Waterford GAA Discussion Thread 3 ***Updated Mod Note Post 1***

We only score 1-14 where in other games today teams put up high scores and we conceded 0-24

Galway 1-30 over DIT
Wexford 5-31 over UCD
Cork 1-28 over Kerry (0-18)
Laois 3-18 over NUIG

Munster league lads wouldnt be worrying.
Limerick played a strong team under a new management who needed the win to start off the year in a positive manner.
Majority of the teams who put up big scores have new managers.
Realistically Derek will start only 1 or maybe 2 at most of todays team come championship.
One poster earlier or maybe yesterday criticised management for not experimenting last year today, he did that.

Is Derek going to flog our players too much? I say this as there was a training session before the game on Sunday.. Now ballygunner players seem to be going year round. Would November not have been better suited as a rest and recouperation period? Rest is a vital cog in a players performance, how how of the second half collapse was due to to resbite on Sunday?

Looking at Sunday's team I can't help but notice most of the players were from the east. (no bias I'm from the west)
I know it means absolutely nothing, in fact, if anything it's a good thing (as last year I read an article pointing out the emerging talent, particularly in the west-of course the best players in the county should be picked, but it's almost extra special when there's an almost 50/50 representation on the panel across both the west and the east).
It's just an observation, and means absolutely nothing, but looking at the team and substitutions made (without knowing when the substitutions were made), at one stage, with the exception of Shane Roche and Darragh Lyons, the game could well have been Limerick vs East Waterford, with the following team:
Ian O'Regan (Mount Sion)
Ian Kenny (Ballygunner)
Shane McNulty (De La Salle)
Darragh Lyons (Dungarvan)
Shane Roche (Shamrocks)
MJ Sutton (Ferrybank)
Callum Lyons (Ballyduff Lower)
Mark O'Brien (Ferrybank)
Stephen Roche (Mount Sion)
Billy Nolan (Roanmore)
Killian Fitzgerald (Passage)
Martin O'Neill (Mount Sion)
Gavin O'Brien (Roanmore)
DJ Foran (Portlaw)
Billy O'Keefe (Ballygunner)

Man wrote: »

Good luck to DLS today against Nenagh in the Harty quarter finals, a repeat of their 0-13 to 0-10 win over them at the same stage last year would be nice.

would they be all east lads :):)

Full time AET- Nenagh CBS 0-20- DLS College 2-13

hard luck but had a good campaign which nobody really expected anything from

There is great optimism among Waterford hurling supporters as the county faces into another hurling year. In 2016 we were denied a second league title in a row by incompetent refereeing and a bit of inexperience, we came agonisingly close to an All-Ireland Final appearance and, of course, our under-21s marched triumphantly to the All-Ireland title. However, like some other contributors to this forum, I do not share this optimism.

Many people seem to think that all this Waterford team needs is a bit more experience in order to make the big breakthrough, and point to how close we came to Kilkenny in 2016 compared with the previous year as evidence of the progress being made. I regard this view as being delusory. Despite his ability to create a great group spirit among the players, I do not see any sign of improvement in Derek McGrath’s coaching, tactical, game management and selection inadequacies which, in my view, will continue to prove fatal to our championship prospects.

McGrath seems to think that he will finally achieve the holy grail with the same basic group of players. The team that took the field against Kilkenny in Croke Park in 2016 showed just one unforced change from the corresponding game the previous year (Pauric Mahony in for Maurice Shanahan). There has been no systematic attempt to broaden the frontline squad by developing additional players. Good-quality players like Shane McNulty and Shane Roche have hardly got a look-in. It is no wonder that Paudie Prendergast, who was superb in the recent Munster Intermediate Club Final, left the panel.

Putting out a largely inexperienced team against a nearly full-strength Limerick as happened last Sunday is not my idea of how to identify future talent. In my view, no more than four or five newcomers should be fielded along with a core of experienced players to help them along. Newcomers should be kept on the field for the entire game to give them a decent chance. Too often, newcomers are taken off at half-time just when they are getting up to the pace of the game and replaced by other newcomers who are at a disadvantage against “warmed up” opponents and find the game is over by the time they are getting to grips with it.

Once a panel is decided on for the league, it should be rotated so that all panel members get at least two games. This is how to build depth going into the championship (and also keep all panel members happy).

In my view, several changes are needed in the starting team. Stephen O’Keeffe is too much of a liability. His decision to come off his line and then turn his back on Walter Walsh in Croke Park made it all too easy for him to score his goal which cost us a place in the All-Ireland final. He followed this up with his series of clangers for Ballygunner against Thurles in the club championship. Neither is Iggy Regan a good enough backup goalkeeper. I had assumed that Billy Nolan would be filling this position but if he is to be tried as an outfield player then Jordan Henley should be in the panel as a goalkeeper.

We need someone who can dominate the square at full back, and I also believe that we have to look beyond Philip Mahony at wing back. We need players who can win the ball in the air and drive out with it, as Cillian Buckley and Padraig Walsh do for Kilkenny. Mahony would not get on either the Kilkenny or Tipperary teams and that has to be the yardstick.
I fear that we are in for another year of defensive formation, despite all the attacking talent at our disposal. In an interview in the Examiner before Christmas, Derek McGrath was again expressing concern about being vulnerable to opposing teams. We should be making other teams scared of us, rather than being scared of other teams. The appointment of Philip Murphy as selector also does not augur well, given his orientation towards a defensive formation with Roanmore.

Michael Ryan made a lot of brave decisions in terms of bringing in new players and in game plan for Tipperary in 2016, and it certainly paid off in spades. We all knew that Joey Holden and Shane Prendergast were, at best, of only modest ability in the Kilkenny full back line. However, opposing teams never put them under real pressure because of their preference for withdrawing players out the field to provide extra numbers in defence or midfield. This meant that Paul Murphy was free to provide cover for this full back colleagues. Michael Ryan no doubt noted how Clare had cleaned out the Kilkenny full back line in the league semi-final when Murphy was missing.

In the All-Ireland final, Ryan planted three full forwards on top of the Kilkenny fullbacks and gambled on Tipperary getting the upper hand in the outfield exchanges, which they did. This meant a plentiful supply of good ball to the inside line. With Paul Murphy having his hands full with Bubbles O’Dwyer, Seamus Callanan and John McGrath went to town on Holden and Prendergast and Tipp won by nine points.

This is what Waterford need to do. A full forward line of Stephen Bennett, Patrick Curran and Maurice Shanahan is potentially lethal. Bennett and Curran scored nine goals between them in four games in the Under 21 championship. They have a wonderful mutual understanding and should be played together. In the replay against Kilkenny last August I had my hands on my head when I observed Stephen Bennett turning up in his own half of the field helping out his defenders. What a waste of scoring potential!

Derek McGrath’s defensive formation will never win Waterford an All-Ireland. There are too many aimless balls played up to non-existent forwards, or balls played into isolated, double-marked, forwards, or Hail Mary shots from out the field.

I had hoped that, in appointing a new selector, McGrath would have gone for someone with lots of big match experience, and preferably an All-Ireland winner. In my view, his game management is very poor. Kilkenny have drawn two All-Ireland finals and one semi-final in the last five years. In each case, the opposing team (Galway, Tipperary, Waterford) appeared to be quite happy that they had matched Kilkenny the first day, and put out the same team (more or less) in the replay. Brian Cody, realising that he needed to make changes to improve things, in all three cases brought in new personnel and changed his team around. He won all three replays.

In the replay against Waterford last August, Kilkenny targetted Tadhg de Búrca at centre back, with Michael Fennelly and another Kilkenny player driving into him under high incoming ball. They also targetted the inexperienced Conor Gleeson by putting the much bigger Walter Walsh on him. Kilkenny won the game via the ball they were able to get in this area and there was no response from Derek McGrath (such as moving the powerful Austin Gleeson to centre back and de Búrca to wing back). Even an instruction to de Búrca to bat the ball rather than repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) trying to catch it might have improved things a lot.

In the coming year Waterford will be backboned by players with All-Ireland winning experience at schools, minor and under-21 level. They are excellent, fearless, hurlers with a winning mentality. They are light years removed from the callow team that was cut to pieces by Clare down in Ennis three years ago, an event which appears to have panicked Derek McGrath into a defensive mentality from which he is unable to escape. He needs to either go for it or just go.

robopaddy2 wrote: »

Why so defensive? Just an observation as to why 90% of the starting team were from the east of the county for this particular game, no one complaining. Not like its a county that one part is a hurling stronghold and the other is not. A reasonable case for discussion in my opinion

Well it's not like that at all its January number one they were looking at new players from Waterford not what club your from. Are you trying to suggest that this management team sees the east as a hurling stronghold which is ridiculous. I can guarantee all the management team see is players not clubs isn't it great that smaller clubs are getting looked at and that the days of having to transfer completely gone.

As a county we really need to move on from this bloody east west bias I support Waterford I don't just support the lads from where I am from. You might be here on the wind up but even to think this is what is holding us as a county.

The best thing we have done in recent years is make the under 14 16 and minor all county if only we follow suit with junior and intermediate and eventually get rid of the divisional boards. It seems to be people clinging to what ever little can get. It's 2017 we need to start moving on at this stage.

As a kk supporter im not to bothered about the league.just looking hor some of the talent bubbling under to push through.that and the return of ger and mick should see us
bang there again.kk supporters really looking forward yo this year.