Kilkenny GAA Thread

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 😄

New jersey

You'll upset village with that picture JJ 😂

The last half decent jersey we had was 2014.

I’d love to see a return to the full stripes on the sleeves and a collar but that would’ve required a bit of imagination from O’Neills.

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

Good to see Tom Phelan get a chance, interesting that Lawlor seems to be given the chance to bed in at centre back with Padraig pushed up further! Would imagine James Bergin will take the frees. Good to see Matt Kenny back in the squad too

Best of luck to Mooncoin tomorrow.

Great win for them is right. They were probably slightly the better team but a goal near the end from the opposition made it a close finish. Mark Keane was very poor at 6 but when he went full forward he used his strength and caused trouble.Martin o neill was very good at half back and got a great sideline near the end. It was sweet revenge fir mooncoin who lost in 2017 by a point but hats off to both teams a very enjoyable match played in the right manner.

Heard Freshford have a new manager he was in charge of Durrow last year Kevin Deggan.

Well done Mooncoin on a great win in what was apparently a really exciting and high standard match. Whatever we say about inter county no one can argue that our clubs at all levels aren't a credit to the county year in year out.

Also, a fairytale win for Tulla in Harty Cup, taking out hot favourites Ard Scoil Ris Limerick. A great win considering they had never previously even won a match in this competition up till this year, and also given Clare minors were beaten in minor championship last year by 40 points.

I think winners of Kierans v CBS (Tuesday afternoon in Park) will play Gort in quarters and winners of that play Tulla in semi.

Good Counsel will have a tough semi versus winners of Pres Athenry and ASR.

Loreto beaten in AI semi by Pres Athenry via a 45's shoot out. I feel deciding a schools AI semi final by this method is cruel and unnecessary, this match could easily have been replayed midweek.