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

Powerhouse wrote: »

I do see that. I just don't see the relevance of the point as Sweeney did not reference this. It's a difference between them but in the context of the possibility of a manager staying too long to the point where an obvious successor is not identified and a generation of possibilities passed over I don't think it is a 'significant' difference as you put it. A difference, just not significant in the debate about Cody's future. You are arguing about the nature of the decline not that the decline is not happening.

When Leinster got competitive 5/6 years ago things got harder for Cody. Kilkenny had the system sussed for years. Go hard at the league, play a few club matches, breeze through Leinster ,play another club match or 2, peak for 2 games the All Ireland semi final and Final, whilst having 3/4 of the best players to ever play the game. Everyone was happy.
Kilkenny have regressed and most other top counties have progressed and with Galway in Leinster the whole thing is very competitive. it could be said Kilkenny Conty Board & Management were sleeping at the wheel when other counties were making big strides, the management could be accused of being ignorant/arrogant or underestimating the changes to tactics to the modern game and were left behind, i do see Eamonn Sweeneys argument.

Powerhouse wrote: »

To be honest I think the discussion has been more interesting here this evening than for a long time. There are some who want as Joe Brolly calls it 'Rose of Tralee' discussion and others who have background agendas and are far more interested in finding out who is who and firing PMs to each other in the undergrowth than any informed discussion.

But I think it's a shame that when discussion threatens to be some way adversarial (and I mean on-point and interesting adversarial rather than "last month you said this, today you said that" row for the sake of it adversarial) instead of "how good are Kieran's this year?" that the objectors wade in to try to quench it. I suppose it is a weakness of a single thread operation which caters for everyone that lurkers who come on just for info get irked by genuine argument.

Then again, I know far more people would favour what your view than mine. The Rose of Tralee is very popular!

That's what I was trying to say ...

babyjesus14 wrote: »

Precisely he starts off pointing out Cody's competitive record as a reason he should be sacked and then towards the end of the article he points out Kilkenny's poor record at under 21 level when suggesting an alternate role for Cody. Does he not think there's a link there? How does getting rid of Cody solve that?

You'd think he had the article ready for quite a while and was waiting for a chink in the armour to appear (ie losing some games) and then publish it.
As was mentioned , he started off saying Cody should resign , but then blames Minor and U21s not coming through ?!?
How can Cody be at fault for the other 2 grades not producing/having the talent to feed the Senior team? Or is he?
As was mentioned , I think the County board maybe did relax a bit while we had our glory years. Was there enough forward planning done as regards having the structures/management/players in place for when our "Golden Generation" hung up their hurleys?
We will have a few lean years, I think anyone that knows hurling can see that, but the Media and other counties will keep saying that Kilkenny will always have a chance/be there or thereabouts/serious outfit etc to enhance their own victories and the championship.

Powerhouse wrote: »

I would agree that the system and weakness of Leinster in particular played into Kilkenny's hands during the Cody era albeit in a fairly unmeasurable way. But anyone who said 10 years ago that this was the case were told that if Kilkenny had real competition as was seen among the Munster counties they'd be even better. Never made any sense to me that and it is good to see acknowledged the few times Kilkenny had to peak during the year. I think funnily enough their wins between 2011 & '15 were more impressive than 2006-09 when competition was weaker.

I was never convinced by the above argument at the time and I'm still not. Kilkenny were so good from 2006-09 that they made it easy for themselves.


If Kilkenny and let’s say Cork had swapped provinces around that time, would it have made any difference? I’m pretty certain that Kilkenny team would have handed out similar unmerciful hammerings to all of the Munster teams as they gave to Wexford, Offaly, etc, if they had been playing them every year.


Wexford were actually quite competitive back then outside Leinster. They were treated as a joke by some Munster people when complaining about how easy it was for Kilkenny. Yet no other team seemed to be able to defeat them so convincingly. I believe they had Championship victories over both Limerick and Tipperary during those years. Now I don’t know if that means that the strength of Leinster was underrated or Munster overrated but it comes back to the same thing anyway. Kilkenny were simply far ahead of everyone at that time.


Kilkenny’s wins between 2011 and 2015 were impressive for a different reason. Some of the players had a lot of miles in the legs and it took incredible mental strength and desire to keep winning more when it looked as though Tipperary were going to take over after 2010. But there’s no way the 2011-15 team could be seen as better than 2006-09 in any real comparison.


Kilkenny may have “had the system sussed” for a while but that was more to do with creating such a situation for themselves through the sheer performance and attitude of the team/squad rather than any structural advantage of the Championship.


Kilkenny were so good that it couldn’t possibly last forever. Now things are coming back to normal and there is a lot of rebuilding to be done. Historically, Kilkenny won about two All Irelands every decade and there is no reason for us to feel entitled that we should continue to dominate into the future as we did in recent times.

Ceist_Beag wrote: »

So you ignore my statement that "I think most people will give him credit to know when the time is right as well" then?

We have the greatest hurling manager of all time over us when we are in decline, so we should let him see where it brings us for 3/4 years. Brian Cody won all around him with the greatest team ever with very few competitors for years. There was only ever one team to beat between 2004 -2011, Cork first, then Waterford followed by Tipperary for a few years. Things started to change around 2012, Galway began to get close to Kilkenny, Clare, Cork & Dublin started to improve and things became harder, as stated above they were big all irelands to win from 2012 onward. Then we started to lose the great players and now we are in decline/transition.

It will be very interesting to see how Brian Cody does over the next few years without the great players he had and the introduction of the new ultra competitive format. This will decide his legacy IMO

There's a lot a stuff up here since the match and personally I think peoples reactions to the match and the current squad are way over the top. As most on here seem to agree Kilkenny have come back to the pack after such lofty heights. This is not a bad thing just natural however I think there is a little more to it than a lot of the one dimensional arguments being put forward and my tupence worth on Sweeneys article, as someone said it's like something written in advance. It's just spewed out and to someone with limited knowledge it seems clever and edgy but personally I think it's just bluster.

That is not to say I don't think Cody shouldn't be questioned or challenged and to be honest Sweeney can't know too much about Kilkenny if he thinks people in Kilkenny don't and won't challenge Cody. There have been many detractors and those with only begrudging praise for him in Kilkenny over the years. In serious hurling circles even in 08 & 09 the argument was been put forward by some, that sure Cody wouldn't have won anything in another era and that he was blessed with the players. Now I don't personally agree with this argument but I can see a grain of truth to it. Those same lads say he can't see whats happening on the pitch during a match and make a good timely call and that now he can't contrive a way to beat the sweeper system. These arguments I by and large agree with. Cody is an amazing manager and character in one way but he is in no way infallible in my opinion but I do think he deserves plenty of time if he wants it to help straighten the ship. I would like to see him rebuild the team and then hand it over to the next manager after we get back to our next All Ireland. The main reason being is what I think Cody's best at creating and drawing out character and leadership in players. I would love to see him change and coach our young lads on how to play but that doesn't seem to be his way.

The reason for our unprecedented success over the last almost two decades came down to a few things in my opinion.
A) The decision by the County board to start development squads with ex players leading the coaching back in 1995. The fact they committed to this and saw it through is an absolutely massive part in our success story
Through that process finding and encouraging players to keep at it and develop the correct skill sets. This led to a wider range and better trained bunch of players that Kilkenny had ever produced. The first full batch who'd been through it all started coming out of minor about 2000.
C) We unearthed some of the finest hurlers we've ever produced and they formed an unbelievable team. They were big strong and skilful and could all win there own ball.
D) We had Brian Cody over them to challenge and guide them through this success and somehow managed to keep them hungry.

What most people seem to conveniently forget is that Kilkenny had created the conditions for their own success it worked so well we had a great head start against other counties every year, until a few started to catch up. Now almost every county has a version or a system in place to make sure as much talent as is possible to hold on to, is brought through to county set ups. It took the quickest other counties 7 or 8 years to but in place a development squad type system and they didn't really start to challenge us until 2010-11. The challenge has got harder for Kilkenny now because other counties are now better than they've been they're not relying on fate to bring a strong team together every year. If you think about a graph most counties were bouncing along for decades all pretty much at the same level then a great team would come together for a county and they go above the others but soon come back to the pack. Kilkenny shot up above everyone else and stayed up there. Now other teams have started to rise to that level I still think they're below where Kilkenny were at their best but their close. Our current team has dropped below the main challengers but I expect us to bounce back up in the next year or so and then continue to bounce along with all the others and win a few here and there. Unless someone comes up with some other amazing innovation that can have as big an effect as the development squad had on hurling. Now there were other things happening too, to raise the standard. Dublin had huge investment. Development coaches going around to schools in most counties and other individual initiatives in different counties.

I think when we bounce back into the pack and that may well be this year. Despite what some have said on here there is some really good talent in the county but it needs to be given time and chances to get used to intercounty level. I can take some lads 2 or 3 years to get up to the level and get used to it. I'm in no way pessimistic and happily optimistic (& patient) about our future but then again I only saw Kilkenny win two AI's before I was 21 so for me this is like normal service being resumed. When you loose that many leaders from a dressing room you'll always struggle and having lads like we had also stops others becoming leaders. I think Buckley, Fogarty both Walshs and Eoin Murphy have even taken another step up this year on the evidence of that last match to being our new leaders.

Powerhouse wrote: »

We saw a more realistic view of Kilkenny in the 2009 final when they had to go to the well to get past a rookie team.

A rookie team?
That Tipp team had Corbett, Cummins, Kelly , Callinan , Woodlock, Paddy Stapleton ,Declan Fanning and Brendan Maher, Noel and Shane McGrath.

They got 13 All star nominations in 2009 , (more than Kilkenny got) with 4 of them winning All Stars.
3 of that team had won All stars in 2008 ....
1 got one in 2007

danganabu wrote: »

I think it was the greatest I have ever seen, I constantly have this conversation with lads in the local and they immediately spout about 2010, I understand the thinking as Tipp actually won, but for me, despite the result, the quality of hurling in 2009 was on a differnet level, its very rare for two teams to reach those levels on the one day, especially in a final.

I agree, Tipp played some of the best hurling i have seen for 65mins that day. They completly dominated Kilkenny for 50 minutes. Declan Fanning immense

danganabu wrote: »

Nobody is bigging them up at all, but the fact is that only 3 of the starting 15 were in their rookie year, 5 of team all ready had an AI senior medal and 5 of the team had already won an all star (not the same 5), at the time they had also won back to back Munster titles.

I think we are wasting our time...
He is either
A) a troll
knows a lot about ALL hurling...
C) Can never be incorrect
D) all of the above

Anyway .....

Powerhouse wrote: »

Again you are over-thinking things. I'm just someone with an opinion. You not agreeing with that opinion does not make the opinion-giver a troll even though someone having a different view of the world might astonish you.

Anyway..............

Yes all true, except I'm not over thinking things at all, I'm just of the opinion that
I find your way and your style of delivering that opinion that is , astonishing ..

ar aon nós ....

Lads can ye take it to PM instead of filing this thread with ye're differences. Please.