I agree about Gavin. I felt he should have gotten game time on Sunday when we needed cool heads.
You don’t want fighting in the camp either. Most of them might have something to offer but have a lot of bad habits, and maybe the younger lads will be easier to mould into how Kiely or Kinnerk want to play.
Still very disappointed with Dowling, he was anonymous, and has a lot more to offer. Lynch as well.
I thought there were some positives to take from the Clare game. We learned more about ourselves than we have all year.
Very new untested team yet it was the younger fellas to the fore and the older lads who struggled.
Negatives;
A bit early to write Ryan’s obituary but he’s clearly caught for legs in midfield now, maybe a spot at half forward for him still though.
Yesterday was the end of the idea that Dowling can be anywhere but FF and that’s the last we should ever speak of it. It was worth a try. Still happy with him in FF.
Richie Mac is done, although I’d say he cost us more points from “clearances” than from defensive errors. Absolutely brainless with the ball.
Cian Lynch is fast becoming (if he isn’t already) a luxury we can’t afford. Maybe be better to spring him against tired legs at this stage, though he showed fleeting moments of his undoubted brilliance yesterday.
Quaid was very poor yesterday. I’ve had my concerns about him, puckouts wise, for sometime but that was a horrendous display of goalkeeping. Although to be fair he was ably assisted by our defence for each of them. Our sub keeper isn’t a whole pile better though.
Mike Casey was cleaned out unfortunately, it’s a pity because he’s looked our most solid all year, he’ll have better days no doubt.
Mulcahy. Look it’s not all Mul’s fault, the ball in is woeful, but you need to be able to win dirty ball at this level. Nash at least put himself about in there when introduced.
Positives.
Half backline performed well, maybe the only line that would get a passing grade. We had them under pressure on their puckouts which was a nice role reversal. Hannon is our CB now we’ve to give him time to grow into it. His distribution is excellent (sadly alone in this), HB is definitely Hickeys best position as well, he’s reigned in his excesses this year to good effect. Not sure Morrissey has the legs for it and he’ll make way when Byrnes is fit no doubt.
Finn. A superb debut in a fb line that was completely at sea. If we’d 3 Finns we might have won.
Hayes had a poor first half, but hauled himself into it in the second. HF suits him better, particularly with the absolutely dogshit ball we play into the FF line. He has huge potential.
Thought Dempsey had a decent game as well.
Kiely
A lot of lads were frustrated by the lack of progress Kiely has made which is fair enough to an extent. At the start of the year there were 4 major problems IMO which needed to be addressed;
FB. This has been his greatest failure IMO. Maybe reluctant to start with a fb line who were all just out of 21’s, but he has to the next day. Richie is a liability. The lack of alternatives tried during the league was stupid.
HB line. Vastly improved from this time last year, we haven’t had a decent centre back in a long time and Hannon may now be a long term solution here.
Puckouts. Mixed bag here, has realised that we struggle to win our own puckouts and is using short puckouts a lot better as a result. However short puckouts to Richie McCarthy are worth the grand total of fuck all to us. Still struggling to win puckouts any time we are forced to go long, but tbf to Kiely his main man in this regard Hegarty was out. A lot done more to do.
Ball into the forwards. Woeful. Kiely is obviously taking a leaf from the Waterford book and telling the lads to shoot from further out. The problem with this is Waterford have to shoot from distance as they’ve no one upfront. They hit a pile of wides as well but are generally better at taking scores from distance, they also don’t conceed anything near what we do so don’t have to hit the same amount to win.
As a result anytime we get space outside we are shooting hail mary shots instead of looking for a forward. That means the only ball going into our forwards is when we are under pressure out the field. Most of our 11 wides in the first half were shots that weren’t really on. If they’d been played in and we’d converted just 3 we’d have been within a score at halftime.
Obligatory team for the next day.
Quaid
Casey English Finn
Byrnes Hannon Hickey
Browne P. Ryan
J. Ryan Hegarty Hayes
Nash Dowling Dempsey
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Exactly. You’ll get a decent few games now before the final, so won’t be undercooked in September. That’s the main thing.
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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…
No one has even raised Kinnerk’s name yet ?? @glasagusban was creaming himself about this chap for over a year…
The players looked more clueless than ever.
What is his role exactly?
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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.
Post no 1131 in the Clare v Limerick thread
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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…
Brainless …
Were Richie’s solo runs upfield part of a plan or was he improvising?
I’m afraid of my life to find out the answer to that.
John kiely should be removed from his position if it was some sort of plan.
Have you talked to the lads yet? Or letting them cool off?
I can see it now the team meeting a couple nights before, John Kiely clicks to the next slideshow and there it is…
Richie McCarthy’s name and a big fucking red arrow pointing directly up the middle of the field to the opposite 65.
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fixed
If it was anyone’s plan it was Clare’s. They seemed happy to let him have it and were well rewarded
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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.
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Cian lynch hurled for 15 minutes.
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