the middle or diagonal ball. All we've done is launch sky ball as high and as far as we can aimlessly, usually with the end result of our defence ending up under pressure.

We look predictable and stale. What's more that looks like thats all we have. That's the worry.

Michael Kavanagh

new team tactics need to be looked at, we must be very short of players when you see two players that were playing with there colleges during the week lasted around forty minutes were involved to day. I hope there is a big lash back against Cork you wonder Padraig Walsh full back is he better on the half back line going forward I think he scored average of two points a game last year.

mullinr2

Was at the match. Where do I begin. All I can say lads is that we were a complete shambles. No structure to our backs, first touch off, losing all the 50/50 exchanges. Cannot catch a ball out of the sky anymore. For a big man Walter Walsh is pure useless in the air. He can never get his positioning right. R. Hogan looks like he couldn't give a damn. Attitude is completely off. They looked like a team seriously lacking in confidence, drive and intensity.
No more excuses lads, the decline has come fast. Apparently Ger Alyward has been kicked off the panel. Was told at match. Won't get into it, but it's for serious indiscipline.
Cody has them playing in a way that doesn't suit our current group of forwards. We just don't have those ball winners anymore.
Lads there was a u14 team a few years ago that won the Forristal tournament. They were meant to have been very good. It could have been 3 or 4 years ago. Hopefully we can come good again, but for now, we will just have to watch TIPPERARY dominate for the next 3-5 years.

brookville

randd1 wrote: »

While it is only the 19th of February, it's the 19th of February for everyone else too. The difference is that every other side has shown at least some sort of form and creativity up front. We have played Galway, Waterford and now Clare (who wouldn't be the greatest defensively) over the last three weeks, and the closest we've come to a goal is a missed penalty today. That's not counting the reliance on frees for points.

Every other team look like they're trying to vary their ball forward, from high ball, low fast ball, a runner through the middle or diagonal ball. All we've done is launch sky ball as high and as far as we can aimlessly, usually with the end result of our defence ending up under pressure.

We look predictable and stale. What's more that looks like thats all we have. That's the worry.

Two points from the fowards from play is worrying even for a junior team.

unrealtime

I believe the selection is simply wrong and reduces our chances. Players are selected that will never make it. The rest of the management could take a different view if in charge. They should be given the chance.

JaffaP

Hogan & especially Reid are in steady decline. An atrocious display from start to finish.

Only for Cody's stubbornness he'd have strolled off into the sunset two years ago.

Rightwing

windy shepard henderson wrote: »

the same was said of clare and dublin last week after there defeats , its the nature of the league , kilkenny will have there backlash against cork the next day , cody wont allow them to go 20 minutes with out a score again ,besides its only the 19th of February

You are right there.

The worrying thing from a KK perspective tho is how easily Tipp wiped the floor with them in last years final. It could have been 15-16 point crushing. Have they improved since? Probably not.

Topcat32

mullinr2 wrote: »

Was at the match. Where do I begin. All I can say lads is that we were a complete shambles. No structure to our backs, first touch off, losing all the 50/50 exchanges. Cannot catch a ball out of the sky anymore. For a big man Walter Walsh is pure useless in the air. He can never get his positioning right. R. Hogan looks like he couldn't give a damn. Attitude is completely off. They looked like a team seriously lacking in confidence, drive and intensity.
No more excuses lads, the decline has come fast. Apparently Ger Alyward has been kicked off the panel. Was told at match. Won't get into it, but it's for serious indiscipline.
Cody has them playing in a way that doesn't suit our current group of forwards. We just don't have those ball winners anymore.
Lads there was a u14 team a few years ago that won the Forristal tournament. They were meant to have been very good. It could have been 3 or 4 years ago. Hopefully we can come good again, but for now, we will just have to waistch TIPPERARY dominate for the next 3-5 years.

Pretty strong comment on "R Hogan" and on Ger Aylward based on hearsay. Kilkenny have done pretty well in the Tony Forristel over the last few years so it could be any one of a number of teams, even last years minors did well in it I believe, hard not to be pessimistic about the short to medium term future after today tho.

adrian522

I knew we were in trouble when I read this:

PTH2009 wrote: »

I think Kilkenny will win it but have a funny feeling Wexford might win promotion and go all the way. Davy wants to win everything and has been going very well since he took over down in Wexford

brookville

I'm not going to come on here and slate anyone after the last twenty years we had have being terrific but today was terrible.We had six months to think how we can solve things but things have got dramatically worse and unfortunately there's no quick fix.tipp could beat us by 20 points in thurles while dublin and cork won't fear us.We're vulnerable now whether it's still a hangover from last year or what I don't know

run_Forrest_run

Very frustrating to watch today's game. I lost count of the amount times where a KK player lifted the ball only to bat it away with their hand instead of actually holding the shagging ball :mad:

I know it's only February but jesus H christ it was awful to watch, as sharp as a duvet.

usualstripes

Just on the way back from the game lads and here's my take on the performance:

Eoin Murphy: couldn't really fault him for any of the goals. Solid apart from that.
Evan cody: real baptism of fire and didn't hurl well.
Padrain Walsh: Was very good overall albeit caught for a few points but certainly worth keeping there. Can't be too happy with what was going on around him.
Conor o Shea: Poor from conor and too slow in possession. Got caught out on a number of occasions.
Joey holden: Not going to work in the half back line. Touch wasn't good and not strong enough under the dropping ball.
Paul Murphy:Very poor under the dropping ball. Seemed lost there and needs to go back in the corner. Not getting to the ball fast enough and delivery poor.
Kieran Joyce: Tried hard and gave 100% but his fielding of the ball needs to improve.
Conor Fogarty: Sluggish enough and not physical enough in a ruck type situation.
Cilian Buckley: Got on a lot of ball and did ok but touch and strength in tackles not great.
Liam Blanchfield: Again speed not his strength atm and struggled against the clare half back line.
TJ: Doesn't have the speed to get away and not getting much support around him.
Richie leahy: Weak under the high ball. Had a goal opportunity but needed to get closer to goal to convert.
Richie Hogan: Poor today. 1st touch letting him down.
Walter Walsh: Started ok and had a chance going through on goal but the ball wouldn't come up for him. Another ball won in the corner and headed for goal but no support coming through.
Kevin Kelly: Listening to lads on here about colleges I expected 1st touch to be better and faster. Poor today.

Shane Pender: In instead of Evan cody and 1st ball came through gor a yellow card for a wild pull. Won't do at this level as speed is not there.
John joe: Not strong enough or fast enough to round his man.
Ollie walsh, sean morrissey and James maher came in but didn't make any impression. Maher tried hard.

Overall I don't really know what to pinpoint as we were outfought i most positions but the fact is in every ruck type situation a clare man came out with the ball every time. I don't know if it's to do with the heavy training at the moment but we seem to be very very slow in getting possession and to move from there.
Aerial strength seems to be gone completely.
We didn't seem to want a victory here today.
What needs to happen and is a must is that we have to blow cork out of the water on two weeks time with hurling, strength and speed. If we show a marked improvement in nowlan park against cork it will give us a platform to move on but we need to up our general play an awful lot.
I understand we have a lot of new guys here but it hast to be a fast learning curve. It could be that cody has them in the gym in nowlan park, doing theheavy work so it will pay off from June onwards and I hope this is the case as the 1st touch was off, aerial strength was poor and the lads seemed very heavy legged.

Obviously colin fennelly will return once he is allowed contact again in a few weeks, hopefully ger aylward will add impetus and the rest of the lads will improve on fleet footedness and speed of delivery in the right areas.
Not too down but it will have to improve immeasurably.

LuckyGent88

randd1 wrote: »

While it is only the 19th of February, it's the 19th of February for everyone else too. The difference is that every other side has shown at least some sort of form and creativity up front. We have played Galway, Waterford and now Clare (who wouldn't be the greatest defensively) over the last three weeks, and the closest we've come to a goal is a missed penalty today. That's not counting the reliance on frees for points.

Every other team look like they're trying to vary their ball forward, from high ball, low fast ball, a runner through the middle or diagonal ball. All we've done is launch sky ball as high and as far as we can aimlessly, usually with the end result of our defence ending up under pressure.

We look predictable and stale. What's more that looks like thats all we have. That's the worry.

Clare supporter at the game today. Think your bang on with your assessment of the Kilkenny forward play. Extremely predictable with long ball after long ball and while I do think that that is a strength of your team with Reid and Walsh, teams are starting to adjust to it and make sure they have some form of extra protection in the full back line to counteract this.

Not sure if Hogan was taken off because of his performance today but Kilkenny seem to lack any pace in the forwards. They all just appear big and physical. And the lack of pace isn't just in the forwards, it appears to be in all areas of the field.

brookville

LuckyGent88 wrote: »

Clare supporter at the game today. Think your bang on with your assessment of the Kilkenny forward play. Extremely predictable with long ball after long ball and while I do think that that is a strength of your team with Reid and Walsh, teams are starting to adjust to it and make sure they have some form of extra protection in the full back line to counteract this.

Not sure if Hogan was taken off because of his performance today but Kilkenny seem to lack any pace in the forwards. They all just appear big and physical. And the lack of pace isn't just in the forwards, it appears to be in all areas of the field.

Fowards are static while some of our backs are to slow and not up to this level as I said above its not nice to slate lads especially after a defeat but there's a few players on the panel who aren't good enough whether we have better I dunno.
If brian has any doubt about the challenge ahead I think he knows now it's a big rebuilding job that could take a few years to get us back to the top table.
Tipp went to waterford minus about 7 from last year and beat them comfortably enough while we go to ennis and clare with a half team and fowards score 3 points from play with 5 fowards who started the all ireland

davidx40

High balls up to these forwards will never work ,agree walter walsh is stone useless under high ball ,this thing of hitting balls on top of him is complete waste , we dont seem to know how to play a ball to favour a forward .I just cant see things improving we have problem positions all down the centre

danganabu

brookville wrote: »

Tipp went to waterford minus about 7 from last year and beat them comfortably enough while we go to ennis and clare with a half team and fowards score 3 points from play with 5 fowards who started the all ireland

Tipp started with just 6 of last years AI final team, but I do think Waterford were a bit off the boil after their exertions against ye the week before.

mullinr2

Eoin Larkin @11larkyNot good enough from Kk.still reliant on experienced lads. Younger lads need to have the attitude NEVER give up.too many standing around11:00 AM - 19 Feb 2017  3838 Retweets  8080 likes

Larkin not impressed

munsterlegend

No matter how bad ye were today ye'll still beat us especially at home. We have so many passengers it's hard to know where to begin. If ye lose to us ye definitely are in serious trouble.

Not knowing anything about Hogan's current form but he has had a lot of injuries from the past which are bound to take its toll.

brookville

davidx40 wrote: »

High balls up to these forwards will never work ,agree walter walsh is stone useless under high ball ,this thing of hitting balls on top of him is complete waste , we dont seem to know how to play a ball to favour a forward .I just cant see things improving we have problem positions all down the centre

Infairness to padraig he couldn't be faulted but the experiment with murphy doesn't seem to working he may go back to corner back.
It's going to be interesting to c how they respond from this and what team he picks and maybe it's no harm we've a week off but the cork match is huge but you'd worry about corks forwards pace against some of our slow backs

brookville

danganabu wrote: »

Tipp started with just 6 of last years AI final team, but I do think Waterford were a bit off the boil after their exertions against ye the week before.

Possibly true and I know it's only mid february and the league is very inconsistent unlike previous years when your waiting for a few big names to come back and steady the ship it's not the case this time we can't be expecting mick fennelly to change things at this stage of his career but the bigger problem is none of the younger crew are putting their hands up.if we had to go down with a load young lads and get bet like that you wouldn't be as worried

C__MC

Kilkenny are clearly are not the force they once where, Larkin suggesting players not standing up, perhaps the players are not there or are not the quality of previous times.

The lack of marquee forwards coming through is a worry, quick and wristy hurlers with any eye for a score. Tipp have them as do clare wateford etc. As said, the use/distribution of the ball has to be much better at this level. There is clearly a lack of mobility in the team at present.

It is still early days and I think now the pundits will write kilkenny off. This might suit kilkenny a quiet build up to championship and with a couple of players to return, they may be still best equipped to beat Tipp who will be the team to beat.

Cornerback1

It's a good job we have a 2 week break to the Cork game in NP.

In both games so far, we are very slow out of the blocks and have been 5 or 6 pts down before we start. Why is that? If teams score a goal against us early on they will win the game.


Also we can't seem to have a concerted period of play i.e. score a burst of points. We seem to score a couple then from a puck out, the opposition seem to go straight down the field and pick off a handy score - back to square 1.

JJs Left Hand

Right.. Optimism first:
Kilkennys year is planned to peak in August. All Mick Dempseys hard work is done around this time of the year with August and September in mind. That was grand a few years ago when our players were so naturally gifted that we could still win at 60%. That luxury isn't there anymore but it would explain the lethargy.

Realist:
The team is slow. Fact. I would only consider Bucks and Colin Fennelly fast from our entire panel. I'm massively negative on the move of Padraig to full back. I want the players playing in their best positions and by moving him back and moving Murphy out we've weakened both lines. Play Paul Murphy at 2, play last years half back line and settle on a full back for the year whether that's Holden or Lennon just do it. Pender shouldnt be near the team, he's a liability. But the biggest thing is the ball into the forwards. Again, this wasn't an issue when we were better than everyone but now we and the management team have to adapt.

Also, as much as I loved him as a hurler we don't need Larkin sounding off on Twitter about the lads. Helps noone.

randd1

I hope that there's a big improvement in two weeks time. As it is we're going to probably need two wins and a draw to avoid relegation, especially given we have a minus 14 point total from 2 games.

Unless Cody can work the oracle and a few of the new lads start getting physical and putting themselves about, 1B is looming. With Galway there next year unless Wexford screw up somehow, it could even be a struggle to get out of that if the slide goes down further.

The next three games are vital for the younger lads to stand up, and for some of the established players to find form.

Topcat32

randd1 wrote: »

I hope that there's a big improvement in two weeks time. As it is we're going to probably need two wins and a draw to avoid relegation, especially given we have a minus 14 point total from 2 games.

Unless Cody can work the oracle and a few of the new lads start getting physical and putting themselves about, 1B is looming. With Galway there next year unless Wexford screw up somehow, it could even be a struggle to get out of that if the slide goes down further.

The next three games are vital for the younger lads to stand up, and for some of the established players to find form.

Avoid the relegation play off you mean, which we will be in even if we get 0 points.

Charlie69

JJs Left Hand wrote: »

Right.. Optimism first:
Kilkennys year is planned to peak in August. All Mick Dempseys hard work is done around this time of the year with August and September in mind. That was grand a few years ago when our players were so naturally gifted that we could still win at 60%. That luxury isn't there anymore but it would explain the lethargy.

Realist:
The team is slow. Fact. I would only consider Bucks and Colin Fennelly fast from our entire panel. I'm massively negative on the move of Padraig to full back. I want the players playing in their best positions and by moving him back and moving Murphy out we've weakened both lines. Play Paul Murphy at 2, play last years half back line and settle on a full back for the year whether that's Holden or Lennon just do it. Pender shouldnt be near the team, he's a liability. But the biggest thing is the ball into the forwards. Again, this wasn't an issue when we were better than everyone but now we and the management team have to adapt.

Also, as much as I loved him as a hurler we don't need Larkin sounding off on Twitter about the lads. Helps noone.

Agree with all of this, especially about Shane Pender... lovely lad but seriously exposed last year at this level and he's not going to improve at his age.