That’s excellent analysis pal, well done.
1 Like
That Kildare / Laois game was hugely enjoyable.
Not sure I’ll bother my hole watching the Leinster final.
Depends where you were sitting old friend.
1 Like
Don’t
2 Likes
There’s only been a subtle change in personnel with Jordan Molloy an upgrade on a veteran Conor Fogarty in midfield. But the apparent improvement in the likes of Cian Kenny, Mossy Keoghan and Billy Ryan might give them another dimension compared to the 2023 final against Limerick. Like a forward line consisting of TJ, John Donnelly, Adrian Mullen, Billy Ryan, Keoghan and Eoin Cody is actually decent with a mix of snipers and physicality. TJ is still far more serviceable than Horgan for Cork as he showcased winning that vital puckout for Adrian Mullen’s no look point when Galway were staging the comeback.
Huw Lawlor is a quality full-back, Mikey Butler would be tasked with keeping Gillane or Brian Hayes under wraps. They’d probably just about get away with Tommy Walsh or Shane Murphy on David Reidy/Patrick Horgan. Mikey Carey is going well too and a good addition compared to the 2023 final against Limerick. You’d have to fear for Richie Reid trying to nullify Cian Lynch or Shane Barrett though. That could be a terrible match-up. He wasn’t near the team for most of his 20’s but is now being tasked with holding fort at 6 as a veteran? Paddy Deegan on Hego went terribly wrong in the 2022 final but Hegarty isn’t quite the same freak of nature that he was 3 years ago. Neither of the young hopefuls in the forwards Drennan or Shine look to have kicked on at all yet. Although Stephen Donnelly emergence off the back of Thomastown run last year means that they have an impact sub at least. They’ve improved in the last couple of years while Limerick have definitely regressed from 22/23 so this should be a cracker.
5 Likes
If Kilkenny do play Limerick, I’d say they’ll definitely put Lawlor on Gillane, that’s what they usually do. And I imagine he’d be the man for Brian Hayes aswell.
I could see Kilkenny putting Butler as a man marker on Lynch & Barrett tbh; he was on Mannion out in the HF line yesterday.
3 Likes
As @aristotle mentioned, I wouldn’t see Richie Reid matching up on a centre forward despite wearing #6. They try to get him to be the plus around the d & they’ll have forwards working back, midfielders playing deep etc. I also agree that Mikey Butler wouldn’t be a good match size/physicality wise against Brian Hayes or Aaron Gillane. He’d be more inclined to pick up someone with a different physical profile - he’s marked the likes of Tony Kelly, Cathal Mannion & Rory O’Conor in the past. As an aside, I think they need more from John Donnelly. He’s very talented but they need more productivity there, I feel.
1 Like
So only one bit of your own thinking in that post. Thanks, pal.
Huh?
Classic Eamonn Sweeney fare of a Monday.
Eamonn Sweeney: Leinster hurling is GAA’s problem child – Kilkenny would be better off in Munster
Kilkenny kit man ‘Rackard’ Cody, holding the Bob O’Keeffe Cup, celebrates with Kilkenny captain John Donnelly. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Kilkenny’s TJ Reid is tackled by Galway’s Pádraic Mannion and Daithí Burke. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Kilkenny kit man ‘Rackard’ Cody, holding the Bob O’Keeffe Cup, celebrates with Kilkenny captain John Donnelly. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Kilkenny’s TJ Reid is tackled by Galway’s Pádraic Mannion and Daithí Burke. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Eamonn Sweeney
Today at 02:30
The Leinster hurling championship is the GAA’s problem child.
It’s the dark unlovely doppelganger of its glittering Munster counterpart. Leinster is tedious where Munster is exciting, and routine where Munster is unpredictable.
Munster is champagne to Leinster’s can of cheap lager. Cork-Limerick was Game of Thrones, Kilkenny-Galway was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But less fun.
You could have filled Croke Park with the fans who wanted to see the Munster final. The crowd for yesterday’s Leinster decider would have fit into Fitzgerald Stadium.
This imbalance makes the All-Ireland championship unfair. It’s unfair to Waterford who’ve been eliminated in Munster two years in a row despite playing much better than the third qualifier in Leinster.
But it’s most unfair to Kilkenny. Their win over Galway makes it six successive Leinster titles. None of the previous victories led to an All-Ireland. Two of them didn’t even lead to the final.
Unless Kilkenny achieve the unlikely feat of beating both Limerick and Cork this year, it’ll be eight Munster All-Ireland victories in a row. That’ll surpass the previous record for provincial dominance set by Munster from 1940-1946 and 1948-1954.
The Cats are already at a significant disadvantage. While the Munster teams will be tempered in the fiery cauldron of a hugely competitive campaign, Kilkenny have cruised through yet again.
Pat Ryan, John Kiely and Liam Cahill learned a huge amount about their teams in recent weeks. Derek Lyng can only guess how his team will cope with top-quality opposition.
Kilkenny haven’t won the All-Ireland since 2015. Should they fall short again this year it’ll be the longest drought in the county’s history since they won their first title in 1904.
Such droughts usually indicate internal weakness. The Cats’ biggest problem may be the championship system. Since the round-robin began, there have been seven successive Munster triumphs and three all-Munster finals. The structure is a recipe for Munster success.
ADVERTISEMENT
Play
Unmute
Kilkenny’s enemy is without rather than within. An annual provincial jaunt leaves them gravely ill-prepared for later challenges. Four of their last five finals resembled glorified training jaunts. The Kilkenny players must look at matches like Saturday’s Munster final and wish they could play in more games like that.
In Munster, the crowds are big, the atmosphere is electric and every game is important. In Leinster, the crowds are down, suspense is absent and Kilkenny have already qualified before their traditional loss to Wexford.
Fairness would be much better served by a championship which pits Munster’s big five against Leinster’s top three in a round-robin.
This won’t happen because the Munster championship is sacrosanct. It’s probably earned the right to be. A summer without Munster hurling as the star attraction seems unthinkable.
The trade-off is that Munster’s pre-eminence comes at the cost of Leinster’s irrelevance. Kilkenny are condemned to an increasingly unchallenging provincial championship. It’s a tribute to Lyng that they haven’t allowed their standards to drop.
If they’re not gaining on Limerick and Cork, they’re not dropping back towards what’s not so much a chasing pack as a jogging one.
Yesterday went along the lines of most recent Leinster deciders. When the champions moved seven points clear midway through the second half, the outcome was obvious.
The gap was 13 with 11 minutes left and Micheál Donoghue looked set for a similar humiliation to the one he endured when managing Dublin in last year’s final. His tactics were similar, bringing players back to try and crowd out Kilkenny while leaving a couple of forwards isolated up front.
The outcome was largely the same, balls being pucked aimlessly to Kilkenny defenders who had plenty of time to pick out teammates.
Richie Reid made a lot of interceptions, Adrian Mullen did damage from long range and TJ Reid from closer in. We’d seen this one before.
Did the unanswered Galway 1-6 in seven minutes which reduced the gap to four with three minutes left inject a competitive element? Not really. There was a ‘garbage time’ feel to these scores. The champions were having trouble maintaining interest.
Cathal Mannion’s performance when moved to full-forward was a stirring example of a player lifting up an underperforming team under unpromising circumstances. Yet the fact that Kilkenny responded by stretching the lead back out to eight in the final six minutes suggested the comeback had as much to do with complacency on their side as fighting spirit on Galway’s.
Kilkenny kit man ‘Rackard’ Cody, holding the Bob O’Keeffe Cup, celebrates with Kilkenny captain John Donnelly. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Kilkenny under Lyng are perpetually efficient but rarely inspirational. That owes much to the circumstances in which they find themselves.
Opportunities for the sublime are rare in the prosaic province. Doing the simple things well suffices to rule the kingdom. At least until the men from Brian Boru’s old bailiwick come raiding.
The Cats still offer much to admire, not least the timeless excellence of TJ Reid. With the teams level after the half-hour mark he took a magnificent high catch only to be penalised for overcarrying when heading for goal.
A minute later an almost identical catch left him with a point opportunity. As so often with Kilkenny forwards, you could sense an inbuilt calculator telling him this was the time for a goal. An all-time great wanted to exert his will on the game.
Reid strode on and when his shot was well saved by Éanna Murphy, Martin Keoghan was there to flick home the rebound. Thirteen minutes from time the roles were reversed, Keoghan’s pass giving Reid the chance to drill an angled shot past sub goalie Darragh Walsh.
Keoghan’s injury-time goal, capitalising on a Walsh mistake, came courtesy of an overhead smash Carlos Alcaraz would have been happy with. Reid, Keoghan, Mullen, Paddy Deegan, Cian Kenny, last of the great classic full-backs Huw Lawlor, these are all wonderful players.
The problem is that they’re performing in an environment which limits their chances of further honours. Kilkenny are much too good for their province but they’re stuck there.
Leinster is their Hotel California. They can check out any time they like, but they can never leave.
1 Like
Sweeney is actually putting the boot well into Galway there.
1 Like
Thats a good summation of Kilkenny. You felt they were lacking 3 or 4 players when they were facing Limerick in those All Irelands. They were game as a pebble in the first one but you always felt they were clinging on and it was complete systems failure in the 2nd one where there was a dependency on Eoin Cody but Tom Phelan had a huge game too that day before they capitulated.
Kilkenny full back line would be more than a match for anyone and will hold their own. It also means they can probably keep their shape better than most teams as their FB line dont need as much protection and can win their own battles. Their puck out strategy has definitely got a few wrinkes in it now as opposed to Eoin Murphy lorrying it down the field. Carey definitely adds a lot of athleticism and Deegan adds physicality but I’d have concerns about Richie Reid. He was rounded easily by Concannon for the goal yesterday. Wouldnt be surprised to see Blanchfield start vs Limerick. Thought he has done very well on Hegarty in the past although his distribution is awful. Kenny and Molloy are busy and workmanlike in midfield but are a modest enough as a pairing all told although Kenny is hurling well and better of the 2. Mullens return to form and health is a huge filip for Kilkenny. He can be a matchwinner. Donnelly, Ryan, Keoghan will all cause problems and TJ is TJ. It will be a fascinating battle.
Kilkenny have really fallen into a hole in a lot of games. limerick all Ireland, Clare last year in semi final, Dublin this year, Galway. They concede huge scores without much of a reply and if they do the same vs Limerick it’ll be good night. Much of this is probably down to not having much depth. You saw impact of Limerick and Cork benches last Saturday. Kilkenny are bringing in unproven guys who are probably not at the level required and that will be the difference ultimately when they face Limerick.
Hi Eamonn
The Leinster championship was far worse around 2007-2008 when Kilkenny were utterly dominant and beating Wexford by 10+ points annually in the final. Galway hadn’t even moved across at the time and Dublin didn’t emerge until 09’. It’s a far more palatable competition in 2025 than it was back then. The 2024 round robin was actually decent enough.
5 Likes
This is true. The problem is Galway and Wexford and Offaly and Dublin, the first three in particular, have been abject. Galway just can’t for whatever reason get their dander up (,I suspect they will against tipp, but who t f knows why?)
That generational tipp underage team last year were absolutely blessed to beat a 14 man Galway last year (after a nasty bit of goading and then play acting) before 13 of them beat a kk team in the final who absolutely doubtless Galway would have capitulated tamely to.
Yeah Limerick won 6 Munster titles in a row whilst losing 4 games across the round robin stages. An identical record to Kilkenny during their 6 in a row. The problem in Leinster is a bit overstated. It’s rarely been much different in the last 25 years. Kilkenny were steeped to win the Leinster title in 2020 and 23’ when Galway had then beaten until late salvos.
Was the Leinster championship not always a bit shit, bar for a few years in the 1990s?
3 Likes
But that’s the point isn’t it? In the previous 25 Wexford & Offaly won 13 Leinsters and 5 All-Irelands between them.
I love this quote. When Kilkenny won their 4 in a row all irelands, it was because they came through unscathed in a shit uncompetitive leinster and the munster teams had been kicking the shit out of each other.
Maybe, just maybe, the best teams just ultimately win regardless of their path. Limerick have been far, far better than kilkenny the last few years, and arguably clare and cork have been also. Much like back yonder, kilkenny were better than any other side at the time and the state of the provincial championship makes fuck all difference at the end of it all. I dont think this is a great kilkenny team at all to be honest, and it sickens me that they’ve won 6 leinsters in a row.
6 Likes
Galway are abject and worse they’ll get when the Mannions and Daithi call it a day. I place zero blame at Micheál Donoghue’s feet. Joe Canning was lamenting Galway’s puck out strategy at half time yesterday yet was the man who on-boarded James Skehill to instruct the U20s to ‘let it in ta fuck’.
4 Likes