It seems a pretty bizarre argument to me to try and justify getting rid of a manager because of what happened in previous seasons as opposed to the one just gone.
Progress isnât always incremental and doesnât always run in straight lines.
Call me easily pleased but Iâd say thrashing Dublin and Cork, beating Tipperary and being in a great position at half-time in an All-Ireland final against Kilkenny is significant progress and demonstrates that the manager is actually pretty good at his job.
let the cunts off. They might just need a bit of Jimmy McGuinness on it. Theyâll fall in line quickly enough.
If they are disgruntled due to appearances even better, they obviously are not frontliners.
I like Cunningham. He lost to one team last year. Only one team can win the fucking thing. The Mayo players gripe I understand, there was alternatives slapping Homes & Connelly in the face, but this one is bullshit.
Iâd fancy them to win 2 of the next 3 with their talent and size if they keep chugging along and add a man here or there as they go.
I keep going back to the youth of the guys who got rail roaded in the 2nd half of the final, not to be dismissed. Those lads will only get better, in IC Senior hurling terms quite a few of them are babies.
So keep doing what theyâre doing and be good boys and sooner or later they should win the All Ireland? Have you noticed how the last 10 All Irelandâs have panned out by any chance?
Well then what happened in 2013? 2014 wasnât good but we were beaten by tipp and kk, who would beat everyone else, just the performances were poor. They arent useless, theres plenty of top class hurlers there who were hindered i think the two previous years. But if this wasnt unanimous, just a few axe grinders, then that changes everything. And of the lads ive heard only one is a definite starter, maybe one other. Heâll hang on so but some of his team selections and how poorly organised he sent out teams in the past has me pessimistic. This group of hurlers properly organised and motivated should have no problem beating dublin and cork in their current guises. That they are eventually at the level they should be almost every year is hardly commendable.
There is also a chance that Cunningham gets rid of a bunch of whiney fucks and ends up with a panel that has only one shared target. That would be a big improvement on last year.
I thought Joe Canning sounded extremely subdued and nervous during his interview on Off The Ball last Wednesday. Didnât mention Anthony Cunninghamâs name once although he mentioned Eugene Cloonanâs.
Andy Smith also made strange comments regarding Cunninghamâs âSee you in Septemberâ comments to Cody after the Leinster final and Iâd say is seething at being taken off as captain in the All-Ireland final.
Iâm also surmising that thereâs a Portumna-St. Thomas club rivalry simmering away underneath driving it.
Yes, it was very definitely non-definitive and deliberately speculative. The âI thoughtâ, âIâd sayâ and the âIâm also surmisingâ are a bit of a giveaway there.
He must unite the clans, not divide them further. If cloonan doesnât come back they are fucked anyway. Not sure how many times i have to repeat this. He was the main man.
Public perception has nothing to do with it. Public perception wasnât exactly behind the players in Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary when they got rid of Kevin Fennelly in 1998, Bertie Og Murphy in 2002 and Babs in 2007 but their successors all delivered an Ireland fairly pronto.
Cunningham stood there like a statue for the second half of the All Ireland Final as Galway threw away a winning position to a distinctly non-vintage Kilkenny side. It was the same in the semi final, he stood there for an hour looking at Seamus Callinan destroying young Mannion but they just about got away with it there. It was the same in the 2012 drawn final as Galway blew a 7 point lead. He may have many virtues but the shrewdness and guile needed on the sideline to win an All Ireland doesnât appear to be one of them.
After four years its not unreasonable for players to seek a change of direction.
Cloonan is unproven at this level, but he certainly seems to have developed a rapport with the team. I was always a huge fan of his. Key man for Athenry and often beat teams on his own. He was a ruthless bastard on the pitch, and if he could bury a team he wouldnât need to be asked twice.
