Kilkenny GAA Thread

So you can go support your club for the next 6....

not overly happy, it’s not four extra competitive must win games. Would prefer the provincials to be run off as quick as possible and have something closer to the league format for the championship. Mix it up and not see the same teams play every year and definitely not the potential for 3 times in the one year. I still think it’s going to get pretty stale with a couple years of this format.

doesn’t seem to be the same excitement going into the two semis this weekend. Maybe other people see it differently

I have said for years that the Provincials should be first instead of the league and the All ireland should be like the league. You could then have a relegation and promotion with 2 tiers. Of course to make the Munster and Leinster competitive you would maybe need to give the winner 2 points and runner up 1 point going into the All ireland series.

Good boy. Top of the class. And I'd suggest that if you found that reply "smart" I'd suggest the INTERNET isn't for you.

You seem to feel you are in a position to give advice.

Are you hoping for Eddie Brennan impact like 2011 all ireland, think myself if Kilkenny loose Saturday Cody should not even be considered going forward. Cody did not even consider Hogan last year in the semi final until other options died on him, here hoping but I would not be to confident when you see players like Bill Ryan , Eoin Cody others struggling.

Just a quick note on that. The better club players still haven't hit a ball in anger yet. We are just in July. Have a chap playing intermediate and apart from a Micky mouse competition and a few challenge matches he has only played 6 games. If things go tits up he will only play 6 more. And be finished the middle of September. Some return for the club players training since last January

I totally respect a club players viewpoint. From a supporters point of view I attended a lot of the senior club league matches and found them to be very competitive and enjoyable. In addition I've been at numerous underage matches from primary schools right up to minor. Spoilt for choice. Great credit to all those players and mentors for providing such entertainment over the last number of months.

For anybody interested in the current action, have a look at the Kilkenny GAA website and see for yourselves the huge amount of fixtures every evening.

Of course. And there's a parents viewpoint of the amount of GAA going on currently. There's plenty going on besides inter County.

Why have ye been training for 5 months when the championship wouldn't be starting until at least this month? Surely that will just lead to fatigue close to when the championship starts.

I think the County Leagues need to be scrapped or preferably revamped so that there's fewer matches in them.

Aren't the signs of boredom evidence of mental fatigue with the training to an extent? I think the county leagues start too early, they should finish up the week before the championship starts. This gap of a month between the end of them and the start of the club championship is nonsense.

IMO it makes more sense to run the intercounty season off first and then start the club season. The April club month didn't work well in many counties and having clubs start training in January for 3 or 4 matches in April and then having a 2-3 month gap until the next round was a mess. Plus while it wouldn't effect us too much, it was particularly messy for strong dual code counties with some teams basically switching back and forth between codes. While there's definitely merit to your idea of telling the county managers to do one if they try and stop club matches or intercounty players playing there's too much at stake in the Intercounty game prestigewise and financially. Similar to your idea of having county players returning to the club for matches during the season. I'd like it, it puts less time pressure on the club championship and the players might enjoy the change. But with the increase in the number of intercounty matches in the current system there's far less time for player recovery plus if you had an unlucky year with a load of players getting injured in a club match mid intercounty season, it wouldn't be long before questions would be raised as to why the intercounty team season was put in jeopardy for club matches.

I know of many club players who headed to the USA for a month or more because of the split season. So it's suiting some.

Good to see a players viewpoint, few things on this, it most be remembered the scenario you gave of club games in May, June etc. was at a time when Kilkenny's championship was win a Leinster semi in early or mid june, Leinster final early July, AI semi mid August and final early Sept. The environment is totally different now with provincial round robins. Look at the month of May, Kilkenny played Galway May 1, Dublin May 14, Wexford May 21 then Leinster final June 4, realistically no chance of a club games the weekend of May 8 or 29 with intercounty players involved. If you're training since January for 1 code then that seems odd to me, my club in Wexford were back training middle of February, earlier than planned as the lads who don't play Junior soccer were getting fed up doing nothing, league/group phase of championship is like Kilkenny 2 groups of 6 so the league games played early in the year are against 6 teams not in your group. My club played 6 hurling and 6 football league games between March and May, hurling championship started this week with final in August, football championship after finals in October that with basically the same panel. The week on week nature has always been there, St Martins played 14 consecutive weekends making the final of both codes in 2017, Loughmore did the same thing in Tipp last year.

As many tickets as you want on ticketmster.

Quite build up around the county for the match Saturday.Alot of people see the Sunday one as a foregone conclusion so our one is getting more attention from the media and it should be a good close match.Theres a bit of pressure on kilkenny not to lose 3 semi finals in a row.Clare are in better form at the moment and have a settled team. We've being huffing and puffing but hopefully the last 4 weeks together will be a big benefit to the team. We've had a chance to study them but they start alot of their attacks from defence and its hard stop runners and lads on the overlap. Clares puckouts have also being very good.It would be a huge test for butler to go on kelly and although kk will have lads earmarked for each other like carey on o donnell clare could start to move lads around and try put our lads in positions that aren't familiar with so communication will be very important.Kk have a fair idea of the clare team but it's harder for clare to plan for us.Padraig has played very little in the last two matches and although it looks like he won't start which is a pity it could work in our favour that theres 3 or 4 lads that could start or mightnt start.We need to get more from our fowards and I'd play eoin cody at 11.Its too easy tie him up in the corner.Who ever will be at 14 will be man handled by cleary.Clare have a better spread of scorers this year but Tony is still the player that makes them tick. He reads the game differently to most players and is nearly always at the end of the breaking ball.Alot of lads have tried man mark him and have failed so if butler is going to mark him we need to have a plan b.We could see browne in doing a job on someone aswell.Hopefully we show a bit of tactical nous Saturday evening and don't balloon balls into the full forward line.clares two wing backs like to get forward so we need to switched on and get in behind them and get cody to move conlan around.We need to be smart with the ball and the delivery we're giving in.We need to learn from the last two years where we blew up against Waterford and presisted with long puck outs despite being cleaned out.I know cork ran us off the pitch but the puckout strategy was awful. It should be a tight game and we'll need our best performance to date but hopefully we'll be ready and the hurt of the last two years and the experience of croke park will get us over the line.