Kilkenny GAA Thread

Ivan Bolger having a great game, looks a great bit of stuff.

Full back line very weak under high ball

Just going to offer 2 positives from today as there will be plenty of others to highlight the negatives
Ivan Bolger and Liam Moore were very good

We seemed to play the majority of the game with 2 inside leaving our forwards constantly outnumbered we were never going to score enough to win we bet ourselves with that set up imo

Good bit of fight in the team today to nearly push for a draw at the end when, being honest, we should have been well out of it by that stage. Thought Liam Moore was really good only his decision making needs a little more work, should have gone for goal in the first half. Bolger was good for a first run out, not sure too many of the backs will be too happy going to bed tonight, felt we struggled badly when they ran at us especially. Tallis was good stopping shots but his puckouts were bad especially in the first half, I counted five in a row that we lost at one stage, think three of them resulted in points to Cork. Cian Kenny is starting to be one of my favorite players now, always gives the opposition plenty of it when they try to bully us. Thought deegan did ok today, wasn't too clear to me what his role was but I don't remember any major mistakes. Still not convinced on Carey, he got turned a couple of times, but that was a huge day for him to learn from for the summer.

We still need to be patient with this team, they're such a work in progress. You'd have to think though that on harder ground Cork would have beaten us by more. Still though, not bad. Need a result from the Galway game imo though, don't want to be going to tipp and having the possibility of those hoors relegating us.

Tallis Bolger Moore very good, Deegan was running around headless. Who do kk have to come back? Tj and Adrian? Maybe Shane Murphy. Cork only had 8 of last years all Ireland team starting. A positive is the effort and determination shown by kk, however, we had to work so hard to stay with them and only for Tallis in first half, game could have been gone for us, even if cork had taken points instead of going for goal

Terrible conditions for the game led to it being very low scoring but not without entertainment. The Bolger black card and then the goal for Walsh in the second half highlighted how big a loss Lawlor is and teams might target us this way.

All in all, we should be content with that performance. Bolger showed why people have been tipping him to break into the team and in the coming years himself or Garrett could be full back, but still a bit early to be predicting which.

Thought Killian Doyle had his worst game of the year, he looked tired and there was some joy for Cork against him. I think he's shown enough so far to retain his place though. Corcoran really seems to be improving, he gets dragged out of position sometimes and often over-commits leaving us vulnerable but in general thought he was ok today.

I think Richie Reid's attempt to stop the second goal is the reason no one trusts him to be a centre back. He just doesn't take out the man when we need him to. His distribution wasn't his usual standard either, but he did have one fantastic hook when Cork were in on goal.

Liam Moore seems to be a great find, with his strength and pace. If he can get more confidence to take on a goal we could be looking at a very different proposition in the summer.

Mossy struggled. He often had two men around him when high ball came in, but for the balls where they were played in front of him he really seemed to be caught on his heels.

Has the Cody at centre forward experiment ended before it ever really began? It really feels as though it has been abandoned when it seemed like it might be a good fit for everyone.

Cian Kenny is our most important player and he grew more confident with the frees as the game wore on. He has a great knack of winning a free too which really eased the pressure at different times.

Of the other players, Mikey Butler did ok, Mikey Carey good at times but wandered up the pitch a bit too often, Jordan Molloy worked very hard but I often felt his hard work was missing at midfield to accommodate Reid in there, Blanch good at times but really has a habit of going missing, Deegan was Deegan mixing good with brain-dead, McDermott not really in it.

On Tallis, his shot stopping stopped it being worse than it was. I couldn't possibly judge him on his puckouts today because the wind was all over the place so it would be great to see him on a better day to see what he has in his locker.

Even though I probably sound negative, I'm actually positive as we have young lads that we can hopefully keep developing. 3 points against that Cork team isn't a huge loss.

Cork when in their good patch today ran through us very easy, too easy in my opinion. If you're going to take another body from the middle third and put it up in ff line it'll make it even easier for them.

We don't have the players to go man on man.

there was definitely a lot of throws out there

Defence did "OK" considering the pressure they were under and the quality of forward they were up against.

Our creativity and ability to create scores is shocking. Every score is a battle or from a free. In general there's a lack of skill across the board. We haven't been reading or anticipating breaking ball well, we haven't been winning enough ball on the ground in rucks, our puck outs are still slow and painful and there's a massive disconnect between our full forward line and the rest of the team.

Our middle eight are getting pulled and dragged all over the place so when we do get the ball in open play I don't think we have a proper half forward line to link the team to the inside forwards. This means one of the opposition half back line can always just swoop back and it's a 2 on 1 when the ball goes in. The ball needs to go way deeper or we need someone always loitering on the 45 as a link.

I think we're in a world of trouble when summer hurling kicks into gear. Not because of a lack of effort but a lack of quality. Nearly all the players getting introduced are high effort, work hard players but hurling wise it's all such a slog.

So which 3 players are you "keeping up" to get the scores? I think we'll really struggle Vs Tipp, Limerick and Cork with that approach. I hope I'm wrong.

Absolutely, I don't know what hold they have on management but it seems they think they are irreplaceable. Whatever about Reid, I think he can do a covering job but he needs to be TOLD. Sometimes it feels like there is no specific gameplay they are following. Every player on that pitch needs to be reading off the same hymnsheet and doing their job. I think the likes of Reid and Deegan in particular are content in running around playing their own game, and that had led to disasters such as the semifinal last year. If we went to rebuild, we needs these players learning to play together and not as individual, which i think has been the case so far this year.

It’s not necessarily who you keep up the field but the distance between our half forward line and the ff line today was massive until the end of the game how could they possibly link up wit the other forwards or stop cork from working the ball out easily

The half forward line were to far back the field there was no link between the 2 lines

You can’t always keep 3 in the full forward line for a full 70mins there’s times when players slip in and out and some one plays between the half and ff line but today it seemed not matter what happened in the game with the wind without the wind we were playing 2 inside until the very end when it was to late

I think we got 7 or 8 points from play today and the fact that there was a chance at the death to level it probably papers over the cracks. Kk are as dogged as you will meet and always seem to hang in despite being outplayed. Tallis made some great saves and is no doubt a better shot stopper than murphy is now imo. Kk spent the last few years with very little coaching. Mickey comerford and peter o donovan and michael rice as goal keeping coach means theres a lot of catching up to do. Players are taking alot in at the moment and are very impressed with corcoran especially,and brennan but this wont happen 6 games in. Defenders are so used to driving in terrible ball its going to take time. For the second week in a row the opposition targeted killian doyle and made hay. He isnt ready yet imo and blanchfield needs to go back to wing back. Richie reid again showed his weakness with the second goal and barcoe his inexperience with the 3rd goal although blanchfield was ball watching and got sucked in. Moore has being kk most consistent foward and will get more confidence and shoot himself as time goes by. Fowards have to win their own ball but alot of the problem is the ball going in is desperate. Deegan again head up loads of time and straight to a cork player or mossy being marked by 2 defenders.niall corcoran has alot of work to do. The absence of huw was always going to be huge. Mikey done some good things but the last few weeks the full fowards have all done well. Management set their stall out early and look to be sticking to that spine. Kk could of conceded 6 or 7 goals easily enough. Tj is back towards the end of the league and his free taking will be as important as ever. Dissapointing free taking is such an issue. I would of liked to seen brennan instead of connellan today. Big couple of weeks ahead a drop to div 2 would be another step backwards. Something if you look at the trend this team is going that way

I feel like we are moving other players around positions now just to have Doyle Wing Back, he has come on a lot in the last year but as another poster says Blanchfield should be wing back, Molloy and Kenny Midfield with Cody running the show at Centre forward and let the other players filter around from there.

I feel for Mossy the last few weeks he has so much scoring ability but is living off scraps with quality of ball he is getting into him, could his movement be a small bit better to help maybe?

I've had great time for Deegan over the years but he is adding nothing to our team to drive forward now in my opinion, he will still run all day long no one can question his effort. Strange Peter McDonald was begged to stay on Panel but seen zero gametime in league either, I would have felt he offers more quality than his clubmate Connellan who just isn't at the top level either.