Official NFL & NHL 2009 Thread

Maybe so, I don’t see how only being a tinker when your man is on top absolves you from accusations of being a dirty hurler though. What he did yesterday, plain and simple, was strike Eoin Kelly with the hurley. There was no attempt to play the ball because he couldn’t possibly have played the ball from that distance. Fair enough.

What gets me about Tommy Walsh though is this. You often see lads flake each other in hurling. It happens. But look at Walsh’s demeanour anytime he does anything. This look of victimhood like the rest of us are too fucking stupid to see what he did. And his persistent habit of sneakily belting lads. Not in any hardy shoulder to shoulder fashion, but at a time when the other player is vulnerable like Kelly was yesterday. It’s extremely frustrating to see the guy held up as a superstar (and he is a great player) while this side of his game never gets mentioned.

[quote=“Watch The Break”]Maybe so, I don’t see how only being a tinker when your man is on top absolves you from accusations of being a dirty hurler though. What he did yesterday, plain and simple, was strike Eoin Kelly with the hurley. There was no attempt to play the ball because he couldn’t possibly have played the ball from that distance. Fair enough.

What gets me about Tommy Walsh though is this. You often see lads flake each other in hurling. It happens. But look at Walsh’s demeanour anytime he does anything. This look of victimhood like the rest of us are too fucking stupid to see what he did. And his persistent habit of sneakily belting lads. Not in any hardy shoulder to shoulder fashion, but at a time when the other player is vulnerable like Kelly was yesterday. It’s extremely frustrating to see the guy held up as a superstar (and he is a great player) while this side of his game never gets mentioned.[/quote]

I suppose our county bias sometimes makes us blind to these imperfections at times WTB. While sometimes wild and sneaky I could never imagine Tommy Walsh to ever go out and intentionally “do” a player. That’s why I don’t think he’s a dirty player

he may not intend to, but he does do it. i think he is a good player alright, and maybe its the tough streak in him that makes him such a player, but i dont think I’d ever really warm to him as he is a dirty fook.

As probably the most impartial man I’ve ever met i’ll find it hard to argue with you Gman

From a Kilkenny point of view Yesterday wasnt good but we cant be too dissapointed considering that we had five second string defenders on the field for most of the game,it showed too.Up front was more frustrating, Aidan fogarty,Willie O Dwyer and Ml Rice all carried thier recent poor form into this game and hurled terribly,Fogarty has previous form and has time on his side to get things righ,its deserved too.Rice is hard to watch ,he lacks the conviction for this level imo,then theres Willie O Dwyer,this guy must have run out of chances at this stage,he didnt feel the weight of the ball more than once or twice Yesterday despite operating at centre forward and midfield for the entire 70 minutes,throw in the concession of 3 stupid frees that were all scored and you wont see many worse peformances all Weekend.I thought Eddie Brennan and Ml Grace did a bit better while not lighting up the place either.Eoin Larkin was woefully ring rusty and his touch was off,wouldnt have any worries about him though,Power always looked dangerous.Waterford fully deserved thier win Yesterday and could have won by more,Richie Foley and Noel Connors look real good finds.

P.S Walsh Park is an absolute kip.

as usual after a match with a bit of kilkenny “competitiveness” the usual scenario plays out

kilkenny are most sinned against than sinned

anyone who fouls a kilkenny player is a knacker

tommy walsh just mistimes his tackles

there was no provocation on the behalf of brennan

now bearing all this in mind what prendergast and kelly did is wrong and their county men and all other neutral observers have agreed but no kilkenny man will ever come out and say that what tommy did was wrong or that there may have been provocation by eddie

tmmy walsh is one of the finest hurlers of our generation but he is dirty, a lad with that much skill would not repeatedly make such “mistimed tackles”.

[quote=“artfoley”]as usual after a match with a bit of kilkenny “competitiveness” the usual scenario plays out

kilkenny are most sinned against than sinned

anyone who fouls a kilkenny player is a knacker

tommy walsh just mistimes his tackles

there was no provocation on the behalf of brennan

now bearing all this in mind what prendergast and kelly did is wrong and their county men and all other neutral observers have agreed but no kilkenny man will ever come out and say that what tommy did was wrong or that there may have been provocation by eddie

tmmy walsh is one of the finest hurlers of our generation but he is dirty, a lad with that much skill would not repeatedly make such “mistimed tackles”.[/quote]

Richie Power was excellent yesterday from the bit i saw. He looks to have got more powerful.
I’d be very surprised if KK didn’t train for about 2 hours on saturday. They had that look about them.

[quote=“caoimhaoin”]Richie Power was excellent yesterday from the bit i saw. He looks to have got more powerful.
[/quote]

He was the most dangerous of the Kilkenny forwards alright kev and seems to have gained a lot of strength.

I don’t buy into this KK training for 2 hours on saturday excuse though. I’m sure every team is training had this time of year

Dead right. This is the type of stuff the losing teams often come out with at this time of year, while conveniently ignoring the fact their conquerors are probably training just as hard.

But sure even if you were training too hard, tough - you lost. It’s hardly a valid excuse, in fairness. The only valid excuses are things outside of your control, and training isn’t one of them.

Just like Antrim.

To save face i’m sure Davy targeted this match and i seriously doubt Waterford trained overly excessively after thursday. Another hammering wouldn’t have been worth that extra session.

Rumour was a few years ago Kerry trained the day before the Munster championship game against Cork. Was never proved or never heard it from Kerry player, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

[quote=“caoimhaoin”]To save face i’m sure Davy targeted this match and i seriously doubt Waterford trained overly excessively after thursday. Another hammering wouldn’t have been worth that extra session.

Rumour was a few years ago Kerry trained the day before the Munster championship game against Cork. Was never proved or never heard it from Kerry player, but it wouldn’t surprise me.[/quote]

Sure Waterford were ‘apparently’ training hard when they played Wexford and Offaly last year, and that was the reason they only won both games by a small margin. It wasnt because they were proven to be shite or anything.

I don’t think any of us Wexford lads came out with the ‘overtraining’ excuse after the game on Sunday, if that’s what you’re suggesting?

I was pointing out Antrim were training incredibly hard during the week acc to a mate of mine from up there, hence their slow start.

Again, I think that’s a simplistic view. I don’t think it necessarily makes sense that a few hard training sessions early in the week resulted in a very slow start but had an almost immediate positive impact on stamina and saw them finish very strongly. From being at the game, their co-manager’s son got an absolute roasting from Stephen Doyle who was spraying the ball around and setting up loads of scores and their 'keeper let in a mishit point attempt from 50 yards. Then they brought Delargy of Cushendall back into defence and he hurled a great game and shored things up and they began a fightback.

Fair enough. I will say one thing, Antrim showed what can happen when you dont roll over and have you belly tickled like Laois did down there a few weeks ago. Antrim dug in, and got the win. Laois have a lot to learn.

Waterford are doing ferocious training at the moment, and they have not altered the schedule at allin the last few weeks to ease off when matches have been played. But as other lads have stated the rest of teh teams are probably at the same craic.

Davy Fitz doesn’t alter training schedules for league games. Fact. Even if it meant training on the morning of a match he wouldn’t give a fuck. Fitzy’s attitude, even in training, is for you to hurl when you’re absolutely wrecked because that’s what prepares the mind best for delivering under pressure. Don’t entirely agree with it myself but that’s the way he does things.

In honour of the bould Tommy Walsh

After his dip in the opinion polls I thought it would be only fair to post one of the best hurling photos I’ve seen over the last few years, even though it is a gruesome one. A hardy little bastard all the same…

http://images.sportsfile.com/fotoweb/fwbinnew/preview.dll?D=A932CFFA051C86ACC10DBFE8794A1E022577D9B88DAEFDBA955719A1D1858C37DC6242CCDBAEC4AC9E1E9809A054348E824F1151BB537DAD79F31959557BA17B1FEE3090A777656239991591F68AABD5E959A21EA67FCC014AB9E0FECBD0A3D6D63267C5988930CDE4270FEE6FF1CE2DF2489098C8F565C225C800CB012E3AA5672BC2CBAD80FB74E3EEBB5AE49A8C0E37FD2ED857AEBCF8DBF04F0F7F63FAC7FFA5125533EC001C37ED6BAEB33180EC857522492AB67CFAD1EBA52CD8DBFDEB90247965821A473DD5F50D02FECEA78C6708C60BC945D04C5BC8F6025970921323F311581092F78FCB50A9C7ACDF4303EC2128040F0EEDF7

At the same time I thought this link would provide a timely reminder in light of the weekend Tommy based discussion of our good fortune to enjoy the freedom of speech we have in the spot we’re in… http://www.anfearrua.com/db.asp?a=topicdisplay&tid=505188&xpos=35…fucking hell