Spot on Mike.
Yeah, the last ten minutes in particular kk used physicality well and won a lot of rucksā¦ As my good e-pal @Bandage has pointed out, we should have been playing to our strengths and not theirsā¦
I have little to say other than the game panned out pretty much as I expected it to.
Hey lad, I left two pints behind the bar for you to fire over Buff. Did you get them?
Only just coming around. My thoughts for what they are worth.
Quaid; Solid outing, used the short puckouts better than previous games, still not winning any of his longer puckouts for which he has to take some, but certainly not the majority, of the blame. Keeps dropping slow balls on forwards heads rather than fast balls in front of them to run onto (like Nash for example does). Made a decent save too. 8/10
Finn. Another outstanding game from Finn, our FB line really dominated KK, though the reasons for that werenāt entirely of our making. Great to have a few decent corner backs again. 8/10
McCarthy. Ooooohhhhh Richie McCarthy. Unraleable. Heās come in for a lot of criticism of late, myself included, but he was a colossus Saturday night. Bate Fennelly up a stick then back down the stick again. Didnāt do anything stupid with the ball either If KK had tried they couldnāt have played more into his hands though and Hannon gave him fantastic protection. A great servant. Delighted to be wrong on him. 9/10
Casey. Brilliant defensively but absolutely woeful with the ball. Needs to work on that big time, but he has a bright future. 7/10
Morrissey. Thought he did well enough. Won a good bit of ball and used it reasonably well. Pleasantly surprised I have to say. KK never looked to run at him which would be my big fear of him. Still question marks over him but a very positive outing. 7/10
Hannon. A coming of age match for Hannon. Swept brilliantly in front of Richie and came out with a ton of ball. A bit wayward in his use of it at times, though sky ball into the FF line was obviously part of the game plan, God only knows why. Itās been so long since weāve had a proper centre back Iād almost forgotten what it looked like. Added a real steel to his game this year. Long may he reign there. Walsh did a lot of damage for them but Hannon couldnāt really follow him so Iād absolve him of the blame there. 9/10
Hickey. Obviously Reid is a fantastic hurler but I thought Hickey was too honest on him altogether, trying to out catch him or knock it down to himself instead of looking to break it away from him. Did alright other than that, youād have been happy enough with keeping Reid to two from play before the game but he had a lot of influence in the game outside of that. A much improved year for Hickey overall. I donāt even think he fell over yesterday. 7/10
Browne & OāDonovan. Both were dominated in midfield and never got into it. Both midfielders needed to help Hannon out with Walsh as well which I think they failed to do by and large. Deegan in particular picked off a lot of scores from here and caused a lot of damage. Cleared out in the rucks as well. They were bypassed by and large by our clearances but still could have done more I felt. Browne has had a poor year by his standards. Need big improvement here next year. 5/10
Hayes. Tried hard and did well for two scores, himself & Casey the only ones to run at the KK defence at all. Faded in the second half, still not convinced heās a forward. A great year overall. 8/10
Lynch. The great enigma. Undoubtedly talented but needs to be coached so badly. Never does the simple things. Did well when he was out around the middle, but he gets bottled up very easily at half forward. No score from what is supposedly our marquee forward is not good enough. Regressing if anything. Still very young and undoubtedly very talented. Added a bit of bulk this year, hopefully he can fill out another bit and engage his brain. 6/10
Dowling. The proverbial game of two halves for Dowling. One half where he was half forward and looked absolutely lost, the second where he was full forward and put himself about very well. He has lost weight but he seems less fit than when he was fatter if thatās possible. Madness playing him at half forward. Again. 7/10
Casey. Did very well considering the scraps he was fed. Great potential for the future if he can fill out a bit. Struggled to break the KKās backs tackles at times. 8/10
Hegarty. Scored two lovely points from broken play, but absolutely lost in FF. Has never looked comfortable there. If we are going to insist on making a forward out of him at least play him half. So frustrating to look at him lost in FF, and Dowling lost out HF when both would have been happier switched. Didnāt look up to speed and obviously the injury took itās toll. Great potential if treated right. Needs a bit of bulking as well. 7/10
Dempsey. Never got going and should have been hooked sooner. The ball in was woeful though. 5/10
Nash. Iām a big fan of Nash and was disappointed he didnāt start but he was poor on introduction. A yard behind his man the whole time. Picked off a nice point. 5/10
Jim Bob. Put himself about and got through a lot of ball on his introduction. Brought a bit of physicality which had been lacking in midfield to that point. 7/10
Morrissey. Should have been on earlier as our forwards were crying out for a bit of physicality. Never really got involved though. 5/10
Pat Ryan. Took his point well, but was the wrong man on the ball for our only sniff of a goal chance in the second half. Brought energy to midfield when introduced but not a whole pile of product. 6/10
Mulcahy. Too late in the day to make an impact.
Overall I thought our backs were brilliant, but we were destroyed in the midfield/half forward line. KK won all the dirty ball there. We cannot win a long puckout to save our lives. Itās now 3 years since we won clean possession from a long puckout. FACT. Our forwards were bossed physically by KK. They are young obviously so that is something that will come in the next few years hopefully.
Kiely. Faith in Richie justified, Hannon at CB has been a revelation and he deserves credit for sticking with that. However our use of ball into the forwards is horrendous. Lorrying it into the sky to forwards who are much smaller than KKās backs. Is that really the plan? It certainly seemed to be. Dowling at HF again is just stupid as well. Clear from the Clare game he doesnāt have the required stamina for it. Thought he was slow to change at midfield & half forward where we were being cleaned out. Seems to have a set against some fellas and unwavering faith in others. Needs to adjust our game plan for what we have. A lot done, an awful lot more to do. 6/10
On KK, they were shocking. Cody needs to realise his old tactic of fucking it into the forwards only worked because he had 6 brilliant forwards (with more on the bench a lot of the time). His current crop arenāt at that level. Anyone who looked at Limerick would have been targeting Richie Mac with low ball in front of him and dragging him around the field. Instead they lumped high ball in on top of him and left Hannon free to sweep up the breaks. Richie Macās wet dream. Hogan in a serious funk, he needs to go back teaching I think. KK were unbelievably wasteful with the ball. Keeper hitting it wide from frees on their 65. Would never have happened before. KK team on the decline but someone needs to drive a stake through their hearts soon because the bastards can grind it out.
Limerick left it behind them, but we were going to need goals to beat them and never looked like getting them. We made heroes out of Murphy and Buckley.
Overall a disappointing end to the year, signs of improvement but the reality is we lost two championship games against beatable teams and weāre still stuck in 1b. If that had been Galway we were playing yesterday they would have bate us to death. Still a long way off being competitive, but Cork & Wexford have shown this year how quickly you can turn it around if you want to and we arguably have more material to work with than they had. Thereās a handy all Ireland there for Galway. Barring a major Tipp revival the only ones that can beat them are themselves, and even at that I think they have enough to beat a full motoring Tipp team.
Generous enough ratings Julio.
it isnāt like me We gave it our all yesterday and I couldnāt fault lads work rate but we need to play smarter
A year that promised a lot really petered out.
As Julio stated there Waterford and Cork have had their transition seasons in recent times and then improved considerably in the years after. Hopefully itāll be the same for us.
We finally have our first centre back since Brian Geary. Keep him there. Byrnes on one side and Seamus/Dan/Colin Ryan/Hegarty on the other and that looks a solid platform to build the team around.
Cian Lynch needs serious coaching. A lot of talent but he really needs some guidance. It might be worth trying him in corner forward with the simple directive - win our own ball and take the score. No flicks, no dilly dallying, no dummies, no blind hand passes, no tapping the ball into his hand.
Cian Lynch doesnāt need coaching. He needs a kick up the hole.
I made a comment during the game he was luxury a team like Limerick couldnāt afford. Same as Lehane and Horgan last few seasons for cork( who tbf did contribute something to the scoreboard). When the ball is coming out as fast as itās going in if you are going to carry a non scorer it should be a Timmy Mc or the likes who will spoil the shit out of it and slow the ball down coming out at worst.
I donāt remember lynch having any impact really since his debut game? An indictment of management because he has some talent
Full forward for the fucker. In on the square with no option but to shoot
Heād solo out to midfield before shooting is the problem
Bring back Breen.
Looks like none are available at the moment.
Lads, would ye fucking relax on Cian Lynch. Heās still u21. Look at Lehane and how long it took him to get where he is, the apes on here would have had him dropped never to be seen again years ago. The idea of Lynch at 11 is great, getting on ball and using his vision to create chances for others, but our game plan is nowhere near as sophisticated as that. He is not a corner forward either. If we had someone big and physical beside him he should go midfield. Half forward for now. He should have been subbed or at least moved to try spark him a good 10 minutes before he was taken off yesterday, but he worked and tried hard. He doesnāt drink and lives for hurling and will be a fantastic player for us for many years. If we had a few more with his attitude and work ethic down the years weād be in a lot better place.
Coaching my hole and kick up the arse my hole, the young lad had a poor game. Itās forgivable. Stick yer thumbs up each otherās arses.
I agree with all here, Lynch needs to be dropped for a yearā¦ The work rate or interest just isnāt there - Heās 21 now ffs, if he hasnāt delivered by now itās not going to magically just happen for him.
Fwiw Kyle Hayes won a puckout clean in the first half, which I think we scored from. The first clean catch by a Limerick forward since Hannon vs Kilkenny in 2014,Iād say.