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

dubcat51 wrote: »

We wernt playing tipp last night.joyce would have been better at 3 than padraig and padraig would have given us more than fogarty at 5.also padraig usualy chips in with a couple of points and his scores are normally inspirational.

Fogarty was one of our better players last night.

WhatsGoingOn2 wrote: »

Fogarty was one of our better players last night.

He is not as good a 5 as padraig.think back nearly 12 months to the scores padraig got in the replay v waterford and the 14 replay v tipp.all star last year at 5.

Shirleysrumbler wrote: »

Tipp fans were right not to jeer Mick as he's not
a.A halfwit who went whinging on Late Late Show(Re Unemployment) when he was to lazy to get up in the morning-like most electricians C2010.
b.A gobs***e who follows an opponent around Croke Park mimmicking some kind of angst ridden pervrert.
c.Spends two seasons contemplating whether he's retired or not.
d. Regularly runs for cover when his club needs him.

Ya left out the 3 goals he hammered against ye in 2010 and humiliated Noel hickey

Well this year is over so let's start talking about what remains, i.e. Minor and U-21 or next year.

If Cody is to stay on,
1) he needs to change the selectors:
Keep Dempsey
Bring back M Fogarty
Bring in Shefflin (Shefflin was amazing at barking orders at this forwRds organising them when he played, getting them to interlink well and to show for the ball, our forwards could do with him).
Drop Lyng and McGarry.

2) he needs to play his best players in there best positions
E Murphy
P Murphy
J Holden/ J Lyng or A N Other
A N Other
P Walsh
J Lyng/Joyce
C Buckley
Fogarty
A N Other
TJ Reid
A N Other
A N Other
R Hogan
C Fennelly
A N Other

3) I said it before and I'll say it again now, he needs to decide what newish and U21 players he wants to bring in, and drive them hard from Nov 2017 onwards. By thIs I mean, he needs to physically push these players and play them throughout the league. Waterford and Corks younger lads are far superior to KKs - mentally, physically and are far more driven. He needs to play them in every league game, and so what if we are relegated, but I want to see, hard nose, driven, determined young lads next summer, hungry for their place in the team. Id only add Blanchfield, Leahy and O Shea to this group, he rest need a rest and need to be saved until next summer. But he needs to push these new lads hard in training from next Nov 2017.

4) he needs to dictate what's happening at U-21 training as the players coming to him are years off being ready go play senior, which is wrong.

5) he needs to drop from the panel the players that are never going go make it, and try younger lads that might gain more from experience.

6) he needs to be ready, to play, multiple styles, running game, diagonal ball and high ball in to the forwards.

7) the work rate this year was miles off other years and that needs to be brought back to previous levels.

Core group for next year still very strong.2x murphys p.walsh buckley tj richie walter colin.after that joyce fogarty lester for me.then ger with a league campaign and then the new guns leahy cleere j walsh donnelly ryan scanlon etc.mick fennelly if he gets a good run in the league.would like to see henry in to give the whole thing a big lift.

dubcat51 wrote: »

He is not as good a 5 as padraig.think back nearly 12 months to the scores padraig got in the replay v waterford and the 14 replay v tipp.all star last year at 5.

Fogarty is turning out to be very average, simply not able for Barron midfield and little influence wing back.. Average in the air, skill level, speed and striking very moderate. Against the sweeper Saturday Kilkenny needed attacking speedy wing backs to create attacks, Fogarty picked up a few loose balls in his own half but other than that now i'm very disappointing in him.

KK's backs lacked that raw aggression that should be there but isn't. When the ball comes into our back line especially our full back line our backs should be swarming all over it, Saturday night they were like lambs.

Midfield - forever and a day I'm saying now that our half back, midfield and half forward lines leave opposition players free in the middle third. The opposition destroy us in this area each game. Tipp did it last Sept, Wexford did it in June and Waterford did it Saturday night.

The sweeper - we were getting nothing from the extra defender so why not try something different and put three in midfield, or even seven players forward, spread out the play and make Waterford fight man to man for the ball. We needed to try something different.

Regarding the U-21s

There's a lot of work to be done with that team if they are to stand a chance of winning that competition, which looking at the raw talent, they should.
Firstly I thought that the wexford side gave us the worst of the three games we had e we before the man was sent off.
Our backs are the weakest part of that team, Cleere looked good but is not good enough to make the senior centre back position.
Midfield were decent enough as were the forwards. Murphy is barely hanging on to his place and was very average outside of the frees.
The full forward line - well I wouldn't have a go at them as they didn't see much decent ball.
Myself I would have called, Cleere, Morrissey, Scanlon, Leahy, Murphy, Lyng and Walsh over after the game and made it clear to them that the reason the forwards got no goal, was solely down to them, and that the next day they either learn to know when to play decent ball into the full forward line and when to go for points, or there off.
A number of you won't agree with me, but this is a team game, and we need a scoring full forward line and we got a load of wides from our the field, a big score mind ya and crap ball into the full forward line. For this reason it would be unfair to rate the full forward line.

JJs Left Hand wrote: »

We pushed forward on the extra Wexford defenders in the league and that only made their half more congested and left more space in our backs for them to crucify us. The idea is to create space not reduce it. This needs the defenders playing the ball into space and needs the forwards to actually ****ing move off the ball which none of our forwards do bar maybe Kevin Kelly. Look at Cadogan yesterday.. He was nearly always 3 or 4 yards ahead of his man making diagonal runs. Great to watch.

Also Village, did Fogarty ride your sister or something because you've a serious vendetta against him.

No the wife haha..

Vendetta against nobody only analyzing the current state of Kilkenny hurling and what we lack. Fogarty is rated as one of Kilkennys better hurlers and i dont think he justifies that, so lads like him take a bit more slack

Jaysus, they are really milking it on WLR...
still playing highlights of their World Cup, i mean Qualifier , win .....
#58Years

Noddy33 wrote: »

The KK tactics and team selection were just completely wrong for this. I rate Rob Lennon but we all know he a big lad so pace not his strong point so the logic of putting him on Waterfords most athletic forward Gleeson was baffling. Also have to wonder where the selection of Jonjo came from. He wasnt good enough to even come on a sub in the the first two games and then all of  a sudden is thrown in to start on Saturday. Training last week would have been more tailored for recovery so couldnt have had a chance in a training match to make a statement.Think Lester was harshly shafted too and after his impressive cameo in Limerick match he had to start again Waterford.

I expect a few players to retire..........think Fennelly, Prender and lester just to name a few might call it quits and then think alot of the fringe players will be let go as a big shake up of the squad is needed. We will always be there or there abouts but dont see us winning the All Ireland for next 2/3 years and need to develop a team around the quality players like Leahy, Buckley and Adrian Mullen

Think Cody will stay on with Dempsey as he knows we have some good young talent coming through but expect changes in Selectors set up but cant see Fogarty returnig

Agree with most of this especially the farrell and lenno one,to leave lennon on gleeson was madness
After all the experience our management and most of our players just can't cope with sweepers
I definitely think our Selectors will go maybe someone like the dodger will be brought in
I'd say joyce and pender will go but it'd be hard to blame Joyce if he did,lester might stay and mick Fennelly maybe if bhale win and his captain.

Agree re jonjo, I couldn't understand why/how he started. He proved in last years' semi final that he does not operate well in swarmed blanket congestion. He got a load of ball in the first 5 mins, he got his lovely diagonal ball to hand on the wing and could only manage an off balance awkward looking shot ( on his good left side!)

Congratulations to Waterford, they were hungrier and better on the night. There was no All Ireland in this KK team anyway and I think they've saved us a humiliation against Tipp or Galway. BUT in saying that I think the most tragic and unfortunate thing about this year and Saturday night was the missed chance to put an end to the sweeper system. I think Fair Play to Cody in honourably trying to beat to the sweeper system (on two occasions) with the first time long ball. If lady luck was on our side Bolger would have gotten something against Wexford and it would have put Davy one step closer to the end. And last Saturday we could have stolen it against Waterford in the last moments of normal time(or TJ missed frees or James Owens first have performance and last free against TJ) Then Waterford and good hurling people would have turned on McGrath and Waterford would appoint their successful U21 hurling manager and they'd be back hurling like they did in the naughties. I have great sympathy for the forwards. Whilst they could be making a few more diagonal runs, where are they supposed to run to? Across the sweeper or out to the 45/65 flags into the retreating wave? TJ won a low ball the other night in a central position and had to bounce off about 5 fellas just to get his head up to find someone free. Cadogan got great space and runs against them only because Waterford were on the brink of moving away from sweeper clogging style. While Waterford and Wexford have won nothing, a victory over KK is the same as the victories for Donegal football over Kerry and Dublin in the last few years-Donegal won nothing in those years but blanket sweeping was considered a huge success and copied by all. Even the commentary of the media and elders of Hurling have eased up on the sweeper blanket system, they're beginning to accept it, only two years ago they were blasting McGrath out of it... but now he's a magician/masterstroke. It's already seeping into and becoming more prevalent in club hurling. Once again fair play to Cody in trying to prove that traditional long ball over the blanket sweeper would prevail (you hear that phrase a lot in football btw) Last year, Tipp beat the Waterford sweeper with long high ball putting him on the back foot, it does work. But kilkenny gave in a lot of low long ball to the full forward last Saturday which De Burca was able to attack or with some great catches.

Catch 22 with team selection. It's no place for fellas with a light build against the Waterford blanket, no place for a lad like Kevin Kelly.. then if you go with strength like Lennon or Joyce your left with slow fellas who aren't comfortable being dragged into the middle of the pitch.
The three injured lads this year were found out (Mick F, P Walsh, R Hogan). They fatigued and were caught for some sloppy mistakes that led to scores directly or indirectly against us.
Cody could try and put out a load of cones and get lads running in waves in all directions around the half forward line but I don't think it's in a lot of our lads make up to run around like that ( Blanch, Wally, Richie, Fogarty, Deegan Lennon, old Mick Fenn) On a hopeful note it does seem to be in the U21 team- this kind of run and handpass to a man on the shoulder starting in the half back line and ending in a long distance score, often on the opposite side of the field to where it started. Hopefully hurling doesn't go this way. I never thought I'd say this but I hope Tipp or Galway trounce the sweeper systems to death, even though I've Waterford blood and would have supported them for years.

Nickindublin wrote: »

I think we need to look at the year in a whole. It's been really poor. Players first touch was very poor and management and selectors have questions to answer around training, tactics, injuries and player/team selections. It's very hard to pinpoint from a distant what has gone wrong. We can only speculate. It maybe just staleness has set in.

The positives for me was the players never gave up. The U21 and Minor teams are showing promise.

I think for next year Cody needs to change his selectors. I think also he will need to change the squad and cut loose some of the guys who have been there a while but never quite made it. I do honestly believe we have as good a first 15 as any other county. But for some reason or another it just never happened this year.

Not to many positives to take really, hopefully a few u21s play a more prominent role next year. TJ will be 31 next year and Richie Hogan will be 30, Mick Fennelly 33. Have to start looking at players coming through now. Adrian Mullen and Richie Leahy should be starting Championship next year, we have to back the youth, never been really Cody's way but we have no choice now, Kilkenny need 5 r 6 lads with really quick hurling to freshen things up. Too many palyers on the team are not up to the skill level required to compete at the highest level, they may be hard working and fit but not the hurling that is required to win All Irelands

Anyone heading in to the Intermediates match on Wednesday in the park? Wonder when the team will be announced?