I don’t totally agree with you on this but you are heading in the right direction. I would prefer Hegarty at wing back but Hickey performed OK so lets not get too radical. If Hegarty is in the forwards then 11 is the only place I would have him.
Quaid (no alterbnative ??)
Casey English Finn
Byrnes Hannon Hickey
Browne P. Ryan
Dempsey Hegarty Hayes
Nash Dowling Lynch
I would have Lynch playing between the half and full forward lines. Alternatively Play P Ryan at 15 in the same role and have Darragh O’Donovan at mid-field.
Lynch is obviously a serious talent, but I think he needs a kick up the hole and he needs to toughen up and win dirty ball or else fuck off. We’ve been lining out with too many “nice” forwards the last few years and its got us nowhere.
Kiely obviously has no love for O’Donovan for some reason. I’d have had him ahead of P.Ryan at the start of the year myself.
I thought one of the areas (one of many) that we were poor at was winning breaking ball. The amount of time we were not in position to win a ball was criminal. If we select a big half forward line we need mid-field and inside forwards to mop up the breaking ball. It was a real strength in Kielys U21 team of 2015 with O’Donovan and Ryan at midfield. Pat Simon has also played at corner forward and his pace and mobility could be of use there.
Lynch probably needs a kick all right but its a fine balance between a kick in the hole and a knocking of confidence. It will be interesting to see how the U21’s go on the 22nd. That will be 10 days before the qualifier round. A win there might reignite Lynch…
I agree with a lot of what you say. One problem I see is that while Hickey & Byrnes are both strong in the air, neither are good at delivering ball into the forwards. Byrnes simply can’t help himself and shoots, while Hickey loves running with it. And while he’s not running into dead ends, the ball isn’t being moved into the forwards.
But I don’t even know who the alternatives are, you can’t just put in 3 fancy ballplayers with no defensive instincts either.
Did anyone see Hickey in the first half take a sideline on the opposite line and fuck it up, clare got a score from it.
Basic stuff, why Dan morrissey or one of the midfielders didn’t take it i’ll never know.
And as for Richie McCarthy sauntering around the opposite 65…
I think we need to look at what we did right when we scored 1-5 without reply. We seemed to finally wake up after the second Clare goal and raised our intensity levels.
I’d have to look at it again but our half-back line seemed to totally dominate during that period and we finally started to run at the Clare defence,and it did cause problems.
Whether we slacked off after the goal or whether Clare got wise to us, I don’t know. But it’s been a feature of our play all year long where we’ve only played in fits and starts. Look really good for 10-15 mins and then not score for 20.
It happened a bit with the 21s under Kiely too, not to the same extent but it was grand when we were way better than everyone else, you won’t get away with that at senior level.
Yes I was talking to a few of the lads and a selector. Fyi there’s fuck all drinkers left on that panel. Even the youth in the general these days do fuck all drinking.
Well would yo ever tell them to go and have a few pints together and to get to know one another and play like a team.
Oh and the selector you were talking to … I hope you passed on TFK’s considered thoughts on their team selection.
And then Clare decided to mark the shit out of him. That, combined with foolish hurling from Lynch, stopped the Limerick team from making an impact. He is getting far too much flak from supporters and whilst I would agree that he needs the occasional kick in the hole, he is one of our best hurlers.
In my opinion 5 players should be on the chopping block.
Quaid: I watched him yesterday and he just does not communicate with his backs. A natural goalkeeper will do that all the time and if another goalkeeper was there, McCarthy might have made one run out but not after that. I don’t know what he can offer out the field but it puts paid to the notion of bringing an outfield club player into goals for senior championship.
McCarthy: No need to add anything. He was a disaster yesterday.
Hickey: Tries too hard to do something that he will be remembered for during a game and so fucks up almost everything he does. Spends more time on the ground than he does on his feet.
Dowling: The only way, and I mean the only way, I would keep him is to give him a very last chance at full forward. If he didn’t shine there, then he simply has to go.
J Ryan: I said it a while back that the captain of any team should be a nailed on certainty to start. This is not the case and he no longer has the legs for the midfield.
There are some good things to take from the debacle against Claire. Hayes did well when moved out and although at fault for one goal I wouldn’t hold that against the lad. Dempsey played well. Finn had a brilliant game and I’m genuinely delighted that Hannon seems to have found a position where his undoubted skills will shine.
The biggest thing is this, all the money from all the sugar daddies in the fucking world won’t win an All-Ireland when the money is under the control of cunts, the like of which we have in abundance in Limerick at the top table. As for Kiely, a better hurling man you could hardly meet and for his sake alone I hope we can turn it around. I can only hope though because I don’t think we will. Our goal at the start of the year should have been all out to get out of 1B and to have as good a crack at championship as possible. Shefflin mentioned it on the Sunday Game and Limerick has suffered badly since we rolled over and allowed ourselves to be forced to stay in 1B.
The real change needs to happen at the top table, full of incompetents interested only in their place in one of the red seats. Cunts.