Wexford GAA 2012

I’ve only been to the Cavan game so far this season but we were pretty open through the middle on a number of occasions. Their midfielder scored the goal from a run right through the heart of our defence. We were fine in the full back line but I was disappointed at the ease with which they were able to work the ball through our team for some of their points too. The same thing happened in the qualifier defeat to Limerick last summer, I felt. We had sufficient players behind the ball but some of them weren’t working hard enough to stop overlapping runs and so on.

Wouldn’t mind seeing something like this given a go with the players available

Masterson,
Malone, Molloy, Mulligan
Chin, Bradley, Carty
Quinlivan, Waters,
Lyng, Shore, Roche,
Barry, Banville, Brosnan

Yeah not a hope it’ll happen though.

The tendency is for four dedicated forwards and then two wing backs who will get involved in the dog work.

Morrissey is worth a place as well.

morrissey hasnt made himself available.

carty is too small, keepers would bomb high ball down on him all day

dropping flynn seems harsh mac.

Hadn’t realised that about Morrissey or noticed that Flynn wasn’t in Mac’s side.

Carty might be able for the Morris role of retreating wing back. He’s a good operator in attack as well.

Shore can drop back to midfield on their kickouts with one of the midfielders covering Cartys area.

Flynn has been consistent but I’d like to see others given a go, simple as that really.

i havent seen enough of shore yet to judge him, but theres not always time for that, especially against good keepers like cluxton whos aware of when players are out of position…

I think Flynn’s one of our better players so wouldn’t drop him. Not sure what I’d do with the team overall though.

Robbed this from the Supporters site

Bad day at the office.

We won enough primary possession to win two football matches, but were shockingly wasteful in possession in the first half. Sligo on the other hand were economical and clinical up front. They were very impressive in attack in fairness, and dogged in defence. They were well motivated to avoid two defeats in a row, while we were sluggish and tired-looking.

Graeme Molloy stood up manfully all day, but the lads around him were very poor. Malone was weak under the high ball and that definitely seems to be a problem for him when he plays corner-back. But the defence in general were so slow to pick up runners and so slow to react to breaking balls that it wasn’t funny … one particularly shocking aspect was how on a number of occasions a Wexford back had the opportunity to go down on a loose ball and get it in hand or win a free, but elected to toe-poke it to nowhere in particular and give away possession or a score.

Andrew Shore had a superb game at midfield, and Quinlivan wasn’t far behind. Bradley tried hard, but too many mistakes and too many turnovers or bad wides. PJ the same. Red got on loads of ball in the first half but his distribution was very bad by his standards. Paddy Byrne was supposed to be the target man in that first half. Ryan was roaring at them to let it in to him, but the odd time that they did, it was either a bad ball or he was snuffed out. He has a good pair of hands, but there has to be a bit more intelligence to the ball in. Lyng kept us in the game with some great scores including a super point with his right.

The third goal was a bit of a freak, but they were well worth their lead at half-time.

I fully expected us to come back at them. Unfortunately we let them stretch the lead to 12 before we woke up. From then on the comeback was impressive. Sligo definitely got complacent and started to get very scrappy, but we picked off some nice scores. The goal came at the perfect time as it brought the deficit down to 5 or 6 and there was still 15 minutes left. It was a good move and on the end of it the shot for goal (by who?) was saved low by the keeper but he didn’t hold onto it and PJ followed up and toe-poked it in.

Morris made a big impact when introduced and pulled the strings during the surge. But again, it was Shore in midfield who got all the possession either from clean catches or really strong effective punches into the forwards. Roche did ok, but made no attempt to help out in defence at the end and stood looking on while their man kicked the insurance point when he had time to come back and cover him. That probably explains why he can’t get a start on this team.

O’Grady tried to use his speed when introduced, but didn’t really make any inroads. In the end we were left with too much to do, and the goal at the end was a bit of a calamity, especially regarding our old friend, score difference.

Paddy Byrne impressed me simply because he did practically nothing for the first 45 minutes - not always his fault - but then when he came out the field a bit he got stuck in, won a load of ball and kicked two great scores. He got injured near the end and I think we had used all subs. On the other hand, like last year, Red was more effective when moved in closer to goal, and he had a part in lots of scores including kicking 2 second-half points himself.

Overall we didn’t really function as a team. The ball into the forwards was slow and ponderous, but the movement inside was not good enough. We won midfield, but then handed them the ball on far too many oaccsions instead of at least kicking it dead. In defence we were just poor, and Breheny, Costello and this guy Marren gave us a harsh lesson. Still, good to get it at this time of year … if we learn from it …

I’m just after speaking to one of the Sligo players who played yesterday* and he confirmed much of what was written in that report Mac robbed from the Wexford site. He said Wexford utterly dominated midfield on both their own kick-out and on the Sligo one but they were incredibly wasteful in possession and turned over an avalanche of possession. He got the sense that the Wexford half forward line wasn’t committed to doing a defensive shift and the Sligo half back line powered forward untracked on many occasions to set up scores. Adrian Marren took us for 3-5 but I don’t know who was picking him up - I imagine more than one of our defenders was given a turn in trying to quieten him. I’m not sure we have the right balance in the team in terms of attack and defence.

  • I bumped into him at the water cooler just down from the photcopier in work.

Flynn apparently played well when moved to the half forward line. Maybe that’s worth looking at again. He was always good there in the past and he’d have no problem tracking back as needed. From the team I mentioned above, I’d put him in there instead of Roche who it appears hasn’t lost any of his laziness.

From Twitter

SH Challenge round up–Wexford 1-20 to Dub 4-12 (on Astro turf). A development squad lost to Carlow on Fri & an U21 side lost to Kildare.

Good to hear Shore is progressing well. Shocking that we’re still having trouble putting good ball into the full forward line.

roche is the most frustrating player on the team, flynn had an awful 2008 with respect to scoring i dont beleive he scored int he chship that year.

good to hear about shore, ive heard his back is in an absolute heap, any truth to this mac?

from a sligo man i heard we were shocking in the first half, that and he couldnt believe we didnt put someone else on marren who got 1-3 from play i think.

i dont know who was marking him. i may find out later today fomr a source close to the panel.

graeme molloy for leinster…http://www.hoganstand.com/Wexford/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=161998&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

hon the james’

:pint: :pint: :pint: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Championship draw this Sunday evening…can’t recall venue, broadcast live on southeast radio…

Some news on how our senior hurling squad is shaping up ahead of the start of the league from The Wexford People:

Jacob, Doran, Travers, Carton, Farrell not on hurling panel

Wednesday February 15 2012

LIAM DUNNE is lacking no motivation as Wexford set about life in Division 1B of the Allianz Hurling League, saying he is clearly ‘looking forward to the challenge’.

With his league opener away to Antrim less than two weeks away, the 1996 All-ireland winning medalist still has some hard calls to make before deciding on his panel of players for the league campaign - a panel he says that will remain quite openended, although the nucleus of his squad is well known to him and his backroom team of Murty Dempsey and TomĂĄs Codd.

But the former Oulart-the Ballagh supremo will be without the experienced Tomás Waters, as it now appears as if the St. Martin’s clubman could be out for the season. Another blow is an injury to the returning David ‘Doc’ O’connor, who is battling an achilles problem.

‘Tomás is facing a hip operation which could even rule him out for his club. Also missing from the hurling set-up will be Lee Chin and Andrew Shore, who have opted for football,’ Dunne said.

While both Daithí Waters and Brian Malone have resisted overtures to join the hurling set-up, Stephen Banville and Buffers Alley’s Tomás O’leary will be part of Dunne’s panel, having had a brief spell with the ‘big ball’. Meanwhile, John Leacy, Diarmuid O’keeffe, Matthew O’hanlon, Ian Byrne and Willie Devereux, currently preparing with Kevin Kehoe’s Under-21 football squad for the first defence of their provincial title against Dublin on Wednesday, February 29, will all be in the frame for the Antrim league opener.

Dunne has not wasted any time in framing a set-up that he hopes will drive Wexford hurling forward, although he will be the first to admit they face a huge challenge over the months ahead.

Players who have been omitted include Malachy Travers, Michael Jacob, Willie Doran, Ciarán O’shaughnessy, Noel Carton and Colm Farrell, while Stephen Nolan, who plays his club hurling with Ballyboden St. Enda’s, is not featuring at the moment.

‘For us we are going to have new faces against Antrim, players who will be playing Senior hurling for the county for the very first time. We will have a blend of new and experienced players. When I spoke of retiring players previously, I was not talking about a specific age group. I was speaking about players right across the board. Players have to give a ferocious commitment off the field, in training and preparation, plus I want players who are prepared to die for the cause,’ Dunne said.

What Wexford has had for the last number of years has simply not worked according to the new manager.

‘There’s no point in continuing the way we were. Simply, we have to move on, but these players will be exposed against Antrim. We will learn much from the Antrim game, hopefully from a winning position. Antrim will make it difficult but we will need to make it even more difficult for them. After Antrim, we have Offaly and Limerick at home on consecutive weekends. We could not ask for a more serious test,’ he added.

Dunne already has brought in new faces to training in players like Bobby Kenny, James Tonks, Tomás O’leary, Barry Kehoe, Paul Morris, Eoin Moore, Shaun Murphy and Eanna Martin, who will vie with Niall Breen and Mark Fanning for the netminder’s jersey.

But in all teams one needs experience, and that’s where players like Keith Rossiter, Darren Stamp, Eoin Quigley, Richie Kehoe, Harry Kehoe, P.J. Nolan, Ciarán Kenny, Rory Jacob, Stephen Banville, David Redmond and Garrett Sinnott will be looked upon to provide the basis for the side’s league challenge.

However, the new Wexford supremo is not yet sure regarding the availability of Diarmuid ‘Gizzy’ Lyng. ‘The last I heard he was due back in the country on February 14 (yesterday). We’ll just have to wait and see.’

Dunne and his charges had their final game in preparation for the league against Dublin on Saturday last, losing out by 4-12 to 1-19, having trailed by 4-9 to 0-6 at the interval, shooting 19 wides in the process. A depleted Under-21 team lost out to the Kildare Seniors, while the Development Squad had an outing against Carlow Seniors on Friday night.

‘We will not settle on a particular squad of players. There will always be places up for grabs,’ Dunne explained.

‘It will be open-ended and with the newlook county championship who knows what player might emerge. Players showing well with Development Squad, Under21 and club will all be considered and given an opportunity,’ he added.

No huge shock in the players omitted. Jacob should have went two years ago and Travers has been on borrowed time for a few years as well.

Not sure how much of a blow the injury to Doc is. A few of the players they’re talking about Dunne ‘bringing in’ have already featured on panels. Off the top of my head Tonks and Martin have been included in the past.

I look forward to Artfoleys preview of our hurlers hopes for league and championship in 2012 along with his reaction to hearing that DOC is back on the panel.