Yeah, no sooner had I typed it and pressed the button, I got a flashback of Canning’s goal. My initial comment was tongue in cheek. I’ve been at four of those five game and Kilkenny are as weak as I’ve ever seen them in defence in my lifetime of going to games and looking at Kilkenny play. Its nothing short of a miracle that they’ve only had that one green flag raised against them in those five games.
There’s been a sequence of games, Limerick (2014 semi), Tipperary (2014 drawn final), Galway (first half 2015 final), Galway (45 minutes of 2016 Leinster Final) and yesterday when Kilkenny were really on the ropes and a goal in any of those games would most likely have finished them off. You have to give them huge credit for having the resilience to tough it out and survive each time but that is not going to go on indefinitely.
While the stats are correct there’s been a shortage of goals across the board and very few teams bar tipp and galway are set up to score goals. Or at least create chances. After yesterday this will change and teams will attack KK’s weakness a lot more.
That strikes me a collective thing rather than a reflection of quality at 3 & 6. They are hard to run at and cover well for each other. Even when Tipp got their four goals against them, three of them were just balls dropped into the square. Only once did they get a clear run at goal. They’re a great defensive unit but it does seem like the sum is greater than the parts.
that may be the case alright, but the thing is, people pointed out the weaknesses of Holden in particular at full back, but bar the Clare league semi final, fuck all teams have got any joy out of his weakness, even if it is the sum of all the parts rather than Holden being a dominant full back.
It is simply because like most of this forum inter county teams are fearful of KK and their rep is built on past glories. You’ve to go out and attack this Kilkenny team. Waterford who’ve struggled to create goal chances against everybody for 18 months now did create a few chances yesterday and should have got at lest one goal. If Tipp meet this KK side it could be carnage.
Joyce was a player that Cody never really seemed to have a lot of faith in. His break came in the 2014 final replay when he came in for Brian Hogan. He was 27 at that stage, 29 now. He’s strong under the high ball but is not very mobile. Austin Gleeson destroyed him yesterday and dragged him all over the field.