Kilkenny GAA Thread

Yeah ryan often leaves dressing room first and leaves players have final word. It's all bs, just shows people will believe anything to suit a narrative. MANY Cork Players all out drinking in marquee including those mentioned in supposed row last night.

While I don't really believe that what anyone says on this forum will ever have **** all impact on the future of Kilkenny hurling, if Michael Fennelly has gone that is very dissapointing, I know from working in a large multinational company which employed his and Anthony Cunningham's company to give leadership courses that he was very highly regarded by the bigwigs in the company, even though I think transferring the approach to sport to real life is a bit bullshitty, so could be that he has been headhunted rather than that he has lost faith in his role, really hope its just a rumour though

Big news if Fennelly is gone. I believe the county board is notoriously difficult to deal with and a lot of progressive suggestions are shot down by the dinosaurs that run it and the prominent career officials who influence them. We badly need competent, progressive and forward thinking business leaders to take over the main positions in the Co Board, like Chair/Treasurer/Secretary roles. We will fall further and further behind if the status quo is allowed to continue for much longer.

Who should be on the County Board?

Small clubs like Brighton and Brentford make their resources from buying cheap, developing and selling dear.

Not an option for a GAA team unless Limerick come in with stupid money for one of our players.

Another excellant example. There is no player trading in GAA so we cant make money that way. What we need is excellant structures and then get the best possible people available. All the football clubs we have mentioned have excellant structures. A football club that doesnt have them is Utd.

To a degree yes your right when the players are there then all is well and there's very little whinging. The problem is we had it good for so long (and thanks to the great players and management teams for that) that we have completely taken our eye off the ball in terms of developing and coaching players to be better. At the end of the day to be an expert/all-star a couple of things are needed.

1. Thousands of hours of practice (10,000 is the usual number cited) but that on it's own won't get you there.

2. In order to learn you need to engage in deliberate practice, this is to practice at the edge of your ability, it has to push you beyond your comfort zone. Requires a lot of concentration and you have to methodically repeat things your not good at. Once you master a skill or situation you need to find the next thing and keep challenging your skill set.

3. You have to get lots of feedback regularly (good and bad) and the more immediate the better, this is how you learn from the practicing.

4. Hardest of all you have to have self drive to want to be the best, so you go looking for more challenges and your not happy with the skills you have you always want to improve. As soon as you become comfortable and stop challenging yourself your skills actually start to decline.

TJ, Henry, Tommy, JJ, Larks, R Power, DJ would all be examples of this.

Guys who have the best wrists and the most skill and who make the game look easy are those who have done the above. They are not a better athlete or have a smarter hurling brain. It's that they are so comfortable with the skills of the game that they never have to think about them it just happens because they have so much practice in the bank. When their faced with a scenario of how a ball is coming to them they don't have to think about it, their brain recognises the situation and intuition takes over and the skill is carried out effortlessly. This frees you up your brain to think ahead and plan next moves while a less practiced player is concentrating on making sure he executes the skill.

Now the last one there isn't much you can do about but the first thing you can do is try to make every environment for players challenging, that's not to say to run them till they drop. I don't think anyone enjoys that but to challenge their skills and abilities every night. Coaches need to provide feedback or design excercises where the feedback is obvious you succeeded or failed at the task. From what I've heard of our intercounty setups we spend very little if any time at this (hopefully in the underage setups they do). Once a player gets to minor, U20 and senior we expect them to be fully formed and ready. That isn't the case and can't be the case.

Even if a player enters the KK senior setup at a really high level if he's not challenged he will regress and I'm afraid I could name a few players, that I think that has happened too. The unwillingness to coach and improve players skill levels in our intercounty setups is a real issue, among many others but it is ultimately responsible for us "not having the players". If any manager ever believes we don't have the players then they should get the f*** out of the way and let someone in who does believe in the players. They might not all be too the level we wish they were for intercounty but the managers, coaches and trainers job is to make sure they are and if that means teaching them things then that's what we have to do. No player is perfect and knows everything there's always something to learn, something to perfect. If you think you have it perfected can you do it faster or with a lad trying to take your head off. There's always an element that can be added to a players game.

Our county board and management teams have been far too passive, at least that's what the evidence has shown. They have the players they trust, they expect others to magically improve to the standard and even if they somehow do (with little help or feedback in the setup) they're rarely if ever really trusted. This is not a hard thing to fix and with a tweak in attitude and really challenge all the players that are there and those who join, with high standards and honesty, I think we could easily win All Irelands again.

Can or will our existing county board and management teams implement something like above? Very unlikely, there is no evidence to say the will. Perhaps a road to Damascus moment is ahead and peoples personalities and attitude changes if so we might be successful by running back the same. I just don't see it unfortunately and we'll fail again the same way. At least try something different and fail a different way, not the same way we've been failing since 2016.

"We don't have the players" is the biggest insult and the biggest cop out to every lad hurling Kilkenny today. It's lazy and it's lie that's perpetuated around the county and in the county board. No one involved with Kilkenny at any level should ever be heard to say or mutter those words.

There are loads of hurlers in Kilkenny lets make them good enough to win and All Ireland.

My friend I never said we don't have the players, we have and they are good, the new blood we need to win AIs with the current squad I feel isn't there at the moment. That is no insult to anyone, just an opinion based on what i see at all levels. The work is being done in schools, clubs and county and in time we will win AIs again. Challenging management to MAKE players not up to it winners is well🤔.…if only it was that easy!! You seem to have a good grasp of what's required ,so I presume you are doing your bit for the cause?.

Getting the right people in the right positions is important. That the difficult piece. Some people dont want change so getting them on board is another issue.

The hurlers are there. The right manager will get them over the line. Cody IMO would have got us over the line in the 2 semi finals.

On that note talking to one of my Cork clients they were telling me there was fighting at half time. Thats directly from one of the team. They did say that the CB confirmed that Ryans contract is up and no decision has been made regarding if his contract will be renewed.

From another angle

Best I've seen in awhile

Very sad saw it on the premier view pod page classless really there also showing videos of r hogans comments about the tipp team after the league final god forbid a pundit had a different opinion about a team back in April to where they have ended up now not many saw tipp getting out of Munster never mind winning the all Ireland

Tipp didn’t even play kk in the all Ireland final

And it’s not even a week since they lifted Liam Macarthy and there to busy throwing the boot into a team they beat in the semi final not even the final

I’m all for banter but those 3 men running that premier view pod come across as some right little sad men with a serious chip on there shoulder

Are they working through their list of pundits and journalists to call out for saying things they didn't agree with around the semi final and final? Some bitter shower

It's hilarious really and incredibly hypocritical. I know for a fact Liam Cahill took horrendous abuse from Tipp supporters after last year and up to and including this years league. That's despite everything he achieved at underage level for them. Most thought he was a busted flush and should quit, and the vast majority gave them no chance of coming out of Munster let alone win an All Ireland.

What Cahill and Tipp achieved is absolutely incredible and nobody but nobody including their own fans, predicted it. They overachieved and then some, and we'll see next year whether it was a fluke or not.