i haven't forgotten about ye lads dont worry , the current league is very hard to get excited about ,next year will be much better , when kilkenny hunt in packs they really hurt our middle 3rd , they didnt start to move in 6s and 7s across the two 65s until the game was nearly over which will highlight just how far they are away from full tilt at this time of year
fair paly i didnt know what it was for , but yeah he will still have a tough tuesday night in front of the assessor , i hope he passed his fitness test a few weeks ago he will be sweating otherwise , brutal performance in my opinion
Very honest post.
And your most recent one.
That was for a swipe from Conor Cleary on Mullen. Might not have been obvious at the ground but could be heard on television & the co comm referenced it when the commentator was questioning it. It wasn’t a terrible stroke & I think he caught Mullen’s hurley rather than leg, but I think the clear sound of it was probably what made Owens mind up.
But yes, overall I would fully agree it was a very poor refereeing performance.
It was a poor game. Unfortunately it leaves us with more questions than answers.
Both half backs, particularly Blanchfield got roasted.
Mikey Carey struggled, particularly in the first half. I know lots of our lads were guilty of it but he fumbled a lot of ball unchallenged.
Our delivery remains poor. I'm disappointed we seem to have regressed from last year in this regard when we were showing some progress. Lots more aimless ball to congested areas today.
Our hand passing was very poor. Loopy passes that take forever to come back down.. recipient always gets swallowed up. We need to either get better at hand passing, or just throw it like the limerick lads and accept a couple will be blown.
On that, somehow Owens blew TJ for a throw after he was manhandled to the ground late on. I don't know if TJ threw it, because he has his back to the camera, but neither did Owens - was impossible for him to see based on his positioning.
Special word of mention for the referee by the way. Absolutely baffling interpretation of the rules. No consistent application ... For both teams. A pathetic refereeing performance. Both teams can feel equally aggrieved. He seemed to have made his mind up before the game that no matter what was inflicted on TJ, he wasn't going to give a free...
We seemed miles behind. It was a miracle we were still in the hunt at the end to be honest... We had a lot more championship starters than Clare did too.
Anyway, we rarely win in Ennis. Hopefully we can beat Waterford and get another crack at Limerick...
from a kilkenny point of view ye must be happy with the performance of the full back line today , mikey butler is a curse to clare forwards , mark rodgers didnt get a sniff
i thought john donnelly had a fine second half when he came on , but mikey carey was excellent , especially when he was moved back to center back , it must be so hard for that young lad at the moment with the huge spotlight over the family at the moment , but he hurled like djs son should hurl today i thought he was excellent we can forgive the one or to stray passes ,but he knows how to defend and win dirty ball
Well said. The lad is trying to come back after numerous setbacks and recent surgery. He might never make it at senior but let's hope he does and wish him the best. Gearoid Dunne is in a similar situation, he too had recent surgery. For a young lad he played very well in our SENIOR club championship with Tullaroan. Fingers crossed for both, we do need them all.
if you remember the moonpig. com adverts on british tv , where you could personalise your own cards , well that's basically what james owens done today ,he invented yellow cards for nothing and ignored the actual ones there was a great image i seen watching the game back where paul Flannigan got called a free for absolutely nothing it even confused the commentators , and tj who was running out from the full forward position to take the free gave a look to flanagan as if to say "god only knows , he's been doing it all day "
we got away with loads of holding especially adam hogan who was all over cian kenny all day , and roary hayes carried it on , its a tactic we get away with alot but gets found out on bigger sundays , its not a tactic that lohan used himself in his day but one he seems to promote a lot now
Ref Shine - that’s a bloody hard role to play - especially as a young lad - and I do think that is important and good management to rotate a lad in that role out the field for a few minutes to get an opportunity to get into the game as staying sharp and patient is really important
Haven’t seen it mentioned in here, apologies if it has been, but Aidan McCarthy had a scandalous “challenge” on Huw Lawlor near the end of the game. Somehow Owens decided it was worthy of a yellow both ways. I don’t think the commentators referenced it at the time either.
Shine looked slow out there. Doesnt look fit either
G Dunne back......from where U21 Roinn E
We passed up 5 goals at least on the XG today including this in the second half which summed up what we were as today. While Clare will be happy that they won with a number of forwards missing in truth both teams were extremely poor in attack. The start of the second half was abysmal from both teams.
Clares defence will give up goals in Summer as usual (just look at above for starters). They won because their wing forwards had the better of our wing backs, especially in the air, particularly Duggan against Blanchfield (flapping his hurl at the dropping ball constantly).
Owens made a complete cluster f of the game which helped neither team.
Harry Shine, or the likes at full forward might work in croke park but not in ennis when the ball is coming down with snow on it and sticking. That said his fielding has been poor in two matches and Dunne would seam a better option for that type of approach
Name the loads?
Only 7 points in open play..very poor. No return from Mullin and only a point from Cody.
Lads ignore this guy he turns up on loads of threads and he's a gobshite on them all
Very dissappointing performance today. No sign of improved distribution of the ball. Also first touch was poor, taking a number of attempts to rise the ball on a number of occasions. Midfield is still an issue
Kilkenny level on points with Wexford with a scoring difference of +2.
To qualify for the league semi finals Kilkenny need a win against waterford next weekend and to stay ahead of Wexford on scoring averages if Wexford beat cork at home.
Not an easy place to get 2 points but after today the performance against waterford needs to be upped big time. Having another 2 or 3 tough matches in the league might just give lyng some food for thought.
Yeah, it's great
Amusing- in a recent post you were very concerned about lack of facilities for training- you have written off so many players you must be down to a panel of less than a dozen. Sure the green in Larchfield would be plenty big for your panel.
Ye will be fine though. It’s the league FFS. Ye have 4 months nearly to get yourselves right given the challenge in Leinster
I couldn’t let it pass it was so laughable. Imagine a KK man giving out about niggling and calling Clare a dirty team. What a joke
Bit weird to go to the bother of singing up just to post that. But you do you.
Ah poor baby. You ok hun?
Clare are a dirty shower they get away with murder down there and Owen’s backed them up, they are constantly nigglingand slapping witt the h the hurl.
Unfortunately I think we are just not.good enough at the moment..an improvement in tactics would help but won't close the gap to limerick
As average as we are we are Still capable of beating anyone else.
At the minute we seem to be at a crossroads. We've been looking at Limerick's running games for years now and I thought last year we were making inroads into it but we sadly lack the strength, fitness and guile to carry it off. So many times today we launched a 50/50 ball into our forwards. If you watch Limerick they don't do that. They have Gillane, morrisey etc pulling away from their men with a diagonal ball into space in front of them. Positional they play it very cute and I think we're a nice bit behind them at this stage.
You would ve hoping that lyng will settle his team quick enough and we will get a crack off them later in the year but there's loads of room for improvement
Clare look like they have improved. They were missing 3/4 really good players. 2 of them up there with the best forwards in the country. There young players look much better than ours. Shine, Dunne and Clifford looked average at best
Clare deserved it but Kilkenny could have won. Adrian Mullen missed an awful lot. Some of the shots he forced , when it's not happening for you don't force it. Yeah Owens..what can be said that hasn't been said. In the first half every tackle seemed a yellow card and the resultant slow down in play. Then he let's a few blatant trips go.. followed by soft frees, followed by a period of tackles being unbelievably hard and no free. He's an awful ref. The Clare crowd despise the man. He's that obnoxious mix of egotistical and incompetent.
Have Clare improved on last year? I'm not sure they have. The backs are very open. Have Kilkenny improved? I don't think so either. Early days but nothing to frighten Limerick at all from the opposition so far.
Both Murphy and Blanch got absolutely roasted by David Fitzgerald and Duggan in my opinion
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