Kilkenny GAA Thread

what were the tactics today? Couldn’t tell now. If it stayed 15 on 15 say we win. Easy to say Mullen come off for S donnolly but sure Jesus who’d ya rather onde pitch? Mullen all day every day, Stephan alri in Leinster but sure Jesus Christ lads it’s unreal. I said to lads beside us today if we had two of TJ we win that game. He’s 38 lads like and our best player it’s a joke that deserves more. Cork by whatever they want my prediction

Blame Leinster? Ah lads stop will yas stop home and hosed last year against Clare at HT, lost a shambolic semi final, and even so this year felt worse. End of the road, lyng may go. no bottle. How many times have we seen deegan destroyed in croker? Even in the first half he got away with murder, on the bunch and break he was 5 yards beyond everytime. Goals win matches and that’s it, did we even have a goal chance?. Can’t beat them just give up i think, what has lyng done really? Tj the best ever only thing. And best of luck to Tipp, serious mentality and fair play to them.

Special mention re TJ from an outsider . In all my time I don't think I've seen a hurler who was great at every single skill in the game.

Fed up reading all the negativity here I've nothing to lose that kk team have an all Ireland in em they need a few tweaks here and there maybe management maybe not them boys hurled yesterday and hurled well you take the good with the bad and our day will come thanks boys for the sport and dedication you have given all year if ye didn't do it who would. Thanks for wearing the black and amber for us and representing us and fxxk the downers. It is what it is there was only a puck of the ball in it yesterday against an exciting tipp team with nothing too lose . Motor on

Really hard one to take because the lads gave there all, scored 30 points which wins most games. We started so well until that rain and wind arrived and just lost our way for ten minutes playing into the strong wind. First goal so unfortunate a great block and pops straight to Mcgrath, terrible turnover from Paddy late but at the same time we had loads of opportunities to win the ball back before the goal then we let a lad get a shot off while he was surrounded by 4 defenders, someone has to make a block

Tipp full back line were cynical when we got in on goal, 4 times lads were dragged down and not one yellow card for it. Our lads should of done the same.

Murphy - will be disappointed not to have saved Mccarthys shot, made one great save. Times in the 2nd half the forward all bunched together and split in different directions but he was slow on the delivery and the runs were wasted

Butler - got destroyed at times in the first half and him and Murphy going up for the same ball is criminal, couldn't rise the ball.

Lawlor - felf he was exposed at times because he was trying to cover for the two beside him. Still had a good game and we would be in a desperate place without him.

Murphy - didn't look at the races, poor for the 2nd goal and moved out of the full back line, he was lucky to last until half time

Carey - must of been hard week on him, not his best game, mad a big mistake in first half but got back and made a great hook, some nice catches in 2nd half but not much influence

Reid - let's be honest hes played for his distribution and when tipp went to 14 he got turned over for a point and didn't deliver, wasnt in the game for large periods

Paddy - the stupid mistake is what will be remembered but he was one of our better defenders, some great hooks and work rate, settled the fullback line when he went in.

Kenny - not his most influencial game but got two big points in the 2nd half

Jordan - 4 great points played really well but the one left short to put us 3 up will haunt him. He's been the find of the year for us.

Mullen - what was that? Couldn't do the basics and cost us a couple of points by not being able to rise the ball, he was about to be taken off before he got two points. Seems to go missing at times in big games.

Donnelly - nowhere near last years form, some poor wides, still got on some good ball but you need scores from your 11. Actually had mossy off his shoulder when he took that last shot and should of passed it .

Billy - couple of nice points and tried to carry the ball but went out of the game for a while

Mossy - exceptional again with 6 points from play, deserves his all star this year

TJ - another great game, perfect on the frees, brings everyone into the game.I fear we won't seem him get another All Ireland that he really deserves. The greatest hurler I've ever seen

Cody - Maybe a bit rusty but did well and worked hard, probably need more then 2 points from him

Blanch - the biggest mystery of the year, none us would of believed at the start of the year we go into a semi final with him on the bench. Did ok when on

Not a million miles away but the team is getting old

Fabulous to see and read the new posters on here, many reinventing themselves. Where have ye been hiding?Anyway I haven't felt as disappointed leaving HQ since Tony Doran banged in a last minute goal for Wexford in '84 Leinster final to deny us a chance of completing a 3 in a row ,something I thought I would never see. I have consistently written here that our present crop are good but just not quite good enough. At the moment I don't see the new blood that we need to change that in the short term. Stating that we were outfought is an injustice to our lads. 30 pts was an outstanding return. The concession of three goals in the first 20 just wasn't in the script. TJ REID should be the talking point for us. The Greatest ever hurler without any doubt . If his last act in the black and amber was to show the composure and hurling brain to set up John Donnelly for what could have been the winner. In his 38th year he was still unbelievable. It was a brilliant game, just wasn't our day and hats off to Tipp for the win. Both teams definitely bring the best out of each other. I wish we could be playing in a championship where we were playing the likes of Tipp, Cork, Limerick etc every year. Would definitely be a fairer system. Hurling needs and deserves an open draw element.

Tipp very bad last year they maybe be all Ireland winners this year alot can change that's my tuppence on it

Good post, agree with all of that. As others said, we hurled really well yesterday but mistakes killed us and in fairness to the Tipp forwards, they were lethal in taking their goal chances. Someone said it was 1-5 from mistakes, personally I thought it was more. 2 of the goals were a direct result of mistakes by our lads and another should probably have been prevented. But the first goal was just one of those things you can't account for, the ball just fell perfect for him, otherwise it would have been put down to good defending. Two corner backs going for one ball has already been pointed out by many, awful mistake. Both had poor games. I felt Murphy should have been out quicker as well for the third goal, he was very slow off his line. The biggest mystery for me is Mullen. For a lad who has lorded games before, he was absolutely anonymous yesterday until a few minutes when he saw he was about to be subbed. I don't know what is going on with the lad but to see an inter county hurler in an AI semi final struggle with the basics yesterday was baffling. Also, if you're going to play a CB for his play making abilities then he needs to make some plays. His distribution yesterday, especially towards the end was just brutal. Paddy will get a lot of stick for the last goal and it was an awful mistake, no doubt about it. The chap always gives 100% every game and he does a lot well but it's just so frustrating that there is always a bad pass in him or a mistake in possession and at this level it gets punished.

I don't buy all the Kilkenny is doomed nonsense I read from some posters but it might be no harm for Kilkenny to sacrifice a year to blood some new talent and think longer term rather than continue to try to reach the final with minimum changes to the panel.

As for the narrative about the point that wasn't. I don't think anyone at the game (or at least around me) was in any doubt that McGrath's effort was given as wide and we were still 3 points down anyway so we still needed a goal. There wasn't time for 3 points at that stage.

The first 15 minutes of yesterday's game was as good as any that Kilkenny have played. Great ball to Mossy, Cody and Billy and some brilliant movement from 5 of the forwards. While the rain disrupted us, the goals were a killer, they deflated the whole team.

The huge positive is that we actually can see that the team can play a game where we are picking passes out and picking out runners and taking lovely points. It's a massive positive and something that a new manager should look at.

The negatives are more plentiful but it was a combination of negatives that undid the positives.

1. After the goals, the team forgot the lovely play from the first 15 minutes. Lyng and the management team got them in at half time and needed to remind them of how they were playing but for whatever reason it just didn't happen and we reverted to long ball after long ball on top of the full forward line where Ronan Maher started sitting back and cleaning up
2. We (and lots of hurling teams) have no idea how to play against 14. Everyone in the stadium could tell you that we should push up on their puckouts but that didn't happen. I'd attribute blame to players for most mistakes but that one has to come from the management to tell them to push up. On the other hand we started hitting short puckouts to Richie Reid and Paddy Deegan just so they could launch ball in to the full forward line with snow on it. That's where we needed to retain the ball and work it into 2v1, 3v2 positions and take our scores. It was fairly baffling
3. Indecisiveness. How did we let Tipp score that last goal? Numerous chances to clear it and while Carey was clearly fouled for it, he should have had that ball in hand ages before but looked like he wanted someone else to take control
4. Bench. Just use some players. Roll the dice. We have lads on the bench that are raring to go, lads that have trained all year. Why aren't we trusting them. Only using 3 subs against 14 men is another mistake because that's where you get fresh lads on the pitch. Instead we persisted with doing stuff that clearly wasn't working

There's more negatives and more positives but these are probably the main ones I see. The negatives outweigh the positives but I do think that the first 15 minutes should give us hope as to what we are capable of.

Looking to the future, I think it's time Lyng left. I actually think he has us playing a nice brand but there are the persistent lulls in games and poor decision making as regards subs. The other side of it is that we need an overhaul and after 3 years Lyng isn't the man. I'd like to look at Mullally and Dowling and to a lesser extent Fast Eddie. These are people that have done a lot with very little and taken the teams to a level above where it was thought they were capable of, that's what we're going to need in a rebuild.

Can't wait for the club championships and really hoping we can spot our next centre back and corner back. We'll be back.

Plenty of overreactions here which is understandable. That was so disappointing yesterday. As I said, you cannot make the amount of schoolboy, unforced errors that we made and expect to win an all Ireland semi.

Someone said it was 1-5 from mistakes, it was 1-5 in the last 12 minutes alone. Richie Reid's 2 brain farts in possession under the Hogan under no pressure, Deegan two brainless fouls on each sideline, and to top it off, Deegan's inexplicable dummy attempt before the goal. Absolutely ridiculous stuff you wouldn't see it in an U14 match.
Jordan Molloys miss with 6 minutes left was huge as well. Standing on his own from 50 yards and nobody between him and the 21, he struck a low shot which Shelly saved above the crossbar, and hit down to right hand side where 3 of our defenders had Ormond completely bottled up before Deegan slapped him across the head. 2 point swing and them they scored from our puckout. It's a pity the ref booked Carey instead of Deegan, had he been sent off we'd have won the match.
Molloy had 20 yards in front of him to stroll in and tip it over the time. 3 point lead, 5 left, v 14. Jordan played well but that was a fatal error.

The 2nd 2 goals were just ridiculous errors as well from Mikey and Murphy. My God. Tipp must have thought our players had them backed. We were the far superior team but kept shooting ourselves in the foot with schoolboy mistakes and kept them in the match.

The scoreboard mistake was unforgivable. Donnelly had a simple chance on 72 mins to put a point in it and instead tried to work it in. Cody the same on 70 mins to put 2 in it.
How in the name of God can that happen in a match of that importance? Why wasn't somebody in the referees ear immediately?? Half the stadium knew there was an issue. Imagine the carnage if Doyle hadn't got back on the line for the last save.

Emd of the day Tipp had the minerals and we didn't. Lot of lads blaming Lyng but I'm sorry, when seasoned inter county players make the dumb mistakes we made yesterday, unforced errors, that's on the players. Need to clean house there now. Some great servants like Richie and Paddy D, but we're going backwards if they get a senior starting jersey next year.

Agree with everything in your post, you explained everything better than me. The only small thing is that we have to give some blame to Lyng, not specifically for yesterday but for the fact that in 3 years he hasn't blooded anyone to replace Reid and Deegan. That's probably my biggest gripe with him. Aware that people will think that the players aren't there but hard to believe that we haven't developed a decent centre back in the last 5 years.

By the way, talk of a replay over the scoreboard issue is frankly embarrassing. We don't deserve one nor will we get one. The game was there to be won and won well and we failed on the day, simple as. I see the Examiner has a headline that Kilkenny are 'considering their options'. Seriously like.

Would Luke Hogan have been any worse than Cody or Mullen yesterday? I don't think he would. Mullen was shocking, 2 mistakes under no pressure in 1st half led straight to Tipp points. His touch was completely off.

You're generally right though, who else is there? And who is coming? Not too many from what I can see. Marty Murphy might have made an impact yesterday and looks like a lad that can make it. Bad hamstring issues are a concern though.

obviously a lot of disappointment in here and looking for something to blame or something to change to get better

But some of it is coloured by the result

I think we totally outplayed Tipp for long stretches of that match - won way more breaks and rucks, so there’s no question marks around effort or fight in my opinion

Also, there’s been a marked improvement this year in our ability to play different styles like playing through the lines like people have been calling for

One thing we can learn from Tipp yesterday is to foul when a goal chance is on - don’t know if we were overconfident or just naive in this respect

One legitimate criticism is how we handled having the extra man. There was a plan. Just after the red, a KK man went down for treatment so Derek could get instructions on - and he did.

Whatever they were, they didn’t work though

In hindsight, we should have played David blanchfield and put paddy Deegan in the corner, but easy to say now

Regarding moving anyone on - there has to be someone ready to step in and I don’t see anyone putting their hand up bar Tallis in the goal

Shocking reffing in the camogie ..

Forward dragged down just inside the square , as shes falling she hits the ball on the ground , and withing the half second between her hitting it , and it crossing the line , Kelly blows for a pen...

No advantage allowed...

And then the pen is saved!!! 🫣 ..

They were 2 points up at the time.. It changed the game...

Hurlers ? 🤷‍♂️🙄