Waterford GAA thread - mod warning post #1 and #51

JeffKenna wrote: »

puzl wrote: »

Nice to see the same people who lined up last week to complain about the shot to the stones on Stephen Bennet are out again today. What, what was that we heard last week? Crickets? Colour me unsurprised.

I've watched the Gleeson thing back a few times and perhaps I'm blind but I can't see his knee making contact at all.

Yep ,you're blind or at least visually impaired

What in the name of jaysus was the Galway lad doing tapping over the last free with 20 seconds of injury time left. Not a single Galway forward went close to the Waterford goal for a dropping ball....did Galway think there was more time left to be played?

Yeah it was very confusing KevIRL. I mean, I was glad to hear the whistle, but wouldn't have moaned if there was another few played too.

KevIRL wrote: »

Would you have changed your opinion after seeing the highlights last night. It was a wild stroke from Kearney. Very unusual for him. Luckily it didn't connect

Ya I think a yellow was fair after seeing it on tv. It looked worse than was his intentions I think. The fact that it was a nothing ball made it all the more frustrating. Strange Harte didn’t even get a yellow for the strike down on him though.

KevIRL wrote: »

Not really confusing at all though. It's always the minimum total amount of injury time that's displayed. Anything else up to the ref. There was never an additional 8 minutes anyway from cannings injury

Canning went down about the 70th minute and he was led off about the 74th minute, so the eight minutes that went up then seemed to indicate an extra four minutes from that point. Where the confusion arose is Deisegodeo's point: "What in the name of jaysus was the Galway lad doing tapping over the last free with 20 seconds of injury time left. Not a single Galway forward went close to the Waterford goal for a dropping ball....did Galway think there was more time left to be played?" The game went deep into the 79th minute which made people wonder whether the eight minutes was effectively 12 minutes. Then he blew up. If this was Championship there'd have been uproar.

cosatron wrote: »

ha joe is like that at club games here in Galway. always moaning at the ref. Just the way he is. difference between the 2 sides was the goalkeeping, SOK made 2 good saves to keep ye in it and flannery let in a howler to let ye back in it. we should of being going in at half time at least 5-8 points up.

5-8 points up .still wouldnt be enough
.

Jjjjjjjbarry wrote: »

Lively out isn't he. Would you go for him or Tommy Ryan? Or is there a way to accommodate both by playing Hogan half forward?

I'd start Hogan every game, if it's not working for whatever reason then you have a brilliant hurler in Ryan to come on.

Coming out of Nowlan Park last Sunday, I had to pinch myself to check that what I had just observed wasn’t a dream and that Waterford had actually beaten Galway. This was an extraordinary result given the trend of most of the game. I have looked at the video twice to try and figure out how this happened.

Waterford were wretched in the first half (and part of the second). Their first touch was awful, their striking poor, decision-making woeful, attempted passes going astray, balls being fumbled. Five frees either fell short or went wide, while the goal also came from a mis-hit free. Galway, by contrast, were sharp, their hurling was crisp, they regularly broke the line with hard running, their combined play was excellent, and they put a stream of good low and well-directed ball into their forwards.

Waterford could get no platform: both teams struck twelve contested puckouts in the first half (not counting short puckouts or puckouts played out to unmarked players); Galway won seven of their own puckouts and ten of Waterford’s. Under pressure, Waterford were forced to sending high balls into their full forwards which were mopped up by the Galway defence.

That Galway weren’t out of sight by half-time can be put down to three factors – Stephen O’Keeffe’s two stops (although it should be noted that Galway goalie also made an excellent save from Shane Bennett), Stephen Bennett’s flukey goal, and the fact that the Waterford full back line (especially Calum Lyons and Noel Connors) were holding their own under severe pressure.

Things improved somewhat for Waterford in the second half. Tadhg de Búrca, who seemed to start the game marking Conor Whelan, was placed in a holding position at centre back and began to mop up ball and close down the route through the middle. By the time he went off with cramp in the 63rd minute Galway had already imploded. Kevin Moran also began to come into the game. But Waterford were barely holding their own: after 50 minutes they were still two points behind, as they had been at half time. And the gremlins were still at work, as instanced by Stephen Bennett’s crazy decision to hit what should have been a straighforward free to Pauric Mahony who ended up striking the ball wide under pressure.

Then Mikey Kearney got sent off in the 54th minute and everything changed. It has often been noted how losing a player through a sending off concentrates a team’s mind while having the opposite effect on the other team. Waterford equalised two minutes later and when Callum Lyons put them ahead in the 61st minute Galway went to pieces. Instead of using the extra man to work the ball through the lines to set up scoring chances, they started firing Hail Mary shots from out the field all of which went wide. From the 60th minute on they hit seven wides in a row while Waterford hit just one. Unbelievably, playing with the wind, the failed to score between the 49th and the 77th minutes.

Speaking after the first game, Limerick’s John Kiely remarked on how Dublin made life difficult for Limerick by flooding the middle third of the pitch. At half time Kiely urged his team to stick to their normal processes which they did and won comfortably in the end. It’s amazing how Galway, a high-quality team with ten experienced players on the pitch, completely lost the plot in the closing fifteen minutes. By contrast, as Henry Shefflin observed on RTE on Sunday night, it was Waterford who were making all the good decisions in that period, holding the ball well under pressure and creating the openings for the winning scores.

Calum Lyons moved up a further performance notch in this game and has been the surprise find (to me anyway) of the year so far (with Jack Prendergast not far behind). As a minor, Lyons was obviously a good, skillful, hurler but I thought he was probably too light to make the grade at senior level. He could still do with putting on an extra stone of muscle, but his skill level is very high, he appears to have a great temperament, and his use of the ball is really excellent.

By contrast, the quandary of what to do with Austin Gleeson remains unsolved. Last Sunday, his involvement in the game was episodic and rather marginal. He did not give us the ball-winning capability in the half forward line which we badly need. In these situations he gets prickly and on the wrong side of referees. Last Sunday he was already on a yellow card when he dropped his two knees into the back of the prostrate Darren Morrissey, which on its own could have earned a sending off. He can do wonderful things in the forwards, but it is unpredictable and whole games can pass him by. We have seen from his minor and under 21 days how he can dominate games and drive the whole team on from centre back. For me this is a no-brainer. And, if we are prepared to experiment with Gleeson in the half forwards, why not try the same with Tadhg de Búrca while moving Gleeson back?

My other worry is the siting of Kevin Moran in the half back line. This may be determined by who is available and undoubtedly he plays well there. But over the last few years, his partnership with Jamie Barron has given Waterford the best midfield pairing in the country. They work together very well and Moran has shown time and again his ability to grab a game by the scruff of the neck from this position, whereas he undoubtedly feels more restricted when playing in defence. We will need him at midfield against Limerick.

Finally, I am one of those who was fooled into thinking, when the eight additional minutes was shown by the fourth official, four minutes into added time, last Sunday, that this meant eight more minutes from that point. And it wasn’t just me, and other posters on this site, who thought this, as TG4 posted 12 minutes of additional time after the eight minutes was displayed by the official. However, they corrected it fairly quickly. You would wonder if the Galway mentors were similarly misled, given the way they went for a point from a free, when three points down and the game almost up.

I sat in Ardán Ui Gras on Sunday just beside the Galway subs, and behind the Galway management team;

A couple of observations;

Micheál Donoghue does an incredible amount of whinging an moaning at officials, and was in the linesmans ear all day. Never stopped. This was reflected in his post match comments when he has a whinge and the heavy challenges on Joe.. 'Dont touch Joe!'

Austin Gleeson did an incredible amount of work in the second half where he was operating primarily in front of me; I thought he really stood up from about 50 minurtes onwards.

Likewise Stephen Bennet, real leader stuff after the sending off, just demanded the ball, threw himself into 50:50's

Kearney, yes deserved a second yellow; but Harte should have seen red for driving the butt of the hurley into Mikey under the dropping ball.

I think Aussies is 100% up for it this year. Working his ass off... Maybe he's made a few odd decisions but I think his head is in the right place so far this year.

In general though, I'm dreading what club month will do to us. We racked up a fair few injuries last year.