Probably had a few too many beers. where I was sitting at the uncovered seat side of the ground we had a fool who was trying to knock a slioter over the bar from in the stand while the game was going on. The stewards were just looking at him until one of them copped onto what he was trying to do.
When is Michael Ryan’s head going to roll? I don’t get the sense that there’s some grand vision at play there, that’s taking time to implement. On all evidence to date the management are severely under-prepared for the job in hand. Relegation and defeat to Clare in the championship would as good as guarantee him the chop you’d think.
You would have to make Clare favourites to beat them in the championship even at this early stage…
Probably but, ssssh, don’t tell the oddsmakers.
To be fair to Waterford, losing Connors, Kelly and Mullane is pretty brutal. They have some nice hurlers coming through but not as many as most of the other established teams - they are fairly fucked regardless of management though.
Undeniably, hardly needs to be said.
I don’t think the oddsmakers are that stupid…
They have great underage talent but the core of the senior team is all but gone. The question is how far they fall, and whether or not they can maintain the standards necessary for another great team to emerge. As much as they slated Davy, he was keeping a team that was well past its best competing at the highest level.
There’s obviously going to be a period of rebuilding, but the further they fall the harder it’s going to build a team that can be competitive again. While they’re not going to win an All Ireland under any manager, the wrong manager can do huge damage at a time like this.
Clare should be glad they are no longer the worst of the five big hurling counties in Munster.
Looks like Ryan is fucking around a lot with positions, which is something bad managers do when they can’t figure out the best position for the new lads coming through. Looks like he is still picking mollockers like Molumphy, Nagle, the Prendergasts etc as well. Not going to beat any decent side with lads like that starting. Not sure ‘rebuilding’ piecemeal works, it certainly didn’t for Walsh down here.
We are
Hardly yet we are only in division 1 b
We are going nowhere playing division 1 b teams
It’s not that easy to get the timing right. You can’t dump all that experience at once, not unless you have a cohort of serious talent ready to step in and even then it takes time. Often the older players cause massive trouble as well though, their ‘maturity’ goes out the window as soon as the manager suggests that they’re not guaranteed starters anymore. This seems to have been very much the case in Waterford with relentless bitching from the senior players over the last 2/3 years. All the jersey kissing of the glory years was shown up for what it really was when they were required to make personal sacrifices for the good of Waterford hurling.
What harm there was a decent enough spine there at the end of last season from the Galway and Kilkenny matches with Lawlor at 3, Brick at 6, O’Sullivan & Moran at midfield, Mullane at 11 and Walsh at 14. Add the likes of Fives, Mahony, Molomphy, Connors etc they had a decent base to build off this year but they have looked miles off the pace and if some of their training methods are rumoured to be true they are doing stuff that average intermediate club sides wouldn’t do. I have only seen the highlights of the Cork and Tipp games but there seemed to be no urgency or style of play from them whatsoever.
Has Mullane retired or is he just taking time off during the league?
ffs sake
Fat head.
ffs
fao of carl.
ffs sake.
Munster is very tricky to read. Clare should beat waterford, but what if they jettison Ryan after the league and put 5 hard weeks in before clare with Mullane back in tow? They would have a serious kick under those circumstances?
The other side is even more difficult to read, limericks weak defensive spine should see tipp through, but not by much and an injury to curran or cummins and that gap would close. Then you have Cork, in the doldrums for last 4 years but still appearing in munster finals, now they can weld on the fringes of 2 very good u21 sides and add the JBM factor and at this stage I would be predicting a fresh cork side to take munster…