Mmmmmmm. Iâm not convinced he has. They would have beat the tar out of Cork with 15 men last week but thatâs no proud boast.
He is gone. Him and Halliran dropped.
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Cunningham has destroyed Dublin Lougnane style
A team JBM brought to seconds from AI and won a Munster won 2 games and beaten by Wexford
That team beat Dublin
Facts.
You are wrong.
Beaten by Wexford. Won. Two games this year.
Last regime took a lot of flak but the facts donât lie
JBM was a miracle worker. Two seconds from winning an AI in 2013, won Munster in 2014. They look miles away from either now. Kingston seems a nice man but itâs hard to see him or anyone else turning it around in the next year or two.
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Kingston versus JBM is a pointless discussion. Weâve been useless underage for going on 15 years. Thatâs the problem.
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Would I be right in saying our last two AI winning minor captains never played one minute of senior hurling for Cork either?
You have to go back to Pat Moylan in 67 to find a Cork all Ireland winning captain to make a real impression at senior.
Was yesterday the lowest ever point for Cork hurling?
We had terrible teams in the mid 90s but an all Ireland wasnât that far in the past, weâre 11 years without one now and zero hope for the future, we need to go mushroom hunting.
In my lifetime watching it (first AI that I can recall is 84) itâs the low point yes. Limerick trouncing us in 96 was bad but that was a right good Limerick side. Tipp hammering in Croker in 14 was shocking for the ineptitude on display but again a v good Tipp side and we had Munster title in pocket.
But now? As you said no realistic prospect of an AI for a long long time to come. Underage a shambles. Club hurling at a low ebb with none remotely capable of winning an AI. A dictator running the county board who is seen as a key element of the problems by pretty much everyone bar the club delegates whoâs belly he tickles. Infrastructure miles behind other counties. Thoroughly depressed about it tbh
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Facts are nonsense in this context and in a GAA context. The draws are random, there is no uniformity.so nothing like that can be compared.
Now believe me, i think this management team are stone cold useless, but they were handed a steaming pule of shite.
The other thing is its amateur. You do not get the time to make drastic changes in a year. So the damage done in previous 2 years could take years to rectify. And this is what happens in many counties. Tipp in 70âs and 80âs, Wexford, Kerry even from 88 to 96. A rot sets in but many teams, managers etc suffer beyond it. And then they get ao used to medocrity or shitness, when something actually worth while comes along, they reject it.
The damage is really done at board level, but there are excellent management teams wirking around the country with absolutely shocking County Boards. They can play the game but also get performance. I was part of one last year. Tipp footballers play under that, even their hurlers. Donegal have been successful and remain competitive despite average old school County Boards, Mayo the same.
So it can be done. But in this case you are wrong, i saw the proof in the pudding last year. They actually hadnât a clue what they were doing. Making it up as they went along, deciding what to do when they arrive at training, and sometimes publically arguing about it.
Its not the only one. Far far deeper.
Success at underage is not absolutely needed. Develooment of all the best players is needed.
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Iâll put it this way, the 2nd last captain i used to mark alot, and often completely nullified him. He was put there purely for representitive reasons by Frank (of course not a selector). I was a long way from the level of county minor. I also played a divisional game which was a trial around the same time and got absolutely destroyed by 2 corner forwards, one was Joe Deane and i donât know the other but he ( never saw again) was way better than Brian OâKeeffe. Yet he was the captain.
That shit was going on uo to 3-4 years ago.
Maybe I was wrong but I had Tomas O Leary and Cathal McCarthy as last two winning captains
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Indeed, and if kev is suggesting he regularly nullified Brian OâKeeffe then he is being very modest, OâKeeffe was an outstanding underage hurler, great club hurler as well and may have had a good senior career in a different era.
Well i would contend he was improved as an adult and indeed the confidence from winning that improved him.maybe. you are right, he was a very good club player. He sefinitely was on that team due to Frank though and was not near one of the best 6 forwards.
We were well matched physically (even if he was quicker) and i suppose i played a number of particularly good games around 16/17 as well. It was a dchool coach gave me the job in a colleges game and i loved it. As a big fan of Italian socced and defending i saw it as an honour to be asked to shut down the best known forward (arguably a guy called Coakly was better). I had grown up rputinely beating The barrs, Rockies and Glen at club level. I think that mattered too. Never feared them or their players.
My own club wouldnât have dreamed of doing the same thing. And that lack of understanding of the mental game exists in same club to this day.
As i aged i realised 2 things from that time that has helped my coaching.
1.the science of neuromuscular awakeness before a game. Same school coach would welt me with a hurley within 5 mins of a game starting
2. The value of positive reinforcement. He would remind me of my club beating the rockies in days leadi g up to the game. Then after the first half that first day i marked him he kept repeating i had him bottled up.
Always played well in finals and marking good players after that.
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V interesting post. Your old school coach was doing that out of instinct I assume rather than anything he had learned?
BTW. O Keeffe was third last winning capt. Cathal McCarthy between him and TOL
Ya instinct i would say. And coaches like him are not valued anymore and many are turned off by all the coaching courses and such like.
He was into it though (coaching) and i would suggest he was the type to be reading about John Wooden and the likes.
A coach can do so much on the training pitch but you have to send out a tram on match day that believes they can win. A lot of the old style boys were very good at that. There is a point to the âwe never feared those fuckers and we will beat them again todayâ lines
I see Brian Hurley suffered one of those curious injuries.