Kilkenny GAA Thread

30-06-2022 12:29am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119269361#Comment_119269361

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.

Billy Ocean · 30-06-2022 2:02am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119269569#Comment_119269569

Well you were giving out that there will be no intercounty action for 6 months saying its all hurried even though compared to 2019 it clearly isn't, RTE and The Sunday Game have already decided that's its not fit for purpose even though the club element of the calendar hadn't clicked into gear, clearly it suits their agenda to have a dragged out intercounty season where their showing games on Sunday afternoon's in August and September rather than James Bond repeats. GAA has rightly got hammered on plenty of occasions for being to conservative so don't think people should jump on them now for trying something radical with good intentions, I'll wait til the end of the year to judge, as i said before the biggest issue in GAA in the last decade was the uncertainty club players faced over fixtures and that badly needed to be addressed.

dzer2 · 30-06-2022 6:11am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119269749#Comment_119269749

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

Neewollah · 30-06-2022 10:04am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119269749#Comment_119269749

As a current club player in KK this has been the worst year to date regarding fixtures. Sitting around twiddling our thumbs with nothing games. Training for 5 months now and and still a month away from 1st real game. Then we'll have 5 league games rammed into 6 weeks with championship depending on how you go in league the following week. No real break or rest times and a lot of players will be out by end of September so for most its only actually 2 months of club hurling. The split season is weighted towards intercounty still as they have all of July as well so it's 7 months for them and realistically 3 for clubs. If they were doing it right All Irelands should be done by end of June. Of all the formats club fixtures have taken in Kilkenny over the years the 2 April games, 1 in May, 1 in July and 1 in August/September as it used to be was hard to beat. Kept you working towards competitive games and gave players plenty of break time too and if someone got injured they didn't end up missing most of the season. The split season will put serious pressure on clubs with small panels if they get a run of injuries as there in no recovery time. I knew the split season would be bad for club players but didn't realise how bad until we're in the middle of it.

Grats · 30-06-2022 11:54am

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.

dzer2 · 30-06-2022 1:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270849#Comment_119270849

That's only half the fixtures you also need to look at the camoige and LGFA ones as well. Since March both my wife and myself have been cut in half trying to get kids to games and see the older lads playing. Now they have thrown the U19S in to the mix as well. We were out Sunday 2 games, Tuesday 2 games, tonight 3 different venues one has to get a lift so won't see that game. 1 game Friday and then training over the weekend. Next week 1 game Monday 2 games Tuesday, 2 games Wednesday 1 game game Thursday and 1 Friday. Haven't look any further than that. Come the middle of September more than likely be finished except for any of the younger ones involved in squads. Absolute madness. The chap playing minor hasn't stopped in 3 yrs between hurling football and squads.

Grats · 30-06-2022 1:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119271185#Comment_119271185

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

Rosita · 30-06-2022 2:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270849#Comment_119270849

No much of a split season if club players are playing and training away since the start of the year anyway.

It's not great if these debates are framed around impressive-sounding words like "radical" (as in change). That gets away from the practical reality of the matter. Does it work for inter-County to maybe have half the year as a close season and then potentially 16ish games between early February and mid July (4 months)? Is there any harm in "dragging it out"? Is there actually a promotional argument in having the finals later? And in what way does a small few counties playing in the latter stages of the championship impact on the club scene broadly?

And with regard to clubs.........do they actually have half the year off more or less until the inter County scene is done or are well paid coaches just elongating the whole process to make more money? Is there a danger clubs will have to play loads of matches in a short time because it's later starting? Or is this really working for clubs as envisaged?

There's a lot of questions to be asked in assessing "did it work?"

kksaints · 30-06-2022 2:39pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270350#Comment_119270350

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.

Neewollah · 30-06-2022 3:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119271757#Comment_119271757

The county league is only 3 games at Intermediate and Senior if you don't qualify for semi. We did Gym only work from Feb to end of March and then back out on the field and it's been slowly ramped up as we get closer to the League/Championship proper. We've been in no way over trained in fairness. It's the lack of competitive matches matches til August is the problem. You can talk up county league matches and challenge matches against top teams from other counties but they are never going to be the same to players and I've seen an element or boredom in our group for the last month in particular waiting for the big games to come.

I honestly believe the best way forward is to have club only months like April and others around the Intercounty season and tell County managers to do one as they are the stumbling block to everything. Club matches in the middle of county scene never did KK any harm in our peak and I believe most county players would be in favour of the change of scene a couple of times a year. I have no doubt that the current split season will be shown to be very unfair to the club player. A simple hamstring injury in your 1st game could accurately pretty much end your year with the new set up.

kksaints · 30-06-2022 4:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119272074#Comment_119272074

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.

dzer2 · 30-06-2022 6:15pm

The head honchos in the gaa have always said club first. At most to win the AI a county from the top tier would have to play 7 games. Before this set up it would have been at most 6 games so there is little difference then thing is the there's far more club players than county. Years ago there were tournaments played in different counties that the teams would be invited to. That's not happening now. Even our club doesn't run their tournament now 20 yrs ago it was the flagship games. Our club now have 3 adult teams and could possibly do with a fourth in a few years of the lads keep playing. There's too much emphasis on the county games now and it's getting too costly to go to these. And this can be sent by the low attendance. Munster final was supposed to be sold out yet loads of space in the terraces. good few of the lads I know that regularly go to matches are not going this weekend.

Grats · 30-06-2022 6:45pm

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.

Conversations 3 · 30-06-2022 9:22pm

Any tickets for Saturday floating around yet?

I'm after 2

Billy Ocean · 30-06-2022 10:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119270350#Comment_119270350

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.

Billy Ocean · 30-06-2022 10:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119273429#Comment_119273429

There will be loads , probably only about 40k at it.

Must love hardship · 30-06-2022 11:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119273429#Comment_119273429

As many tickets as you want on ticketmster.

Billy Ocean · 30-06-2022 11:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119272750#Comment_119272750

Munster final was sold out, terraces aren't as populated as 20 years ago due to health and safety

brookville · 01-07-2022 1:14am

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.

Realt Dearg Sec · 01-07-2022 4:51am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119272857#Comment_119272857

There was an army of them in Chicago this evening anyway,a team of them blew us off the field no bother to them. Our own team suddenly has about ten subs as well whereas two months ago we didn't know if we could field a team.

murtyd17 · 01-07-2022 9:46am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119274245#Comment_119274245

Great post

Really looking forward to tomorrow evening. Hopefully get over the line by the end of it

Mad about baa baas · 01-07-2022 8:26pm

Any sign of the team being named?

corner back 2 · 01-07-2022 8:26pm

Night before an All Ireland semi final and no teams out yet! GAA needs to improve on this my patience is running out checking Twitter every 5 mins🤔😀

murtyd17 · 01-07-2022 8:30pm

Thought be out by now

blackcard · 01-07-2022 9:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119277721#Comment_119277721

I really hope that we can find a team that will turn up tomorrow

brookville · 01-07-2022 9:14pm

Fogarty is a big loss. I'm suprised kenny gets another chance but great to see padraig start and Richie on the bench

usernamethatsnotinuse · 01-07-2022 9:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119277884#Comment_119277884

yeah, pity about fogarty. Good experience for Kenny, not physically ready yet, thought leahy might have got back in, probably missed too much game time this year

letowski · 01-07-2022 10:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119277884#Comment_119277884

From a Clare perspective, I was hoping Cody would keep Walsh on the bench. He is actually very suited to playing centre forward on Conlon. You need a guy who can stand up to Conlon's physicality, Conlon is super important to Clare in terms of carrying the ball out, getting it to the Taylors, Fitgeralds, O'Donnells, etc and initiating those attacks.

Also I think Mullen would be better from midfield than half forward, because Kilkenny will want to get him space. The Clare half back line push right up on the half forwards, they don't sit like the Galway half backs (where Mullen made hay)

That's a good Kilkenny side imo.

blackcard · 01-07-2022 10:18pm

Kenny maybe playing as a third midfielder with Browne sitting deep? Think a lot has to go right for Kilkenny to have a chance with a lot of players performing above average

kk.man · 01-07-2022 10:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119278094#Comment_119278094

Yeah I think Mullin is best at midfield for two reasons he spreads the ball very intelligently and acts as a seventh forward.

letowski · 01-07-2022 10:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119278145#Comment_119278145

There is speculation that Browne could be on Tony Kelly, instead on Butler. I think he has man marking experience. Or possibly to do what Conor Devitt did a fortnight ago and shut down Ryan Taylor (who is a very important player for Clare).

windy shepard henderson · 02-07-2022 1:45am

best of luck tomorrow lads should be a really good game if nothing else . as said above i imagine the game will take a similar pattern from the clare wexford game with several designed man marking jobs going on , from a worried clare point of view the thank is starting to empty on the clare side and a few injuries are setting in , kelly is not 100% conlon is not 100%

so ignore the fair weather comments of this being a walk in the clare park most of our top players are running on fumes at the moment , safe journey lads and best of luck 👍️

windy shepard henderson · 02-07-2022 1:53am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119278145#Comment_119278145

i worry about our forwards against the kilkenny backs , david reidy , ian glavin and probably peter duggan have been getting away with it from play up to now ,

kk.man · 02-07-2022 8:27am

Here's one (no way critical)...I have never seen so many left hand sided players on a Kilkenny senior inter county team in my time following hurling. TJ, Padraig, Mullen, Deegan...is there more?

kilkennyboy · 02-07-2022 8:46am

Kenny browne

Billy Ryan padraig Mullen

Mossy tj cody

That's how we will set up with padraig to bring conlan away from goal.leaving room for a aerial bombardment. I expect goals and we will need 3 or more.

KK36 · 02-07-2022 11:58am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119278971#Comment_119278971

Billy Ryan, Richie Reid

kk.man · 02-07-2022 12:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119279916#Comment_119279916

I forgot those two. 6 is unusually high.

peakedatU12 · 02-07-2022 1:20pm

Ciotóga na gCat abú

citykat · 02-07-2022 1:40pm

Best of luck to Cody and team. Here’s hoping we dog another win.

usualstripes · 02-07-2022 4:31pm

It's all or nothing now for the 1st time this year so we better be ready. It'll need a better performance than we've had all year but the funny thing is we are well capable. Memories and how we dealt with last 2 years at this stage should be in the back of minds.

No space for their 6 forwards key. Eoin Cody and Billy Ryan have a lot of responsibility today. We will know after 10 mins whether this game will suit mossy or not.

Looks like a big clare crowd as expected.

Best of luck to Cody and the lads. We want a rattle at Limerick in a few weeks time.

dastardly00 · 02-07-2022 4:33pm

Best of luck to the players and management team. Come on the Cats

02-07-2022 4:40pm

Mossy Keoghan man of the match incoming!

usualstripes · 02-07-2022 6:15pm

Foot on the pedal for the next 20 mins and we're there

dastardly00 · 02-07-2022 6:15pm

I don't think any of us would have predicted that first half performance even in our wildest dreams. The backs and midfield are playing great. Eight different scorers is fantastic.

The game isn't over yet. We need to keep up the intensity in the second half because remember the semi-final against Waterford a couple of years ago.

dastardly00 · 02-07-2022 6:32pm

Yes! Kenny buried that

dastardly00 · 02-07-2022 6:42pm

It'd be good to see Richie Hogan come on

RoyalCelt · 02-07-2022 6:56pm

Was Kilkennys support in semi finals always this low? Leinster champions and a favourable match up. And it's not like you've won a lot of AI the last 6 or 7 years.

citykat · 02-07-2022 7:03pm

#Codyout

kk.man · 02-07-2022 7:34pm

Munster hurling??? 😃

kksaints · 02-07-2022 7:45pm

Some performance today in the 1st half. Dominant in defence and our accuracy was excellent. Took the foot off the gas a little once we got the second goal but the match was won. Mikey Butler did a job on Tony Kelly, didn't give him a sniff, but in fairness it's impossible to really single out players today. Whole team was on it.

Kilkenny GAA Thread

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