Waterford GAA Discussion Thread 3 ***Updated Mod Note Post 1***

Well lafs, sorry for the late reply I'm on nights. I made the call Thursday/Friday about jake Dillon. Don't get me wrong I hate calling out any young lad especially when You see what they sacrifice and put into it. I'm sorry over that but at the end of the day I want what every other Waterford person wants, the mccarthy cup back here, tbh I just can't see why no1 else can get a look in over Dillon?, o halloran , Tommy Ryan ect ect. It baffles me and most lads in my club. Like even tom showed today he is an unreal ball winner and when he puts his head down running at any defence with the ball on his stick, who in ireland could stop him. In normal time today Moran was poor aswel but was excellent in extra time. For me the senior relegation said everything to me last year in feather field. DLS were there for a reason, for anyone who disagrees ye can dress it up any way ye want, nothing against dls they are a great club, but if ur disagreeing with me give me a good reason why Tom Brian or Tommy don't get a chance .

deisechap09 wrote: »

Couple of points on the game today -

Seems like alot of people very disgruntled at the style of play on here. Admittedly it isn't pretty at times but people are quick to forget it has got us to 2 consecutive league finals. In reality, we were very poor today for the first 45/50 mins and the game wasn't much of a spectacle. However, we had Clare well on the ropes and had we been able to take 6 of the 8 scoreable frees we missed, people would be in here singing about All Irelands.

Derek Mcgrath has said on multiple occasions that some day our system will fail us. I believe that happened to an extent today, as the system we play relies heavily on free-taking accuracy and long-range shooting. In the past we would have crumbled after some of those wides today. However, when we went looking for leaders our young players really stepped up. Curran hit 2 super points as did Bennett, after both had missed frees.

For the replay the selection will be interesting, Devine could easily have got 1-2 today when he came in and must be close to a start. We need to get Aussie in a position where he is most effective, I dont think the free role he seems to be playing is working particularly well. Despite his wides today, he actually took the right decision on all but maybe 2 of those, just his radar was a bit off.

We are not far away and we dont need to abandon the way we are playing. We do need to offer more of a goal threat but I believe this will come.

Some very good points and I can see your reasoning for not abandoning the system but on days like yesterday it is too regimental and needs to be more flexible. I was delighted to see the resilience we showed even when everything we hit seemed to miss at times,we kept at it and the players have to be commended for that but personally if we had won by 1pt yesterday I would still have criticised the display because as you said the system relies heavily on frees and long range point scoring but surely our calibre of players in the forwards deserve better game plans than that?. Thomas Ryan for example is one of the most lethal forwards at club level as Tallow use him by having a plan that maximises his scoring threats as Dungarvan do with Curran but these types of hurlers on the squad are being strangled by the system. Notice I didn't say Shane Bennett as I believe he could actually play in any possible system /position for you he is so talented. Yes the style of hurling is changing as a whole but we are the worse culprits at the moment. Will it bring an All Ireland in September?time will tell but I just hope management have learned from yesterday's performance and certain displays.

People are putting forward the Pro and Anti the system arguments on here. The Pro argument seems to be that its not pretty but if we want to be successful we must stick with it. I would pose the question..........can this system win us an All Ireland? What has it won us to date outside of a League title, which really doesnt count. We got to an AI semi last year but were comfortably beaten by a KK team that everyone agrees is not as good as those of the previous decade. Would we fare better playing a more conventional game? We might you know.

JesusRef wrote: »

Ha ha we only played them once in that time ffs!!

We didn't get to play them in that time because we lost to.
2002 - Clare
2003 - Wexford
2004 - kilkenny
2005 - cork
2006 - cork
2007 - limerick

We couldn't win outside minster

For a team 'as good' as Cork and kilkenny, both of whom won multiple all Irelands in that time - we sure didn't go about showing it when the chips were Down

But ya kilkenny could only beat us once

We were as good as Cork and Kilkenny and to say we didn't show it when the chips were down is rubbish.

Munster Final 2004 down to 14 men and we win the game being the prime example.

The comeback against Cork in 07 being another.

We would have beaten Kilkenny in 07 had we played them.

Under todays system the 07 team would have gone straight to an All Ireland Semi and the Limerick fiasco would never had happened.

JesusRef wrote: »

I agreed with you yesterday at the game but have since done a lot of thinking about it - I remember at the time like after losing tight battles where we werent allowed play saying that I would prefer to play in style and lose than to play like them and win ... but I think the current team would choke the life last masterful team we had.. when the chips were down back then we lost, we lost games to less talented teams (especially in the league) there was something missing there. Now we are the most consistent team in the country we turn up every day

Rewatch the 1995 All Ireland final - terrible game, but that Clare team will be remembered forever - do they or their fans care?

Does the successful meath team care everyone thought they were a shower of cnuts?

Keep going and Soon it will be 70 years since we won an all Ireland

Maybe we need to just worry about winning and not the style we do it in.

We won't win an All Ireland playing like that.

No chance.

Austin Gleeson is criticised for driving wides but often when he gets the ball we have no one, not even a single player, inside 45 metres of the goal.

Austin is one of the best at picking someone out in the game.

Put Austin centre back and have a few forwards inside and we'd be a goal threat very quickly.

The match would also be worth going to instead of boring people senseless.

Deise2016 wrote: »

We were as good as Cork and Kilkenny and to say we didn't show it when the chips were down is rubbish.

Munster Final 2004 down to 14 men and we win the game being the prime example.

The comeback against Cork in 07 being another.

We would have beaten Kilkenny in 07 had we played them.

Under todays system the 07 team would have gone straight to an All Ireland Semi and the Limerick fiasco would never had happened.

Ya we were always full of excuses once it came to croke park - if only we had mullane, the break after the munster was too long, Dan didn't show up, the backs aren't cynical enough.

We had many great days - but the fact is when the real hurling started in august we weren't good enough...

As good as Kilkenny - don't make me laugh - go check our semi final record and come back to me

Tom, I thought that game was anything but absorbing.....it was bloddy boring for the first 45 minutes. Yes it got more exciting after that but the excitement came from the closeness of the scores not from the hurling. I follow rugby a lot and the similarity is striking. In rugby its the breakdown and turnovers that dominate, and this hurling style has created a similar scenario. Surround the man in possession to try and force the turnover through concession of a free or such like. Both games are losing there appeal somewhat.

JesusRef wrote: »

Very hard to know.... stick or twist...

Most colleges, minor & u21 (inter county) and fitzgibbon games have these systems now - all young players are used to it, maybe this is the new conventional.

For the sake of hurling I hope no team playing with a sweeper wins.every munster team bar tipp now playing with a sweeper. Not natural for cork or limerick. Waterford and clare playing this way as they have young players who have been brought up with it with managers who have forced their style system on them.mcgrath would never have been able to get the 02_07 team to buy into this system.like I have said before for the good of hurling I hope this systematic hurling fails.shocking to watch and according to all the papers led to a chap atmosphere.

dubcat51 wrote: »

For the sake of hurling I hope no team playing with a sweeper wins.every munster team bar tipp now playing with a sweeper. Not natural for cork or limerick. Waterford and clare playing this way as they have young players who have been brought up with it with managers who have forced their style system on them.mcgrath would never have been able to get the 02_07 team to buy into this system.like I have said before for the good of hurling I hope this systematic hurling fails.shocking to watch and according to all the papers led to a chap atmosphere.

As the poster above me said, Kilkenny have been doing it for years, dropping their half forward back to midfield area. Thing was other teams weren't following suit.

McGrath has done superbly well with this team and you can see the gameplan coming in properly as McGuinness did with Donegal. The first thing is to make your team hard to score against, second element is then being able to score yourself. The way the game is going, it is success that people want, buggar the visual element of it. The purists want an open game of hurling, but teams want to win, and if using tactics like the sweeper and crowding the midfield area works, then other teams will copy it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Fair play to Maurice Shanahan, cool as a breeze when needed.

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

As the poster above me said, Kilkenny have been doing it for years, dropping their half forward back to midfield area. Thing was other teams weren't following suit.

McGrath has done superbly well with this team and you can see the gameplan coming in properly as McGuinness did with Donegal. The first thing is to make your team hard to score against, second element is then being able to score yourself. The way the game is going, it is success that people want, buggar the visual element of it. The purists want an open game of hurling, but teams want to win, and if using tactics like the sweeper and crowding the midfield area works, then other teams will copy it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Fair play to Maurice Shanahan, cool as a breeze when needed.

Unfortunately hurling is one of the most skillful games in the world and that is what makes it stand out from the rest. If we want to see defensive systems,turnovers etc we can watch Donegal in the Ulster football championship. The game we grew up watching with the likes of Ring,Kehir, Barry Murphy playing was that of natural hurling ability and not one of brute force where in some cases you wouldn't need a Hurley just raw strength to drive through the traffic in the middle section of the pitch. Leave these naturally gifted hurlers hurl and take the chains off so we can see a proper game of hurling again and not the tripe that we saw on Sunday.

It seems to me that the systems employed by the two teams were not the reason for the poor quality of the game, but rather the poor technical quality of the play. There was an extraordinary amount of fumbling (especially by Waterford), of passes being mis-hit or going astray, and of poor long balls being easily cut out by the opposition.

Then there was the terrible shooting by both sides. If half of the 39 wides had been scored, both teams would have exceeded thirty points and we would have been marvelling about that. The key point here is that, despite the systems, there was no shortage of scoring opportunities, with the actual number of scores being restricted by poor execution.

While the tall flags at the town end of the stadium suggested that the wind was blowing straight down the pitch, it must have been blowing across the field towards the Ryan Stand given the number of wides to the right of the country goal and to the left of the town goal. Yet neither team appeared to grasp this and adjust accordingly – apart, of course, from Conor McGrath who gave a great exhibition of accurate shooting (although even he missed a couple).

These deficiencies are, of course, very unusual for two teams full of very skillful players whose ball control and striking are usually of the highest order. I wonder if both teams were unsure of how to approach this game, or if they were more concerned about countering the opposition rather than playing their own game. Whatever the reason, both teams were a bit at sixes and sevens for much of the game, although the quality improved immensely in extra time when it seemed as though both sides had decided to give it a real go.

Overall, I thought Waterford should have won the game. While both teams had a similar number of wides, nearly a half of Waterford’s were from scorable frees most of which would have been nailed on any other day. And who is to say that Maurice Shanahan would not have been afflicted with the same inaccuracy if he had started the game and been on the frees from the start? Patrick Curran is normally a very reliable freetaker. However, on a day when most players are making lots of mistakes, it is the freetaker(s) whose inaccuracies are placed most glaringly into the spotlight.

Waterford also hit more really bad wides from play than Clare, especially the series of misses into the country goal in the third quarter. Waterford also gave away a lot of unnecessary frees which McGrath punished. For example, the free given away by Tadhg de Búrca to give Clare their late equaliser in normal time was very silly – all he had to do was keep shepherding the Clare player in possesion along the sideline. Stephen O’Keeffe had a particularly bad day, hitting numerous puckouts and clearances over the sideline or straight to opponents. His tendency to commit howlers, which he seemed to have put behind him this year, came back with a vengeance on this occasion.

Overall, Clare inflicted very little damage on the Waterford defence during the game, relying on handy frees and some excellent shooting from out the field to get scores on the board. If Waterford had been more disciplined on the field and had converted their “normal” quota of frees, they would have won this game comfortably. I expect the standard of play will be much better from both sides next Sunday, but with Waterford having more room for improvement, they should prevail on this occasion.

waterford28 wrote: »

Look lads I'm sorry to say this but Ger loughlain was right the other day on tg4. Waterford over the past couple of years are "a team of the future". Personally I think Mcgrath is lucky to inherit the team he has. We have the best keeper in ireland in socky, the best defence too. Then on top of that we have the likes of the Bennetts (Stephen Shane and Kieran) paddy curran, Colin Dunford. Tradgh de burca, Tom devine & Aussie? All coming through as youngsters? Jesus if coady had that every team in ireland could forget about an all ireland for the next 10 years.

Take a step back look at u21s and minors the last few years, Kilkenny win nothing but still coady and Dempsey mound them into players to suit positions.

Basically I think Mcgraths time has been and went

McGrath is doing an OK job but needs to fix the system a bit (he said before Xmas he was rewatching the kilkenny semi final to point out the tactical mistakes and improve on them In 2016)

Derek could be in charge for a good few years yet . 2014 was a disaster but we were very unlucky not to beat Cork in the Munster qf

Who would you put in charge ??

57 years without an all Ireland title. Here is the number of all Irelands the other counties have won since:
Kilkenny 22
Cork 11
Tipp 9
Offaly 4
Clare 3
Galway 3
Wexford 3
Limerick 1
Waterford 0.

That list above is much more painful to look at then the league final in my opinion. What i saw in the league final was two very committed, hardworking and skillful teams making a lot of mistakes.
Someone mentioned they'd rather go back to the way we were playing 10 years ago and win nothing than to win an all Ireland with the current system. Well that's easy for us supporters to say since it's the players that are putting in the ridiculous amount of work to try and bridge that 57 year gap. Do you really think the players care how they win an all Ireland at this stage. Can any Waterford poster here describe what it was like winning the Liam McCarthy cup in 1959? I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like and i don't give a flying f how we do it at this stage.

Even during the "glory" years people from outside the county still gave a lot of stick over the fist pumping and badge kissing that went on. People will always find a reason to complain - so let them. I don't care if I'm watching utter garbage for the year if we're winning.