Next weekend could be the greatest weekend of Sport in History
Are we in Nations League action?
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Away to Wales.
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Bulgaria at home too ???
Apparantly yes. The icing on the cake
There’s no south east Galway. Draw a line from the city to Ballinasloe, and every single one of our All Ireland Club winners came from south of the line.
Nonsense, most of the lads who played with Athenry are north of that line.
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I’ll defer to your superior knowledge of Athenry hurling.
Clarification: Draw a line from the city to Ballinasloe, with a little hump around Athenry, and every single one of our All Ireland Club winners came from south of the line.
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I know but there is a South (gods country)and East Galway
Fixed
Dr Kevin Whelan’s old hurling map of Ireland. Not sure what year that’s from?
The western edge of the hurling zone can be traced over a long distance. In County Galway, for example, its boundaries run along a line from Ballinasloe to the city; north of this line is the Tuam Dunmore area, and west of it is Connemara, both footballing territories.
A lot of Wexford in that so safe to say it’s not from the last 60 years
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Theres a correlation between hurling areas and ash plantations, or a theory to that effect
You’d think they’d be mad for the content.
Dr Whelan has his own theory
The interesting question then is how these boundaries formed. In almost every case, that boundary divides big farm and small farm areas and marks the transition from fertile, drift-covered limestone lowland to hillier, hungrier, wetter shales, flagstones, grits and granites. In County Galway, for example, hurling has not put down roots in the bony granite outcrops of Connemara, and in Clare the poorly drained flagstone deposits are equally inhospitable. If ash is emblematic of hurling areas, the rush is the distinctive symbol of football territory.
I thought it was linked to arable land?
He uses a lot of words when he could have said if you don’t border Tipp you’re at nothing
Lots of great points there @Big_Dan_Campbell.
A few other things holding Dublin hurling back are the sizes of the pitches. They are more often than not smaller and tighter than hurling pitches down the country. They are conducive to big physical backs and don’t allow forwards to express themselves. O’ Toole park is a perfect example of this.
There also tends to be a lot more hand passing and less long striking in underage games. This is an engrained trait from gaelic football.
The standard of coaching is often very poor at club level. This may be due to unqualified but enthisiastic parents. I know a good Leitrim man taking an underage club team. A fantastic organiser but wouldn’t know one thing about hurling.
Also there are many clubs that just pay lip service to hurling. They have teams but the GDO’s have no interest in promoting it.
A shrewd hurling man in Dublin I know maintains that it will take the sons of the current generation of Dublin hurlers (club and county) before a real breakthrough is made.
Edit: Doyle is a great yoke from what I’ve seen.of him.
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Some thoughts on Wexford-Clare from my own head and stuff I’ve read (The Wexford People) and listened to (The Hurling Podcast, great chat from Wexford perspective with David Redmond and Willie Cleary).
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We haven’t beaten a Munster side in the championship under Davy. We’ve had tame quarter final exits to Waterford and Clare in 2017 and 2018 respectively, along with last year’s semi-final loss to Tipperary.
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Clare have won their last 3 meetings with us. Jack O’Connor trampled all over them in Chadwicks Wexford Park (“CWP”) in the league in 2018, I recall him catching around 6 Wexford puck outs in a row over Mikey O’Malley in the first half. It was also the game where Kevin Foley was racing down the sideline after someone and Donal Moloney stepped onto the pitch and body checked him.
I digress. But Clare turned the tables in Cork that summer and won in the league in Ennis last year before winning 18-15 with 14 men in CWP earlier this year. That last game was played in conditions that will probably mirror this weekend’s weather. -
Rory O’Connor was stretchered off in an A v B game in CWP on Sunday and is possibly out (knee). Chin is nursing a hamstring injury but should be okay. Everyone else is alright. No quotes from Davy to The Wexford People yesterday, he delegated to Keith Rossiter instead. As a passionate Clareman, I thought Davy held back a bit on the line against them in our meetings so far. I hope he’s quiet in the build up but ready to unleash thunder on Saturday. Although let’s hope Wexford don’t enter O’Moore Park over the back wall and warm up at the end Brian Lohan planned on using.
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Rossi didn’t outright say it in the paper but the narrative in the piece was that there wouldn’t be sweeping changes and the players deserved a chance to put things right. I get that view, but I think there are 3 or 4 areas where we could/should make changes. I’d say it will probably be limited to Damien Reck and Jacko coming back in. You’d think that Jacko’s height, strength and mobility would be suited to hurling in November anyway.
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What to do with Tony Kelly? And how to stop teams manipulating our system to instead benefit themselves? Redmond and Cleary had some good insight into our system being a strength but also a weakness, if the opposition has the tactical acumen and talent to work it out. Take Galway. Bring Joseph Cooney back, have the midfielders sit deep, bring Jason Flynn out to half forward line, have that line drop back to midfield, pack that area, stop our running game / overlaps at source and, leave Whelan and Concannon inside the Wexford 45 or even 65 on their own. The fact that we go man for man in defence, apart from the sweeper, means that teams can just drag our backs upfield and out of the way to leave a 3 v 2 inside. Then get their own midfielders and half forward line coming forward from deep to pop over points if they dispossess us, or to take passes off the inside two who’ve been left in space.
Clare figured this out too in 2018 in Páirc Ui Chaoimh. They played their wing forwards wide and deep, had their midfield sit and gave Tony Kelly a free role at centre forward. Paudie Foley was given the man marking job that day but Kelly took him on a tour of the pitch. Back into the Clare half and then looping back around and accelerating into the space in the middle of the pitch and into the centre forward position. Kelly popping over scores while our then sweeper Shaun Murphy was stationed on the 21 and not influencing play. Not to dismiss their other attackers but Kelly’s scored 30 points in 2 games and needs to be curbed. I’m not advocating a second sweeper (I think!) but I still think Kelly needs to be man marked. And if they’re dragging their other players out of the way to leave Kelly 1 v 1 in pockets in our half then maybe our sweeper could be more proactive and actually station himself in his general vicinity too. We could also have one midfielder playing a more disciplined holding role rather than everyone looking to run forward.
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Clare seem vulnerable to teams running at them and our preferred tactic is a running game. What’s not to like? I think we came into the Galway game with goals on our mind, programmed to look for them and then crumbled when they largely stopped us in our tracks. I’d like us to have better game management though. Sometimes we try to force the pass, play dumb lateral passes to lads that are already covered and keep doing what hasn’t worked. Sure it’d be great to launch a couple of early free flowing moves that end in goals but we need to put scores on the board too. What I’m saying is, TAKE THE POINTS AND THE GOALS WILL COME. The weather might also affect our ability to move the ball intricately upfield through a number of players. Hitting the full forward line earlier with a few direct balls would be good for a bit of variety too.
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We will surely have a kick in us. We will surely have a response to the capitulation in the last game. Surely.
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I don’t have anything else to say for the moment. The post is long and boring enough already.
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