So looking at the panel this year I would be saying the following should retire or consider their position for various reasons.
Wally, Buckley, Fogarty, R Reid, TJ, E Murphy, Conor Delaney, Tommy Walsh. I would say there is little doubt the first 3 will go. The next three it's harder to know lots of rumour and small talk, I think TJ should walk and not chase numbers. I was always a huge fan of Delaney, I don't think he ever got a fair crack of the whip and neither Cody then or Lyng now seem to trust him. Likewise with Tommy, I think he's a good hurler but I think he's head must be melted and I struggle to see him bouncing back to his best. I think if he was coming through as a hurler instead of Jackie Tyrrell at that time he could have had a similar career, I think the game has moved on and he doesn't seem to suit the modern style or at least how we've been trying to deal with it. I would think he'll stay but I think most would agree we need a new corner back.
My biggest gripe with Lyng was that he didn't trust the young lads and keep them in games when things got tough. They were either subbed or were dropped the next day. Lads are saying Clare had older players too, as did Cork and Limerick. The difference is they all gave young players, good chances over the last few years and weren't quick to discard them when things got a bit tough. Those young lads were all playing well this year. I think the problem is now we need to have a big turnover of players but we've given the young players very little exposure over the last few years.
I think Kilkenny could struggle mightily with so many green young lads starting next year. Not because their not good enough but for any young lad starting out at intercounty you want to have plenty of experienced heads around you so you can ease into it. Unfortunately because of the way the last 2-3 years have been handled player wise, instead of a transition (I fear we'll end up) with a bump in the road, which if its not managed correctly could easily derail our senior team for a good while (years).
no but he took on the mantle of leader. As the old saying goes the king is dead long live the king.
DJ played with Kilkenny until 2005.
By then Henry was 26, had played 7 years senior for Kilkenny and had three All Ireland medals.
It's stretching things somewhat to say he only emerged after that.
Thing with the league as opposed to years past you need to stay up or else county board will be down a few bob, that's pressure for management.
They have up to minor but as you say not on the website yet and to my knowledge no hard dates set which is criminal if true. It'll be very interesting to see how they schedule the minor championship now that these lads can play adult. Once you get past the first week of September the opportunity for midweek games are gone.
Yeah I think free taking could be an issue, most of the best free takers at club level wouldn't be good enough to contribute enough from play at intercounty. Cody took some during the league and wasn't bad, maybe thats the bit of extra responsibility he needs to bring the best out of him, it might also help him move around the forward positions and not be stuck in the corner! Hopefully Shine has a good club campaign, he's another next year who will just need loads of game time to let him get used to IC hurling, this year has probably been the first in a long time where he hasn't been dogged with injuries, hopefully we'll see the best of him over the next few months. Hopefully Billy Drennan might come good next year too, he has the talent if he can get his confidence back up.
Does anyone know has the Bord na Nog championship draws taken place , it was meant to happen a few weeks ago but nothing is up on the website
anyone think about a free taker.I was just thinking of Harry Shine but first he would need to make the fifteen, I know he’s a Boro man but I saw in the O Byrne cup against O Loughlins and I was impressed with him from frees and open play. He has a few critics of which I’d be one at times but he’s still only 20 years of age, I’ll leave it with ye. I don’t want to hear anyone slating the chap just try and give honest criticism or suggest other players who could fill in as free taker.
Correct. We need the other players to step up. Cody and Mullen wont be able to hide as much if TJ isnt there. Management will also not be able to hide too. How many times hasTJ got us out of jail? The managemnt team will need to create a new way to play.
we don’t often agree but your spot on there. Shefflin didn’t emerge till DJ went, TJ didn’t emerge till Shefflin went.
I agree a lot with this. TJ is the best ever but we need to play without TJ, spare him for the latter stages of the Leinster and All Ireland next year if he is back and see can new leaders emerge, he is doing so much work and taking away so much attention other players are benefitting. I want to see how good Eoin Cody and Adrian Mullen are without him. We need new leaders and youngsters to emerge and Tj in his pure brilliance is actually slowing down a re build.
You can talk about facilities, S and C,the county board until your blue in the face at the end of the day it's all about Players.Kilkenny are short 3 or 4 top class players to win an All Ireland at the moment,we won 36 All Irelands without facilities, yes coaching S and C and facilities are important now in the modern game but if you don't have the players good enough those thing won't win you an All Ireland.
Jp is pumping money into Limerick for over 20 years or more now and they never won an All Ireland until this current crop of unbelievable players came along.Kilkenny had a golden era from 2000-2015 because we had 15 years of unbelievably talented players constantly coming through. Tipperary are in transition now because the players they have aren't good enough and they've lost alot of their All Ireland wining team.Galway the same.
Next year management will have to go with the younger players(should have started this year) we could be in for a few more lean years but the thing about Kilkenny is hurling is the number one sport in the county and we will always produce good hurlers who will then have to be well coached and looked after from a young age.
Logan is there 5 years to win an all Ireland. Could we wait that long with one man at the helm.
It's good to see some lads are back to the happy enough to lose a tight match to the eventual winners. If we were learning from our mistakes every year I wouldn't mind but the team has gone back a bit from the team that lost two years ago and its more or less the same team. This project isn't exactly in its first or 2nd year Infact it won't be long before we'll be looking for replacements in key positions,lots of talk of huw going travelling, if we could only freeze tj every 6 months.We can talk about the club championship and finding players all we want but when push has come to shove the last 2 years no one new has being trusted in the big games. Tactically I think we are poorly coached and when under pressure again revert to route one while being double marked up top. The quality of ball and the puckout/movement is also very poor at times and has improved little over the last few years. You would be hoping if Lyng does stay he will freshen things up in the backroom team. Id be looking at the s&c and getting someone involved who can help with the coaching .The team has regressed and unless lads are trusted and gave experience we will regress further.
now everyone knows TJ is near his end, where is the contingency plan for another free taker and don’t mention Billy, I don’t think he has the ambition nobody has been lined up last season.On the county board again I thought they got rid of a lot of genuine and regular supporters by pressing people into to buying online instead of bringing it along slowly look at all the revenue lost which would help in employing coaching staff. I really think they waste money in there where they think they are actually saving they are so bad at promoting our games locally I think they could be doing a hell of a lot more.
Kilkenny Lessons From 2024 Championship
2. Kilkenny need to be less predictable. Cody practiced this; springing surprise players late to avoid video analysis of player styles – refer Jackie’s book. Wexford and Clare easily dealt with Walter Walsh at right half forward this year; it backfired; why not put him rff or ff. Ryan Taylor (a link player) for Clare changed the middle third flow at a critical stage and opened up the dominant Kilkenny half back line in the semi; Cian Lynch did same in 2023 AI final. I would like to see 2 link players in midfield (Molloy & Kenny) next year, Tommy W replaced by Larry Murphy or a fast corner back for the last 20 mins. Change up the middle third for the last 25 mins. Reposition Mikey B or replace him for the last 20 mins – Peter Casey scored 5 points against both corner backs in 2023.
3. We need more competitive matches before the AI semis. Leinster was too easy. We scored 30 points v Dublin in the LF but 16 v Clare. Leinster games were 24+ points.
4. We need to take more risks with new younger players. They may not be showing up in training but give them responsibility and they will show up in time. Also, the older players seem to know how to get on the LF and AI semi team.
5. Eoin Cody, Adrian Mullen and John Donnelly need to learn more front 8 positions to further develop them.
6. We need a stronger panel with the ability to bring on 8 skillful and strong players like Clare did in the AI final. Also, to change the structure of our play late on to outfox the opposition.
I think it was an All Ireland left behind should have bet Clare. I would have fancied us against Cork if there plan was to go long. Look who knows but like the All Ireland in 2022 (Limerick were better team but we threw the ball away at times). We are missing that coach to move us forward.
Also our puck outs (forwards movement, patterns strike plays) need addressing which a good coach will do.
Personally yeah I would move Lyng on but this county board are so inept that possibility will never enter the thoughts so why I didn’t factor that in my post.
Eddie Brennan would be my choice and you can be damn certain he would bring in a top class coach.
I think it’s going to be a Kilkenny v Cork All Ireland final in 2024.
That Limerick half back line will never be as one unit again, Hannon their leader at 6, legs are gone and you wouldn’t even know if Kyle Hayes will be still hurling in 2025.
Kilkenny should be really hurting after that semi final v Clare, the video analysis alone of the missed chances in the first half should be enough to bring a hard chaw to the winter Pre-season training.
Will Derek lyng be under pressure next year if kilkenny have another poor year.
In fairness with the tight schedule of the championship I'd imagine, especially during the round robin, that there isn't much chance of doing a lot in training to impress or try and stake a claim. I think for S Murphy and Molloy they did enough in the games they played to suggest that they deserved to be the subs brought on ahead of Buckley or Fogarty who haven't played a lot this year. I'd have no problem with Wally being the first sub on he has been good off the bench for us the last couple of years. I agree 100% with your point at the end, a lot of doom and gloom here but it was very tight in the semi final and could have went either way, we're not a million miles away but just need to sharpen up a few bits and find a 3/4 new options, especially a centre back and another forward.
Did some of the lads here ever consider the possibility that the panel and team that lyng picked were the best players he had available to him..is there a chance that the youngsters have not broken into the team because they are being out performed and out worked by the older lads on the panel?
Clare Had plenty of older players on the field sunday..
Perhaps there will be multiple retirements in the coming weeks and we will get lots of game time into the younger crew..it will be interesting to see how they perform.
I was also very impressed with the likes of shane Murphy Jordan molloy and owen wall in the league but i wasn't at any of the training sessions so maybe they didn't perform as well in the summer
I do agree we continue to make the same mistakes once the pressure comes on but i believe the players and management are equally responsible for this..
Yet as poor as we were in the second half against clare we still only lost by a very small margin..so i dont think its all doom and gloom..
now that you have seen what Clare are capable of in the All Ireland and the fox of a. Logan good at reading the game as it progressed! How do you think Kilkenny would have fared against Clare in the All Ireland?
ad infinitum ………
🤯
"if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle" ……
I’d have to agree with most of that statement. Except having Lyng for another year and I’ll tell you why.first year you sort out things in your head without necessarily implementing your plan but maybe trying a few things. Second year you should certainly be implementing your ideas. Third year your plan should be working out if not resign.so as it is we are a year behind where we should be and for that reason I would not have him next year , but if he stayed I wouldn’t object that much once we could see rapid progress. That’s all people want to see. No one would mind being beaten this year if we could see a future in the team that finished against Clare.
Here is my assumption on Kilkenny.
Lyng hasn’t stamped his authority on this team yet. Same players as Cody's team really.
Could have and probably should have bet Clare if we were better in our passing. Reid lamped ball down the line high and we basically gave ball away. You could argue this is an All Ireland left behind we all would have fancied our chances against Cork.
Some players whilst great servants should have been dropped no need to name names but legs of some are gone since 2017. I have seen a few club challenges lately being around the club scene and there is really good club hurlers out there who have cleaned out panel members.
Why aren’t they in there you will ask? Hard to know commitment and I know of one club who have players asked but family reasons (kids) work etc stop this. So we must respect the players who do put life on hold for Kilkenny hurling they do deserve our ultimate respect.
There are good club players there.
My view on what Lyng should do. Clear out the players who are there a long time he might even need to retire players and not pushing onto the team bring in youth (Cillian Hackett etc) Work from there and seriously look at coaching. A well coached team doesn’t flake ball away as easy as we did.
My thoughts on the long winter ahead but there is plenty of room for optimism!
Stronger team boils down to better hurlers around the pitch. Kilkenny cannot match players like O'Donnell, Fitzgerald, Taylor, Kelly, Rodgers. If we out work Clare and essentially dog them we can beat them but when they get rolling we have no chance.
KK would not be afraid of Clare if they meet again next year and rightly so. Their bench bet us simple as that.
Would Clare have beaten Limk in the final? I think not. But i thought they had the beating of Cork.
The Clare v Cork game is a toally different type of match up to if either of them had played KK.
Ah stop now. Ridiculous statement. They would not beat KK 10 times out of 10. You're correlating the game Clare played on Sunday with any game they'd play against us which is just wrong. Cork setup to say we can score more than you and Clare were happy to match that by going man on man. That would not / has not happened in any of games between KK and Clare in the last 3 years. There's **** all between KK and Clare when they meet each other which is an undeniable fact. Any statement to the contrary is recency bias.
Better bench. Agreed.
More flair. Probably at the top end.
Stronger. I doubt many intercounty teams are physically stronger or harder than Kilkenny.
Literally one and a half games ago Kilkenny were 5 points ahead of Clare having left about 8 points out there. To now say we'd never beat them is nonsense.
Clare bet us 3 times this year, if we played them 10 times they would beat us each time, much stronger team, better bench and more flair.
