Kilkenny GAA Thread

Looking to hear from season ticket holders. No hard copy plastic tickets been issued this year you are issued an e ticket through your account but just noticed i have been issued tickets for only 4 of our league matches, Dublin in Parnell park the missing ticket, anyone else have this issue?

Also not sure how this e ticket system is going to work come the club action later in the year, are they going to be issuing e tickets for Junior league matches?!

It definitely includes the Senior club finals day, not sure about the Junior.

James o Connor said after the semi final they're hopeful that ronan corcoran will be back. He was a loss the other day because he has being very good throughout. Darren mullens injury could be serious I think I read it was AC shoulder. The match up we all expected might not go ahead now with dessie so it'll be interesting to see what they do here. Will they move back darragh corcoran maybe?Darren mullen is cursed with injury we mightnt get to see him reach his full potential In a kk jersey. It has the makings of a cracking match. Shamrocks have got out of jail a few times amd ballygunner look to have that little bit extra in them and win at all cost this year although apart from the quick goals the last day there was little in their match.

Kieran’s we’re beaten by an amalgamation of South Dublin schools who can’t progress beyond the Leinster championship. Both Kilkenny schools play each other now and either one can still progress.

I'd be appalled to hear Kieran's did anyting like that and frankly doubt they did. Suggesting they may have actually paid for players to attend the school is for me well out of order,

Also, there were 7 schools (not 5) in the Leinster A section this year and all were good standard. Some of the games in the Harty were terribly one sided

He is in the counsel now. Miley purcell from the rower and declan Wall from mullinavat over the team

To be fair callan are putting in a big effort recently..conor fogarty/ canice hickey/pj delaney also brian butler drom ballyhale are all teachers there and involved in the teams..the first year's went away to kilkenny for a day recently and did lots on work on fitness/ conditioning/ diet etc

Not only that but in kierans you then see new players who have been approached coming into the school in 5th and 6th year making it even harder for that young player to get onto the A panel and get some schools hurling. In fairness to CBS they don't get involved in any of that nonsense.

There's enough schools in Kilkenny to create a few regional schools teams in the county. According to the secondary school registry, the following schools have the following number of boys.

Ballyhale – 117 boys

Gaelscoil – 137 boys

Callan – 298 boys

Castlecomer – 327 boys

Kilkenny College – 468 boys

Graiguenamanagh – 77 boys

Johnstown – 353 boys

Thomastown – 191 boys

Mooncoin – 96 boys

Kilkenny Tech – 144 boys

St Kierans – 767 boys

CBS – 801 boys

Abbey Community College (Half Kilkenny, half Waterford, run by Kilkenny VEC) – 550 boys

You could reasonably create 4 different regional schools teams to play Kieran's and the CBS in a Kilkenny league. Say for example Ballyhale, Mooncoin and Abbey College make up South Kilkenny, Jojhnstown & Castlecomer would make up North Kilkenny, Thomastown along with Graiguenamanagh & Kilkenny College would make up East Kilkenny and Callan, The Gaelscoil and Kilkenny Tech could make up West Kilkenny. Hell, if you needed to make the most of it you could invite the likes of Good Council and the Carrick on-Suir schools that would have quite a few pupils from Kilkenny in them if you wanted.

There'd be serious logistical problems alright, and the schools would have to buy into it, but where there's a will there's a way.

Probably highly unlikely, but it could be an option.

A bit of research shows that the Callan CBS team of 1983 won an All Ireland B title with 180 boys on roll. Admittedly this team had Bosco Bryan, John Power and a smattering of good club hurlers.

They won Leinster A about 8 years later with maybe 220 on roll.

Back in the day schools with 200 to 300 boys competed well in the old colleges A & B. Part of that was more players getting decent competition. Nowadays we have less than half the numberr of players in KK getting good second level competition in comparison with 40 years ago.

So the average year size in Kieran's is 127.8 students when I was in first year in the early 90's there was 160 in my year. In my year there were plenty of good hurlers and a few lads joined after Junior Cert, Donnacha Fahy from Tipp joined our year and should have been a Tipp staple but fell by the wayside was a fabulous hurler. The best lad wasn't that great in school but turned out to be a King when he left. Other than that there was a lot of good club hurlers and a few bright lights at underage with Kilkenny but no real standouts in our year. We also had boarders in my time so there were lads able to come from further afield. Still I can't remember too many lads from further south than Ballyhale Carrickshock or Kilmoganny. A few from Thomastown and the Bridge. Plenty from Freshford, Tullaroan and Ballycallan and a few from Urlingford and Lisdowney most were from town, OLG, Boro and of course the Village. Add in less than 20 boarders from further a field but most from Co Kilkenny. There was plenty of talent before and after my year but there wasn't any great concentration of talent in Kieran's for that age group. The problem is that guys want to try and have a Colleges medal on their hurling CV and their best chance is Kieran's so their a victim of their own success and it does seem to be impacting Kilkenny to a minor degree but that is not Kieran's fault. It is the County boards fault for leaving the rest of the school's behind and our underage structures in rag order. Hopefully Dempseys review and implementation of the recommendations can get us back on the right track.

This is a problem going back to the 50's and 60's however when you had the likes of Eddie Keher from Inistioge John Alley from Durrow, Pat Carroll from Lisdowney and I'm sure many more that won't come to me just now all hurling in Kieran's. DJ and Pat Nail in the late 80's. The best hurlers have for a longtime gravitated to Kieran's perhaps the issue is more lads now seem to have an over inflated view of their abilities and they think they can do well in Kieran's cause their the star player in a small country club. Some can but most won't. If they want to measure themselves against the best you cannot stop them but it doesn't mean they'll succeed most won't.

Didn't a kierans team get beaten in the early naughties in leinster with the likes of Tommy, Jackie, Brian Carroll of offally, Mick Rice, Ken Coogan, Brian Dowling and a few more .

Again beaten by a Dublin colleges amalgamation..

Let's not panic.... until they get beaten by cbs.. :)

Bob aylward was .plug Carroll would have been a year ahead with Jimmy Coogan and lad from o loughlins that we have captained minors ..full back sean something? And Joe Young I'd have known

Pat tennyson would never have lacked confidence in fairness 😄

KK v ANT

D Brennan

M Butler C Delaney T Walsh

J Maher H Lawlor D Blanchfield

M Carey P Deegan

J Donnelly P Walsh T Phelan

B Ryan M Keoghan J Bergin

Subs

E Murphy

C Wallace

E Cody

C Heary

C Buckley

M Kenny

S Murphy

W Walsh

T O Dwyer

C Bolger

S Morrissey