Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

The whole Kiely wing back experiment was presumably because of the lack of size in that line. Why Mullaney probably got the nod today too. Hegarty, David Fitz, Dalton etc are all big WFs.

however we are robbing ourselves of our only target man like all those counties have!! As already said Kiely lit up the Fitzgibbon and is different from all our other forward types

experimenting and it failed badly……😡

I must have given you the the wrong impression. I’m not trying to be optimistic at all! I’m very realistic to the fact that we don’t have the players to win Munster and All Ireland championships. I don’t care about winning the first league game. I’ve been going to Waterford games for over 40 years. We’ve been on fire in the league many a time and been knocked out in the first round of the championship and vice versa. You don’t read too much into the first league game. You see it every year where after round 1 of the championship, everything changes. People say “it’s only the league” for a reason.

The bigger issue is that we already know the panel of players we’ve been using have not qualified out of the round robin since it started. We’re not good enough. Outside managers go with tried and tested players with a small risk to see what works. Queally is trying to experiment a lot more by trying out a lot of lads at the same time (a lot of this is also down to lads walking away and being injured). So far, most of these lads aren’t good enough and I’m not going to name names. Hopefully by the time the championship comes around, we’ll have a decent 15-20 players ready to go. It’ll be a different 26 to today. I’d be shocked if some of the lads who started today are even on the bench come championship. But at least we can’t complain later about not giving lads a go. So far, I can’t see us replacing the lads who’ve left the panel with anyone of the same quality… this year . We just don’t have the players. But kudos to Queally for starting lads to assess what he has. I’d expect him to cut a lot of these lads over the coming games. I was at the match in Carlow and it was not fun.
let’s see what happens the next day.

Really? What did we learn?

No because to learn is to acquire new knowledge that wasn't there previously. Anyone who has seen Michael Kiely play since the minor days when he changed games moving into the forward line would have been aware of that already. Hence why I'm curious as to what Waterford would have learned.

Cut them? And bring in who?

They have a panel of 36, 24 named yesterday and 12 missing, injured or just coming back from injury,that's it there is no more to be added

how many will we realistically have for the entirety of the championship? I don’t think any of those established players mentioned actually lasted all 4 games without being injured did they? I think we will get enough of them back to be a competitive team but it’s disappointing we don’t have the talent coming through.

And the rest will still be in the squad and extended panel,so won't be cut!, if players get injured they will have to be used,

I never said they’d be cut from the “extended panel”. Go back to my original post. I said some of the lads who played against Carlow won’t even be on the bench come championship, implying they won’t make the match day panel. The bench being the subs available to come on. You won’t have 21 subs named for a championship match. At least one or two of those players will fall out of the match day squad (cut/dropped/whatever)

From the way you’re going on you’ll probably reply now and say they’ll still be sitting on a bench on the day! Christ almighty talk about trying to be argumentative for the sake of it!

Look at the list of names I mentioned that we hopefully have coming back? How do you propose we get them into the match day panel without removing some other players?

It’s quite obvious why Kiely was used at wing back as previously mentioned. It’s either him or Austin to come in and replace Lyons. They gave it 70 min and it’s up to management now whether to continue and develop that or move him back to the forwards. As of the named 6 backs , they probably learned that Seamus Fitz & Michael Mullaney need more time to develop, Ian Kenny is finished as an intercounty corner back, Tom Barron is a squad player. Conor Sheehan and Jamie Barron are in decent form with Sheehan in contention to start on April 27th. That’s only some of the things to take away from the game, there’s lots more to mention. You need to know these things before April 27th.

But, Queally can say what he wants about winning leagues etc. but he knows the importance of the league is getting players back fit and trying players out in different positions. I hope he isn’t naive enough to think that winning this league is more important than finding out who or what you have in your squad. Cahill proved that in his last year with us and he’ll probably proved that again if Tipp win the league. He knows his time is up and it’s about saving face.

Were 12 weeks out from facing Clare in Walsh Park, I’d expect to see nearly a full strength team to take the field vs Offaly in Walsh Park on March 22nd. You’ll know then were we stand with the panel and fitness of players.

I wouldn't agree with everything in that post but two people can look at the same thing and have different views. I stand by that it was a crazy decision to play Kiely in defence but I think that debate has been exhausted at this stage and hopefully we won't see the experiment again.

I had no great issue with Ian Kenny, I felt our problem was in midfield and at half back where we were beaten badly. When that happens the full back line are fighting a losing battle. I hope Michael Mullaney gets another chance as we were one of the very few counties who expected Fitz players to play again and for a guy who usually looks to be an exceptional athlete he didn't move as well.

they got their act together at county board level, they kept faith on a manager and let him slowly and surely build a squad while suffering through adversity and a bit of heartbreak along the way

no title is easily won and a lot of things have to go right to achieve any success, Waterford need stability and chopping and changing managers in the near or long term is not the solution

Former Wexford & Kildare football manager Jason Ryan is rumoured to be the new Ballygunner manager.

Is Liam sheedy also getting involved?