Galway are lucky they had a Joe Canning to step when needed for those 20 minutes of the game. That’s team sports, you’ll win nothing with 15 Shane Dowling’s.
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Players like Canning who find underage sport really easy and they are cometely dominant will rarely develop great reading of the game. Definitely less so as a forward anyway. Maybe a dominant full back or centre back might who gets to watch the game more.
Brian O’Driscoll was a perfect example of this. He had to think about the game, he was a long way from a dominant player till 19. But that will to be good with slightly above average athleticism and unbelievably mindset is what made him great.
This is why good coaching with a talented player takes skill. Its actually easy make average lads good. Much harder make very good lads brilliant.
I would imagine the advice and coaching Sheflin hot was superior to Canning.
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Eoin Larkin made Shefflin look good
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Shefflin was Junior B standard. His high scoring rate and being covered head to toe in Celtic crosses disguised the fact that he was crap.
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He was a better footballer.
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That’s interesting and definitely tallies with what I’d see in the development of players from u11 through to u14. The less obviously good players at u11, while not improving hugely skills wise, have improved into much better overall players purely down to having more drive and a better ability to read the game.
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I was never a fan of his due to his boring persona and the fact that he came across as an awful whinge when he wanted to but Shefflin was an absolutely outstanding hurler and to say otherwise is idiotic.
From 2002 to 2008 he was head and shoulders above any other forward Kilkenny had. From 2010 onwards others emerged and he slowed due to injury but he was still a massive player and was excellent at pretty much all facets of the game. An excellent finisher with great vision, workrate and craft.
I think it was @Fagan_ODowd who wrote a great post about Shefflin previously that there was little buzz when Shefflin got on the ball in a big game compared to someone like DJ Carey due to the sheer predicatability when Shefflin’s got on the ball, he invariably just put the ball over the bar or took the right option and everyone was accustomed to it
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Fellas around here putting Canning on the same level or nearly over Shefflin 
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Indeed.
Are you saying Canning’s reading of the game is lacking? I don’t see how you can conclude that.
Was it yourself that tried to deconstruct what he did that day and said he only had 5 plays or something mad? But when people reviewed that again it turned out that it wasn’t overstated at all and what he did was exceptional and you were being pure contrary?
If it wasn’t for that song “Everyday I’m Shefflin” no one would even remember who he was
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Tommy Walsh helped Shefflin too, but he is the best of his generation nonetheless. He was fortunate in that his half-back line was usually dominant, but he was fit, clever, talented and ruthless.
Only greg Kennedy was better.
Meh.
I think you overstated the amount of points from play Joe Canning scored on Sunday by 66.67% on this thread earlier.
Joe has the talent to match any of them but you wouldn’t have him in the top 5 hurlers over the last 10-15 years.
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Yes. I looked at the second half again and he touched the ball about 5 times. He basically did about 3 good things in the defining half of his career
I think you’re overstating your case and that was borne out in subsequent discussion on here at the time. I don’t have the wherewithal to trawl back through and contradict you and I think you’re being very sneaky reintroducing this debunked argument as received wisdom at this stage.
It wasn’t debunked at the time mate. You made that up
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Just like you made up your assertion that he wasn’t actually that influential. Both arguments are equally valid.
Mine has the greater weight of actually fitting with what people remember.
I didn’t make that up. I watched the game and that was the conclusion I came to. Watch the game yourself if you want