Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

You’ve referenced the County Board from Cahill, Davy’s reign as well as Queally’s. The County chairman and treasurer have changed in that time as well as numerous other positions. Pat Flynn is in a paid role as CEO (or whatever his official title is) so he has remained in place.

I do agree with many of your points though.

Davy appointment - disaster and was always likely to be. Was never going to follow on from the good work under Cahill and completely different styles also.

What Michael Ryan referred to was every other county breaking a collective training ban that was in place, while we held our panels to it, rightly or wrongly.

I think Queally has buy in from the panel but I do wonder about the management teams tactical nous. Having sat near the management team at both games in Walsh Park there was little to no tactical instruction offered to players. On the other hand, when players are overburdened with systems and details they doubt themselves, like what happened under Davy before the players called for change.

Our puckout failures have been obvious throughout the campaign and nothing changed. We haven’t fed the full forward line with much of a good supply either. Whether that’s down to coaching or players not winning battles out the field I can’t say,

I imagine Queally will remain, Dan possibly also. We see little to nothing of Kelly on game days so I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to looking at other options there.

maybe he’s too expensive. 🥲

Once again the sickening but familiar feeling of crashing out of the championship. At least I know from experience that by around midday Thursday the pain will ease.
Firstly, hard luck to all concerned whose pain will be multiples of ours.
I thought, like many on here that they gave a good account of themselves but were just not good enough on the day. So fair play to Cork today but who have their own issues to sort out.
Some positives. We have the best full back in the country bar none. We have two excellent cornerbacks, where Daly was missed today but ably covered by Fives and KB. Mark F is excellent. TDB owes us nothing but is part of an issue we need to resolve in our half back line. The return of Calum Lyon’s would help resolve this as would Kieran Bennett.
Paddy at midfield (cue the chorus on the turnover today, hardly unforced) along with DL or Jamie can hold their own with most counties.
It’s the forwards where we are all at sea and where Queally and co seem a bit clueless. Stephen has had his best ever year for Waterford ably assisted by Jamie. After that it’s been so hard to see what’s required.
Firstly if Austin was carrying an injury Queally should have made that clear in the numerous interviews he has given. If not he should have played him because he looked up for it today.
Well done to Sean Walsh on a fine display.
Over the 4 games I do not know what to make of Prendergast, Kiely, Des, Kevin, Paddy F, Paddy C. They are all capable of slotting over points but there lacked any cohesion or plan up front.
Two observations about our attack I noticed.
Several of them have bulked up but may have lost a yard of pace.
There seems to be little desire to manufacture a goal when the oppurtunity presents and first time shooting is the default option. There were goal opps there in the first half today.
Where have those sweeping attacks for goals with support runners available every time that Liam Cahill had us at. The personnel are still there for the most part

Purge over. Talk to you around midday Thursday.

I hate bringing up refereeing decisions once a game is over but that blatant failure to apply the black card rule was a major moment. That incident was the perfect example of why the rule was brought in.

I would love nothing more than if Queally would have been a success and I agree with you I think the players are behind him but after today and the way we set up in the first half its unforgettable and unforgivable. The Tipp game was another poor showing I was fuming and badly hurt leaving Thurles that day. We have to get ruthless and do what Tipp did to Colm Bonnar and I'd say to him thanks and g'luck and look for someone else. That Eoin Kelly should be sent back to Mullinahone as he offers nothing our forwards have been terrible all the year. I hear good things about Dan Shanahan but I wouldn't have him in there he had his chance with McGrath and couldn't get us over the line. Shaun O'Brien is a better distributor of the ball than Nolan in my opinion. The sweeper is finished with and we need to play to the strength of our forwards and we will get better with a better coach. Would love to see the Duck as coach working under a manager like Liam Sheedy or Darragh O'Sullivan. As for the county board the decision making in regards to managers is crazy and thats why I've criticised them. In my opinion we have a panel of players that are in the top 5 in the country and with the money of the "win a house competition" we should be looking for a top manager. No need to be whinging and balling when we don't finish in the top 3 and looking for the rules to be changed so a 4th team can come out of Munster it's making us look like fools infront of the rest of the country. We need to get our act together it's that simple and stop looking for excuses and favours and get our own house in order. Just like everyone on here from Waterford I would love to see us win an All Ireland and I'd give everything to see it happen but we ain't going to win if we're not willing to learn from previous mistakes and keep going down the same road and playing the same system. I have faith in these players and there's the management teams out there that can get us out of Munster and get us challenging for the All Ireland and this county board needs to do that. Like the prologue called the countdown to glory for the All Ireland final vs Galway in 2017 said "its true time waits for no man". This county board needs to get working for next year and get us a good management team. If we are a county with the ambition of winning an All Ireland then we need to start acting like one and don't be settling for lesser managers and second best. Tipp, Cork and Kilkenny wouldn't settle for being second best especially with the players that we have at our disposal then why should we?

neutral here, ref did ye no favours and cork should be thanking him

darragh lyons Extremely lucky he didn’t get a red….? Murphy is erratic, inconsistent, frustrating, hate it when I see him named as ref as you are nearly always insured to have controversy….😡😡

When you lose 3 games by the 6 or more points, you really have no excuses. Proud of the players commitment but not helped by poor coaching/tactics.

Yesterday in the first half, trying to play short out of defence and not pushing up on Cork was utter madness. A one point deficit at half time left a mountain to climb. When Cork went 8 up, it looked like a humiliation was about to unfold. In fairness, the backs tightened up (note: the first Cork goal stemmed from a needless turnover on our 45) and up front, Stephen Bennett almost single handedly rescued the game.

It's going to take a few years for any emerging talent to become established. When you look at the age profile of yesterday's match day panel, there's very few of them who will be around at that stage, I'm afraid.

And that's that for another year. Only twice have we not finished bottom of the group and we have never finished with a positive score difference.

Extremely disappointing like last year winning the first game and have 3 attempts to get out but it didn't work out.

Has to be said the lads gave it their all and we really can't afford to be missing players.

I wouldn't be overly critically of Peter, it's his first season in the role, he has to find his feet, some decisions were a bit baffling and hopefully he learns from that. Like others I would like to see a shake up of the backroom team, mainly with Kelly.

Like last year, that Tipp game was the game that did us. Although like the Tipp game, I felt Cork were there for the taking, we didn't do enough with the wind in the first half and the mistake for Corks first goal was a killer. Making such a good start and against both Tipp and Cork is really frustrating.

My major concern is how much we have regressed in the forward line since the Cahill days, the half forward line is small in height, full forward line not moving how you would like them to move, on puck outs the forwards seem more concern with running into position and are often not looking towards the ball and it end up not getting to the ball first. With the expedition of Stephen Bennett. Defensively we look ok to be fair.

Someone complained about the county board and their decision making, two of the worst decisions they ever made, appointing Pauric Fanning over Sean Power and appointing Davy after Cahill. I could never get my head around both of those decisions.

Hard luck to the lads yesterday, although we never looked like winning they at least stuck to it until the bitter end. Who knows how it could’ve turned out had that Bennett chance gone in instead of off the post. Only small criticism of the man himself is why he opted for goal from that free in in the first quarter I think it was when a handy point was on to keep momentum going but other than that yesterday just reaffirms how much pressure we’ll be under for scores when he eventually steps away.

Another year gone up in smoke but I’d probably argue the year went better than what I’d say many hoped, relatively speaking. Looking back at posts from late last year/early this year there was no talk of getting out of Munster but more about whether wed even win a game. The fact we won a game (against the AI champions no less) and weren’t a million miles away in a few of the games along with winning 1B of the league id say probably just about exceeded expectations.

Unfortunately however as others have said it just seems like we’re only going to get a bit weaker each year with lads calling it a day. The last few years does feel a bit like diminishing returns while all other teams around us in Munster only seem to get bloody stronger.

Let’s leave the dust settle for a while and see who’s on board for 2026, both player wise and management. As mentioned, Queally could do with a few more in the back room team that can offer a bit more tactically and if Calum Lyons and Monty were back on board it might take the sting out of any retirees. There’d still be the spine of a team there that can at least be competitive but its scoring forwards we badly need to unearth. Roll on the club championship to hopefully find one or two….

If we are to keep Queally and in my opinion I wouldn't I think we need to be ruthless and we should go all out for Liam Sheedy because I am still fuming over this championship and how we set up yesterday. If we do keep him then we must get rid of Shanahan and get Donal O'Rourke in beside him and implement a game plan instead of playing the Derek McGrath game plan from ten years ago. We didn't win anything with it then and we ain't going to win anything now. It was like watching us against Tipp in the 2016 Munster final in Limerick when Paddy Curran ran around like a lost child against 3 Tipp backs when we played with the wind in the first half. The same could be said for Sean Walsh yesterday it was frightening stuff. We need a ruthless and straight talking manager like Cahill to get the best out of this group. Cahill made mistakes in 2022 no doubt about it he should have left the lads out for a few drinks after the league final win but he didn't and if the stories about Jim McGuinness being brought in for a few training sessions are true then that was crazy stuff. What I am most worried about is that we will stick with the same management group and do the same thing again next year and come the end of May or sooner then we will be out of Munster. We need to get ruthless if we are to win. We have the players and we need to implement a style like Cahill and Beavins did instead of the doing the same thing as we done ten years ago

Didn't think much of the ref before beforehand but thought he did well overall ; can't really blame him to much for not giving Bennett a penalty in the 1st half ; the umpires had the best view but most umpires are like shop dummies when it comes to making a big call.

A Cork player (Barrett ?) went down like he was shot when Lyons nudged him with the hurley but Johhny didn't fall for that one.

We don't 'have the players' though. Shirt about 6 decent intercounty players to be winning it.

Really disappointed with last two results as in my mind we didn’t really go for them . If you are afraid of loosing it is very hard to win and Peter seems like Derek and Davy intent just making us difficult to beat - i do not know who to go for as a new manager but Peter has been around this bunch for three years now and we need in my opinion a fresh pair of eyes to rejuvenate older lads and look at new younger lads - I really didn’t see any improvement in individual players in the last 12 months - the opposite in fact - every county faces the same problems finding new players - we can address these problems and drive on or we can wallow in our mediocrity - my biggest fear is that we have an inept county board with no ambition beyond keeping themselves in power- hopefully I am totally wrong - another year done and dusted

Another hugely disappointing end to a round robin campaign. Like other posters have pointed out there has never been a lack of talent within the squad which is why it can be so frustrating following this team.

From the outside looking in you really couldn’t fault the effort levels from all players this year. Throughout every game you always got the sense queally had buy in from the players despite things not clicking on the day.

Personally I’d like to see Peter stay on, on the condition he does a serious assessment of his backroom team. At this level to not have a proven and tested head coach is honestly insane. You would hope he has learned that much. Teams need proper coaching and we can’t be relying on the off the cuff brilliance of bennet and Barron to be contesting AI. We need a coach that can look at the strengths of the personnel we have and bring some proper shape to the team because there was a sense of hit and hope about this year.

I could be way off but I’ve a feeling we haven’t seen the end of these lads just yet.