They have loads of hurling, Iâve been saying it for a long time. What I didnât expect was for them to physically match Kilkenny like that. That game could bring Kilkenny on massively after the break, but itâs impossible to know.
KK collective stick work and first touch was at 50-70% of itâs usual accuracy and effiencey today. If they get that back up, as youâd expect they would, then that is worth minimum 5-6 points, between scores they score and scores they prevent.
That said, WD do have a template to beat them, go man to man. When they retreated and resorted to that Ulster football shit with 6 minutes to go, instead of driving on, they basically handed the draw to KK.
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Would agree with that too, the effort and work rate from Waterford was excellent and even more it was controlled. They didnât lose shape, hunted in packs and rarely left too many free or obvious options for Kilkenny to hit.
Until the 63rd minute.
Yep. Instincts told them to close it out, instead of burying Kilkenny like they should have.
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Correct. Pity they hadnât the balls to see it out.
A lot of apologies owed to John Mullane after today youâd have to say
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Bollox. Mullane himself has been backtracking since the Munster final.
Thatâs a serious WD team, they had KK worried for a long time. Doubtful if the replay will follow the same pattern, but it might.
KK generally need a bit of a fright every year before they click teamwise.
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Kilkenny have a lot of relatively middling to poor hurlers who would struggle if playing for other counties. The likes of Holden, Prendergast, Power, Farrell and Ryan are all fairly limited/average hurlers and wouldnt have gotten close to the the Kilkenny side 6 or 7 year ago while Colin Fennelly and both Walshâs are effective hurlers all three have serious limitations in their game.
Kilkenny are now really reliant on their five real top class hurlers and leaders in Murphy, Buckley, Mick Fennellys, Reid and Richie Hogan. Hogans scores kept them in it somewhat first half and papered over a lot of cracks. The five of them are really outstanding and as good as anything in the country and if you can curb the influence of two or three of them as Waterford did today you go a long way to beating them as the others dont have the ability to really hurt you
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Waterford have three or four of the best in the country also.
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you could say that about every team, bar tipp maybe who have a good spread of hurlers. its plain to see but no one has been able to stop them over the past three years, you are also giving far too little credit to paul murphy whos the best defender in the country, fennelly the best midfielder and reid and hogan who are the best two forwards.
Thatâs a good summation, with one notable absence being the great Brian Cody.
KK donât have the talent they had 6/7 years ago but his record with this panel makes him the best hurling manager of all time imo.
The team is greater then the sum of its partsâŚTJ Reid and Hogan apart, they donât have the forwards they used to have.
Waterford lacked belief in the end, but thatâll come in time as there is an AI in them in the next few years imo. The talent is there if they can bring through another couple of natural forwards from their current 21âs team.
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At the end of the day, the cat is out of the bag now. The only question is can Waterford pull it off next day?
Not a hope unfortunatelyâŚtoday was their chance.
What do you mean heâs giving them far too little credit? He basically just said the 4 of them are carrying the best team in the country
i mean hes saying âwhy donât teams just go out and curb them?â as if it was that simple
Fennelly and Fogarty were beaten in the middle of the field today. Joyce didnât have a big impact at 6, and TJ wasnât too influential at 11. Fennelly looked to be struggling with the pace of it for me. Joyce is what he is, functional in Loughnaneâs terms. Fogarty is similar. While TJ and Richie are capable of winning any game, I donât know how much improvement Kilkenny can expect to see in the other three. If Waterford can reproduce that workrate they donât have too much to be afraid of in the middle third.
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The six day turn around is important. I would imagine it was very warm and humid today. Waterford have the fresher legs. Id give them a shout
KK being the poorer team today will be able to take a lot of positives from the draw whereas Waterford mentally will have doubts in the back of their minds and will know it was one that got away. They arguably played to their maximum for 67 mins but still came up short.
TJ Reid will also never be as quiet from general play as he was today.
Simple as that