Waterford GAA Thread - Mod note post #1

thought TDB looked lost at sea yesterday. I’m of the opinion the only way he can prolong his intercounty career is to make a brick walsh wing forward out of him.

What did ye expect when going for Davys right hand man. Wasn't he also in with Davy the first time he was with Waterford. Ye keep going for park the bus type managers despite Waterford always having good forwards.

I made the comment about height and think it still stands, we often had Jamie at centre forward along with Jack P, I'd prefer to see something like Kiely, Aussie and Sean W in the half forward line, having the height and presence to win ball and have the smaller nippy lads in the full forward line.

We just don't seem to have any proper shape to our forward lines, the inability to not win the ball and not reading the breaking ball is a killer for us.

Too often this year we failed to win high ball, high ball for half forward line and low or chest height for full forward line.

It's down to coaching. You have to work on your touch, skill and movement in training. Look at Tipp under Sheedy when he had Eamon O'Shea in with them. Eamon coached their forwards the movement and spacial awareness that they needed and they were devastating against Kilkenny in 2010. We need a coach like Donal O'Rourke with the vision and the plan and come in and rip up the existent game plan. It's simple we sack the existent coaching staff and go again but this county board haven't the bottle to do this. It can be done I really believe in these players

I think we may have one or two stepping aside now. For next year we probably need to bring through a new corner back, at least one wing back, TWO midfielders, a half forward and probably a full forward. Are they out there?

You're right but we could do with coaching the first touch and skill after this year 😂

there’s a few from this years u20s that can come in. I think. Conor Keane is a great prospect as a corner back and there’s definetly an opening there if he’s ready to step up. Jack Twomey also of De La Salle is a promising forward would have him on the panel but might need a bit of work for a year or two before he’s ready. Spain will be a year too young but if he keeps progressing you’d be looking at him the following year and with the likes of Bennett on borrowed time it can’t come soon enough. You’d hope to see Calum Lyons back he was a massive loss around midfield/ half back line, to a lesser extent Montgomery and Fagan but wouldn’t hold my breath. If Carthach Daly can get a run injury free he can grow into a top player, similar Rueben Halloran. We’re not exactly flush compared to what the likes of Cork and Tipp have coming through but we should be looking to blood the lads that are promising asap

Mcnulty is gone travelling, living in Perth the last I saw. Conor Ryan is another one, seemed to perform well what I saw of him in league this year and only panel he made was the last day after Iarlaith got injured.

The damning stat of this year is our poor scoring numbers compared to the other teams. We scored total of 100 points(4-88) in 4 matches which was 7 less than the next worse team(Clare) but 16 worse than both Tipp and Limerick and 19 less than Cork, scoring an average of 25 points isn't enough, the 3 team that qualified averaged 29-30pts across the 4 games, and in fairness to Queally he seemed to acknowledge that(I haven't heard those quotes but someone here said he did anyway) so that has to be the focus for the next campaign but what he does about it is anyones guess. Defensively we were joint second best(with Clare) with 113 conceded, Limerick were best with just 99. In fairness Cork conceded 114 and Tipp 119 so we weren't massively ahead of anyone on that stat. We did concede the least amount of goals(only 3) but our concession of 104 points was 11 higher than the next highest points conceded(cork with 93 conceded) and a massive 23 more than the best record which was Limerick with only 81 points conceded. Take your own conclusions from that but it seems to me that yes sitting an extra defender does reduce the goals conceded but allows more space for opposition shots for points and hinders our attacking threat with less numbers equalling less threat and less scores. The system was found out by opposition years ago so why we persist I don't know, we nearly got an all-Ireland with it when it was introduced but has brought nothing in the years that followed.

Similar to others I am wondering what Eoin Kelly is bringing to this coaching setup, surely someone of his stature in the game should have got Dessie to improve but if anything he has regressed severely in the last 3 years. We have some good young forwards, the Fitzgeralds, Reuben and a few more from the 20's and this years minors and I don't think Kelly should be near them from what we've seen. Who internally have we with coaching experience that can coach them, what could Paul Flynn bring to it. Was involved with Sean Powers underage teams who with Patrick Curran and Stephen Bennett played a fantastic free flowing and more off the cuff forward play? At this stage if I was Queally and knowing he has 1 more year would it be worth a roll of the dice rather than trying to get kelly to undo 3 years of whatever it is he's been trying to do with the forwards??? Take off the shackles of the deep sitting centre back, get extra bodies forward and take your chances. Even if it doesn't work out it might make for more entertaining games but what is the worse that can happen, we finish last and don't qualify………..AGAIN!!!!

Dessie is 28 now not like he’s not 22/23 anymore with his whole career ahead of him, yea you’d think he should be at his peak but sometimes players start to wane off on the near side of 30 that’s just the nature of how things go. Dessie just seems to have lost a small element of sharpness that he once had maybe it will come back next year who knows, I don’t think you can blame it on Eoin Kelly .

Jjjjjjbarry

Your obsession with all things Ballygunner is reaching new lows here. I agree, you are not alone on this site but you seemed like a good sort and not totally beyond saving. But to suggest that the one success story we had in this hurling county in recent years is the cause of the failure of our county team this year is grounds for serous concern for yourself. As somebody who has seen this BG team grow from boys to men and write one of the finest sporting success stories ever witnessed in this country never mind the county, your pettiness and bitterness is most disappointing. Your consistent mission to pick, mostly imagined, faults with Ballygunner players while blatantly ignoring massive shortcomings in others is at best tiresome but at times downright disgraceful.

I'll try to explain it to simply. Successful teams focus on winning. (Think Dublin footballers, Limerick hurlers and, oh yes, your very own Ballygunner.) If the rest cannot keep up that is their problem. The Gunners now face the massive task of securing a mindblowing 12th senior hurling in a row in a year radical change of personnel on and off the field. Each year they work so hard to find that extra piece of motivation to keep the fire lit.

This year that motivation will surely come from the mealy mouthed rhetoric that has been directed at their county players in recent weeks. I for one cannot wait to see how all the fine and many prospects you and butties here have been putting forward as replacements for these lads fare over the upcoming championship. They should have no problems brushing aside a team containing such useless articles as Dessie, Paddy Leavey, Kevin Mahoney and Ian Kenny. Looking forward to it. Up the Gunners!!

Perhaps Jjjjjjbarry means the lack of rest for ballygunner lads.

I do feel for successful teams, they seem to go the whole 12 months with very little break and that would be any club team doing well.

Anyone from BG for the past number of years would be going, county, club, munster club, AI club, little to no break. I'm sure county and clubs give them a rest but it could take it's toll.

That's not me complaining about ballygunner but a fact of the modern game, if mount Sion, DLS, Dungarvan or any club won county, won Munster and progressed for the AI it would be the same for those players.

I think that’s a bit unfair but I won’t argue with you. Best of luck to Ballygunner this year. I’ve often travelled to Thurles to see them play.

that was class. Thanks for sharing it

really hit home for me ,share a lot of those feelings, although my father is too old for matches now . also not being born in waterford only growing up in it , as well as spending more time out of it than in it at this stage all makes me share a lot of those sentiments

One thing no one has mentioned on here as an explanation for our capitulations is fitness.

Surely its no coincidence that we were in with a shout around the 50 minute mark and then we ended up getting well beaten in the Cork / Tipp games.