You would presume that could have been the only rationale to it. Cork were so awful in their first two games against Limerick and Clare and beaten so badly in both, Cahill possibly adopted the approach that we just canât lose this one and was maybe looking down the road.
I was at the Cork match in Walsh Park and I donât believe the players had downed tools. It was fairly obvious though about 10 minutes in, that the Waterford players were dead on their feet, were a yard or two behind their Cork opponents and were most likely going to lose.
Well with Clare it was year 2 and Wexford year 3. With Waterford previously it was year 1, or in reality, his first three months.
The difference with Clare and Wexford was he was coming in at a very good time with both those teams at a low ebb and he had leeway. He produced something concrete to build off in year 1 with both Clare and Wexford, which you can do when youâre coming from that low ebb.
While not as long in the tooth as the 2008 team, the current Waterford team is an established team and given a lot of those players have been to two All-Irelands and lost, the clear aim is to win one and as soon as possible.
Reaching say, a semi-final would not be something to build off, it would be the same as 2021. Another final defeat and players might start thinking thatâs as good as it can get.
Anything less than a semi-final would be seen as failure and once you get failure with Davy thatâs likely to carry on.
Not allowing them celebrate the League win and calling a training session the morning after was a mistake. It became totally joyless.
âAllowingâ the Ballygunner players receive their All Ireland Club medals but ordering them to not take a drop of alcohol was also counter productive the same night. This after telling the same BG players they werent fit after coming back from the club campaign was wrong.
Then doing three man weaves up and down Walsh Park over and over again for 3 weeks before playing Waterford was ridiculous carry on. Coupled with a sub par S&C/Medical department and it blew up spectacularly.
The Ballygunner All Ireland victory bash was on in the Tower Hotel the same night as the League Final. I believe the Ballygunner contingent arrived in around 11.30 after getting back from Thurles, collected their medals and went home.
Agree with most of that as regards the players should have been allowed to properly celebrate but on this part, I have been coached by Bevans a few times and would find it very hard to believe this was the case.
If you win the league on a Saturday evening and thereâs also an All-Ireland club title to celebrate, it shouldnât matter if your championship starts two weeks later, you should be getting pissed that night.
Inter-county GAA is not supposed to be enjoyable - but you need to get some enjoyment from it.
Sean Boylan brought Meath to Scotland the weekend before the fourth match against Dublin in 1991 and some of the players were rolling around drunk at dawn on the lawn of the hotel they were staying in. They didnât have to go behind Boylanâs back to do it - he approved of it all.
It might be old school but that stuff is a release and it builds up a bond that tends to show on the pitch.
I suppose heâll do great work fundraising and might lift the interest for a while. But by Christ Iâd be raging if I was from Waterford with that appointment. It will all end in tears
Just on the players not being allowed to drink after the league final actually, I personally would have allowed them have a few but I doubt any other intercounty teams were out drinking 2 weeks before championship either
Theyâre not. Theyâve used up any currency they had on that front. They were right about Fanning, he wasnât up to the job from Day 1 and everyone knew that.
There wasnât any great issue with Cahill until the 3 weeks before Limerick and Cork games this year. Management got it spectacularly wrong though in between those two games to such an extent that it finished off the year as the Cork game was de facto knock out. At that stage, the feeling all round really was after 3 years it had run its course.
The last thing Waterford need is a circus. Itâs always Davyâs show, itâs all about him and he knows no other way than flogging them to death. Even after the implosion from 5 or 6 points up and a man up against Tipperary in 2019 semi final, Wexford go and more or less implode in the same manner 2 years later in Leinster semi final to Kilkenny.
Itâs commonly known that Jim mcguinness was bizarrely brought in by Cahill to try and win an All Ireland.
It made a gruelling training regime untenable as he did 3 man weaves until they keeled over.
After the Cork loss they went into the Clare game without any form of a game plan then the team was leaked. It was all over once they lost to Cork which was a poor performance but looking back on it a game Waterford should have been well clear after 20 minutes.
you prove me wrong again youâre actually gifted