Kilkenny GAA Thread

Also, sort out the fec king toilets !

I think the CB have applied before but the residents on the other side of the road objected to any raise in height which I wouldn't blame them for, they have to live there every day of the week.

On the news of Big Phil's roll and Michael Fennelly finally being confirmed hopefully we can move on and get some proper structures in place the one thing that concerns me slightly is again the focus seems to very quickly switch to capital projects. The Gym in Dunmore (needed) all weather floodlit pitches (needed) roof on the Paddy Grace stand (not urgent) floodlights in Nowlan Park (needed but will likely be objected to again). The first two should have been part of the Dunmore development from the start. Anyway my point is I think the investment needs to go into coaching around the county and the development squads. I believe every lad who has the ability to play for Kilkenny and is part of a development squad (hopefully identified outside their own club setup) should have a file on strengths, weaknesses, physical condition, prior injuries.... This would be updated as the year and years go on so you could track improvements, injuries etc. Even if these lads are dropped from development squads there should be contact maintained (biannually) skills and conditioning programs offered to them until the age of 22-23 focusing on what they need to improve on to get back into the setup. Most obviously won't make it, many might not turn up for there biannual review and if they don't you close the file. It's however still available if this player blossoms at club level at the age of 25 or 6 and the senior manager can take a quick look at a lads file get a flavour of him and might gain an insight into how to manage him. This kind of empirical data I think would be hugely beneficial to a manager but also new coaches or a review of the success of the setup. If someone new takes on M Fennellys roll in 5, 10 or 15 years time they could look at what's been done before and adjust based on their experience rather than being like M Fennelly now pretty much going in blind relying on lads remember what happened 3 months or 3 years ago.

I would far prefer to see resources put into setting up a system like this, that coaches the players properly along and keeps track of them and keeps them in touch with the scene. That for me is more important to Kilkenny currently than a gym and more pitches. They will be needed too but we need to get the house in order first then we can look to add on an extension. Great if we have the resources to do both but as far as I know we don't currently. Hopefully Phil can help in that regard. He has huge contacts all over Europe and globally and knows plenty of key decision makers.

Other than some financial backing from the Phil Hogan project I imagine the two projects are mainly independent of each other. M Fennelly and his project is up and running already. The Hogan project will take longer to pay dividends. Therefore the importance of player development has already been prioritised and rightly so.

Any money raised by Phil Hogan needs to be ring fenced for the projects as identified and not just hoarded again with the normal income flow.

Just on the Club scene...

What are the fixtures like for hurling clubs this year?

The Camogie fixtures are a mess (to put it mildly)

Its not easy, but by god , 'they' are making a mess of it !

No games for weeks, no dates given, no results published, website is a half a$$ed attempt with little info .....

The senior/intermediate championships are kicking off on the 4/5/6 of August and it's week on week for the first 3 rounds, a break week and then 2 weeks in a row to finish the group stages around the second weekend in September, would imagine junior will be going on similar dates also. Think all the fixtures are up on the website.

I heard mikey carey had some sort of heart issue and collapsed. Likely not to play for the foreseeable future. Second hand info though.

That sounds like a mess in fairness, I think the sooner the better the GAA/Camogie/LGFA all amalgamate under the GAA the better, the ultimate losers here are the girls who are trying to play camogie.

RTE had player stats that they displayed on screen during the game.

No idea where you would go to get/see them though .... 🤔

Hopefully he makes a speedy recovery

I heard he had bad dizziness on Friday at training and the Dr was worried so he sent him to Lukes. He's been there since they won't let him out until they figure out what it is. Hopefully he's ok and bounces back and makes a full recovery.

Fogarty was on a bit of ball if I remember correctly. He will always give you a 100% and he does alot of selfless work and is good in rucks. He had a great turn over on joe Cooney I think. Probably hasn't the legs for 70 mins but he will always give you what he has. We haven't figured out midfield yet and infairness to Kenny who has seen little action he got back on Tom monaghan for a great hook and threw over 2 nice points. He also gave blanchfield the ball for mossys goal.mid field was bypassed so Kenny got himself into good positions.

Blanchfield has being a big find for us. He made the 2 goals and caught a few great balls. He will get alot of confidence from that performance. Mikey Carey is suppose to be out of hospital today.

I agree that Donnelly and Tom phelan both hurled well despite not troubling the score board. Donnelly drove a few wides he will be dissapointed with but we would be hoping some day he will click and put 4 or 5 over. He had the ball in the net the time advantage was pulled back.Tom was probably a little unlucky to be substituted when he was but he can be happy with his performance.he is good in the air and direct. Pity he wasnt brought in a few years earlier.He was eager to get on the scoreboard which is fair enough but he could of threw out a few balls.

Billy Ryan made 2 decoy runs for the 2 goals creating space and could of had a penalty the time sean stack gave the free back.Very dissapointing before that incident he should of pulled the trigger earlier but didn't back himself on his right so when he turned into his left the chance was gone. This isn't the 1st time this happened and isn't good enough at this level.He should of threw out Donnelly the ball earlier the one that was in the net. If the injuries clear up he will be under pressure to start the next day .

We would of took where we are now a few months ago. We have 4 weeks to clear up the injuries. Mullen would be a huge help he should be very close if it all goes well. Tj answered a few critics I thought he was very good especially in that heat. Hopefully he's timing his run like last year but he is a freak. Lawlor was outstanding and after a few shakey days he was excellent.tommy was under pressure the last 10 mins. Kevin Cooney really came alive. Eoin Cody has really stepped up the last few games and hopefully he can keep that going. We should try get even more out of him like what limerick do with gillane. Some of the ball going in was difficult but thats the kinda game it was. Alot of route one.i actually thought it was a better match than the munster final. They should probably look at Tullamore when it's these 2 teams.

Henry will be disgusted and I don't think he has improved galway that much althoughthey got it spot on with whelan feeding off the breaks and im delighted for whelan he is a great bit of stuff. Braindead from jackie to say that. It will be intresting to see if henry will go again next year.The road to the all Ireland is very tricky now for them. Daithi Burke is better at 3 and like Lawlor for us he brings stability to that area. We could of have 6 or 7 goals for a team that wasn't scoring goal but its obvious we have worked very hard on this because kk were mad for goals last sunday the same against Wexford.

A couple of comments on the match to add to some of the previous ones

• Donnelly staying on was critical as his skill and wit to strike that ball across while tired and under pressure. It was similar to TJs alleged throw against Wexford except this time things worked out for us. Karma.
• I couldn't believe Galway didn't filter back the whole team to protect the goal. They were so nieve. There was huge space there to attack.
• In a funny way, if we had started with Reid and Carey - Galway might have scored less but we would likely have scored a lot less ourselves. The panel won this for us and there can be no better boost to a team overall than a 'panel win'. It will lift the whole team.
• In terms of what went wrong for us with the 8 points - one of two soft frees went to Galway, we missed some very scorable chances including a free. In the same way we have clearly worked on goals we gotta figure out a way to find those couple of extra points to kill a match
• Darragh Corcoran was clearly struggling for legs midway through the second half and I think 3 quick points came off his wing before Lyng wisely made a change.
• Whelan was excellent and I just don't understand what Jackie came out with about him. He has always shown character in matches, right back to his debut, and alongside the 1-6 he scored he influenced at least another 1-2. That said - on the reverse of that - if we had someone to stick with him then Galway were sunk.
• Cathal Mannion appeared influential but from a deep lying position. I'd be interested to see what came off his distribution as Galway are robbing themselves of a good forward. Looking at the video, before the match Peter Barry had a programme in his hand with our revised team and a formation that seamed to indicate Mikey was out the field - I assume picking up Mannion - but that didn't seam to happen.
• I don't know was Eoin Murphy injured or not after the goal but again from the video - Henry's bitching about it was not a comfortable sight.
• Galway are clearly struggling for a CB and taking Daithi Burke from the goals is leaving them vulnerable. They will have serious problems with Tipp if they don't figure out a different strategy. That said, Burke was not great for a number of the KK goals but maybe it was his starting position - or maybe his mindset when out the field.
• Padraig Mannion fouled Mossey twice during his goal which normally gets you a yellow (certainly we were getting a penalty if he didn't finish) then he spent the second half pulling a dragging Cody as best he could and eventually did get a yellow. If he got the first one he probably wouldn't have been detailed to Cody and probably ends up in the half back line (or CB?) which would have worked against us in the balance.
• Yep Billy Ryan was a frustration again - if only he could slow himself for a half second in thought and action when securing the ball and perhaps concentrate on laying it off - he could be more effective. He did of course contribute a lot in his movement and getting fouled but he could be so much more.
• Was great to see Billy Drennan come on and score an important one.

No he dropped himself off.

I agree with everything above and great news that Mikey Carey is out. One thing I would point out about Jackie's comment is that it was made off air and in conversation. Whether it was the right or wrong thing to say it was very wrong of Joanne Cantwell to bring it up on air and ambush her colleague like that. Journalistically it's very poor form to bring up something which was said off the record, live on TV. If you watch it back Jackie is a bit stunned initially that she's bringing it up but in fairness to him he tried to answer her and didn't shirk from it. She seems to try and create controversy every week and Jackie got the brunt of it this week.