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

Nickindublin

Yes the league was disappointing but i dont think any kk supporter expected us to win it. Clare game was a real low. The Wexford game was disappointing also but we learned a lot about what to expect in June.

I think Cody will have learned a lot from this campaign though. We needed new players and i think we have found a few. He has also used players in different positions. Some to good effect others not. I think the biggest thing he will have learned is which players he can rely from last year's team and the new ones coming in. I also believe he will have at least one new face in the team during the championship. There are IMO 3 or places in that team up for grabs. Training will be fierce.

Going back to last years All Ireland. The loss of Mick Fennelly was massive but i dont think it would have made a difference to the result just the scoreline. IMO the 2 Waterford games killed us. Mentally and physically and with the team going for 3 in row it was just one ask to much.

68deville

In training I reckon is where Cody and his back room team know how things
Will pan out over the coming championship campaign , if they can replicate
The legendary training when all star v all star tore each other to shreds for
Selection , Brennan v Tyrell,Power v Hogan ,Henry v JJ etc and get the
Holden v Blanchfield and Pendergast v Martin and Deegan v O Shea etc
Match ups to be as intense the Kilkenny will have a big bearing on the
Upcoming campaign

Topcat32

Powerhouse wrote: »

Hitchens wrote: »

League titles just don't matter to Kilkenny, or Kerry in Gaelic. Under 21's? Limerick won 3 in a row. Think Clare might have too, but where did it translate into Senior All-Irelands for them?

This is interesting. Kerry's last League titles came in 2004, '06 & '09. They won the All Ireland all three years. They now have no League title in eight years and just one All Ireland. It is interesting how their relative lack of success on the All Ireland front is mirrored by a dip in the League success rate.

Kilkenny have won 8 League titles since 2002. Kilkenny have now gone three years without a League final appearance for the first time since pre-2002.  It may well be that people will look back on Kilkenny at the current time and see that the same correlation between their League/Championship success is there in reverse.

League titles might not matter to these grand counties you mention, but League titles do appear to matter in the sense that they seem to have a correlation with All Irelands and that matters. With competitions where there are so few counties capable of competing at the very highest level very strong teams who are in the right place re. form, injuries and talent will tend to be competing for everything. I can't imagine too many Dublin footballers will be bragging about their League medals either but they keep finding themselves in League finals all the same.

Meath and Cork footballers haven't won a huge number of League titles but it is interesting that of the last five League finals they won they both played in the All Ireland in three of those five years and won them a few times as well. Neither appears to have even an outside chance of winning the All Ireland this year so it is hardy surprising that they are both in division 2 and failed to get promotion. A big drop from their successful days but reflective of the connection between League and Championship.

Cork hurlers are 12 years without an All Ireland. How many League titles have they won in that time? Zero. Dismiss the lessons of the League reluctantly. If you are good enough you should be going well in it. If you're not it tends to flag problems which emerge down the road.

Cork also won 0 leagues between 1999 and 2006 in which time period they won 3 All Irelands, Tipp have not won a league since 2008 but have been consistently in the top 2 of the championship over those years. The last team other than Kilkenny to win the league and championship in the same year was Tipp and 2001 and before that Galway in 1987. It could be argued that some of the battles that Kilkenny were involved in during leagues in this decade did nothing to help either the team in the year in question or the longevity of the players.
I'm not saying that you can ignore the league and the issues that it has raised for Kilkenny this year, but I don't think that it makes sense for the older lads to look to peak for March/April and then look to peak against for June. Even when Kilkenny won the league and appeared to be firing on all cylinders in the final, in this decade in particular there was always one match in Leinster where they looked very flat.

Irish Beef

I don't know how anybody can say we learnt nothing from the league, we have found a full back in Padraig Walsh, a centre back in Jason Cleere, we found out that Buckley is a good option at centre field and we have found a few forward in Richie Leahy and Pat lyng and Conar Martin and given Liam Blanch some much needed experience. Still cant understand the under confidence and impatience of the Kilkenny public (Not everyone now) so! were having a rebuilding year, we probably wont win the All Ireland but this had to happen. I think people need to stop panicking, we didn't have a great league, we were never going to. You cant build a team and try things out and win the league, don't think Cody was worried in the slightest about the league, we're an awful lot better that we looked against Wexford. If we're as poor against Wexford in June it would be more cause for concern.

davidx40

Yes of course we learned from league and players got expierence , but i dont think we found anything major ....Padraig can do a job full back but we miss him out field ....definetly dont agree we found a centre back ...Jason Cleere has an awful lot to prove yet.....nice tidy hurler but intercouny centre back im not so sure....were way to dependent on Tj for scores and to win ball ....in fact its got to point where teams will be saying if we hold him were well on road to beaten kilkenny

FrankCummins

The best of luck to our minors Saturday in Westmeath.

Dionysis

Cody has learned a lot from the league - IMO he did what he should have done, played plenty youngsters to see where they are and who is closest to being ready to play senior. There was no point in playing seasoned lads who we know, and who have played in the last three all Ireland finals. We would gladly have given up division 1 status to get game time into the youngsters. I think most people on here would agree with that. From a county board perspective I'd say staying up 1a was important to them from a financial perspective, so maybe Cody needed to stay up and therefore needed to play more seniors.

Another view point is that you can't just play mainly youngsters as they don't learn from the more established players what's expected.

My one bone with the management this year is that last September we knew we'd be looking for talent this spring. Spring comes along and our young takent is like a deer in headlights. Their not prepared. I would have commented before that Cody could learn from Davy here and it's a fact. The youngsters in Wexford were all go last week. The KK new lads should have been hard at it since last November be fit and full of determination for the league ( note, not the existing players but the new ones). They weren't. This lies at Codys door.

KK have two big problems for Cody at the moment, the youngsters are not ready to come into senior ranks come 22 years of age. And Cody cannot wait until they turn 24/25 to let them into the side. They are needed to be ready younger. The current crop are not and that's fine, no Codys fault. But seeing it coming last year and not pushing them from November 2016 like Wexford did, is.

Dionysis

FrankCummins wrote: »

The best of luck to our minors Saturday in Westmeath.

Does anyone know is this considered an excellent, good, average,below average or poor KK minor team ?

St Kierans defence were turn apart on the colleges final and see plenty of them in there, so have my own concerns.

unrealtime

Minors should win the championship

FrankCummins

Dionysis wrote: »

Does anyone know is this considered an excellent, good, average,below average or poor KK minor team ?

St Kierans defence were turn apart on the colleges final and see plenty of them in there, so have my own concerns.

They won 3-22 0-4 its early days yet they are playing at home next weekend.

Topcat32

Revenge on Westmeath
Hope they do well this year, nice to see two Thomastown lads on the team, a lot of work done at underage there over the last 10 to 15 years which was needed because it was poor for a good few years before that.
Interesting that Ciaran Brennan was neither on the match day panel or the extended panel named yesterday.

brookville

Topcat32 wrote: »

Revenge on Westmeath
Hope they do well this year, nice to see two Thomastown lads on the team, a lot of work done at underage there over the last 10 to 15 years which was needed because it was poor for a good few years before that.
Interesting that Ciaran Brennan was neither on the match day panel or the extended panel named yesterday.

Ciarian brennan isn't eligible as his only 15?good result it could of being tricky but they won't get carried away.I didn't think this year's minor crop was as strong but Kierans and cbs both had decent sides plus whatever else is in the county their never bad

brookville

Dionysis wrote: »

Cody has learned a lot from the league - IMO he did what he should have done, played plenty youngsters to see where they are and who is closest to being ready to play senior. There was no point in playing seasoned lads who we know, and who have played in the last three all Ireland finals. We would gladly have given up division 1 status to get game time into the youngsters. I think most people on here would agree with that. From a county board perspective I'd say staying up 1a was important to them from a financial perspective, so maybe Cody needed to stay up and therefore needed to play more seniors.

Another view point is that you can't just play mainly youngsters as they don't learn from the more established players what's expected.

My one bone with the management this year is that last September we knew we'd be looking for talent this spring. Spring comes along and our young takent is like a deer in headlights. Their not prepared. I would have commented before that Cody could learn from Davy here and it's a fact. The youngsters in Wexford were all go last week. The KK new lads should have been hard at it since last November be fit and full of determination for the league ( note, not the existing players but the new ones). They weren't. This lies at Codys door.

KK have two big problems for Cody at the moment, the youngsters are not ready to come into senior ranks come 22 years of age. And Cody cannot wait until they turn 24/25 to let them into the side. They are needed to be ready younger. The current crop are not and that's fine, no Codys fault. But seeing it coming last year and not pushing them from November 2016 like Wexford did, is.

Id imagine the u21 are back training since last October/November.there's something like 17 u21s in the seniors but it takes more than a year to bulk up i remember looking at Austin Gleeson in 15 in the semi final and compare that to last year it was unbelievable even some of the other waterford youngsters.it's going to take cleere,leahy,john walsh and pat lyng till next year to be physically compete with the big boys.
I still think we'll be competitive in the summer last week was a bad day at the office.I'm lookin forward to the few rounds of Club hopefully we can stay injury free

dubcat51

brookville wrote: »

Ciarian brennan isn't eligible as his only 15?good result it could of being tricky but they won't get carried away.I didn't think this year's minor crop was as strong but Kierans and cbs both had decent sides plus whatever else is in the county their never bad

Can ciaran brennan play when he turns 16 in may?

blackcard

dubcat51 wrote: »

brookville wrote: »

Ciarian brennan isn't eligible as his only 15?good result it could of being tricky but they won't get carried away.I didn't think this year's minor crop was as strong but Kierans and cbs both had decent sides plus whatever else is in the county their never bad

Can ciaran brennan play when he turns 16 in may?

I presume that he will be on the Kilkenny U17 minor team due to play the week after next

dubcat51

Have seen ciaran play for 17s this year in a challenge v waterford.very exciting talent.

unrealtime

Did J Doyle not play for Tipp at 15.
Don't know C Brennan but imagine from the amount of scores that he gets that he must be a strapping big boy

dubcat51

Ciaran brennan is not a strapping lad..he has pace and a eye for goal.

Comerman

blackcard wrote: »

I presume that he will be on the Kilkenny U17 minor team due to play the week after next

When and where's that game on Blackcard?

unrealtime

Home match on 19th.not aware of home venue from site

unrealtime

Jimmy Doyle was just over 15 when he first played minor for Tipp

Realt Dearg Sec

The rules have changed, you're not allowed play fifteen year olds at minor.

brookville

Have the u21s any practice matches coming up?

barneygumble99

https://twitter.com/kilkennycamogie/status/851107410882306049

Kilkenny seniors in the league final against Cork

dubcat51

Well done 2 the kittens.going for back 2 back leagues.

minty81

Is Brennan going to stick with the small ball or be attracted over to England to play moneyball?
The most exciting prospect I can think of since Richie & TJ

FrankCummins

brookville wrote: »

Have the u21s any practice matches coming up?

Do they still play that gold watch tournament with Tipperary that was allway played around Easter correct me if I am wrong.

dubcat51

Dont see him.being signed up by a english club.also cant see him putting waterford fc before kilkenny hurling.

Village87

No time for u21 challenges really, id imagine there all back with there clubs, then out in 2 weeks, 2 weeks after and the following 2 weeks then 10 days to the Dublin match

jeff bingham

Realt Dearg Sec wrote:

The rules have changed, you're not allowed play fifteen year olds at minor.

Is that at club level also? I see in my own club now under17s not allowed play adult