I’m fairly sure half of Bandage’s recent posts on this thread involve Harry Kehoe being dropped.
No, that was on last year’s thread. It was always Kehoe + 1 in midfield for the last 4 or 5 years. Somebody needed to say, “hang on a second now”. He was moved to wing forward against Antrim before being dropped for our elimination against Clare in the next round. As ever, I was right but I didn’t take any satisfaction in it.
He won a Fitzgibbon this year (pinnacle of hurling), had a decent league and was reasonably good against Antrim but I think a realignment with Chin in midfield would strengthen the team. Kehoe won’t be dropped though.
Bear in mind Brendan Furlong may or may not make up quotes in his pieces but Liam Dunne is quoted in today’s Wexford People as follows: “Eoin played the first half of a 15-a-side game last Saturday. I took him off as a precaution but right now he is in a race against time to make the squad. We’ll know following a further training session, but…his chances right now are no more than 50-50.”
Brendan then surmises that the game will come to soon for Moore but I think he might play. No further injury concerns to report.
Dubs could potentially be without Joey Boland, Sutcliffe and Maguire for the game. This should be a good barometer for where Wexford hurling is at. I see Liam Dunne is bemoaning the unlevel playing field in terms of finances for preparing county teams and he has a point. Not all counties can afford to head away to foreign training camps for a week. Clare had one after the league campaign, but that’s as much to do with funds from GAA HQ through the gate receipts for replay last year. I’m looking forward to seeing Conor McDonald in action. He skinned Paidi Maher in a challenge match recently so his battle with Peter Kelly will have a huge bearing on the result.
Sutcliffe is definitely out and a big miss. The other two are 6/10 type operators and they should be able to replace them without too much hassle. I think Dublin might go back to that sweeper/seventh defender template that they used to always use but only went to intermittently last year (drawn game v Kilkenny in the second half and second half v Cork). They’ll try to deny our potent young attack space but they won’t have reckoned on the fact we now have players that can pop over points from 70-80 yards at their leisure too. I’m confident Dunne has improved tactically and won’t be thrown by anything Dublin do. We’re going to beat the fuck out of them.
If they do adopt a sweeper approach I think Lee Chin should be deployed as the spare man. He would cover more ground than any of the other Wexford backs and should be able to get forward on occasion . Shore should be well able to combat Ryan O Dwyer. Is Waters anyway near a comeback?
Waters returned to some light group training before the Antrim match but he’s not realistically going to feature this season for the county. We’re fortunate that O’Hanlon has returned to that full back role and played very well upon his return from studying abroad.
Dublin and others possibly think we’re getting ahead of ourselves based on adding a few young players. But it’s not just outstanding minors like Liam Ryan and Conor McDonald, we’ve also have the returning lads in their early 20s who were abroad last season like O’Hanlon, O’Keeffe and McGovern. Add in Chin focusing solely on hurling and a couple more of last year’s provincial winning U21 side like Ian Byrne and we’ve got quite good depth to our squad.
@gaamad1996 better be in on this or I’ll be seething
http://www.wexfordgaa.ie/2014/06/wexford-gaa-tv-goes-live-this-friday-10pm/
[QUOTE=“myboyblue, post: 960457, member: 180”]@gaamad1996 better be in on this or I’ll be seething
http://www.wexfordgaa.ie/2014/06/wexford-gaa-tv-goes-live-this-friday-10pm/[/QUOTE]
I’m sure he’ll be involved (exam commitments notwithstanding).
The heat wave provides us with another advantage over Dublin now.
Wexford were struggling to pint from 40 yards vs Antrim …
The game was over as a contest after 15 minutes. Some sloppy striking was apparent at various stages but 19 points was an acceptable return. You’ll have to defer to my knowledge of Wexford hurling here, I’m afraid.
I appreciate your love and knowledge through what can only be described as barren years, however I know too many Wexford hurling supporters too not notice the general tendency to optimism bias…
That being said, I shall be in attendance in Wex on Sat (cheering for the Dubs) and look forward to a cracking game.
No.
My only concern with McDonald is pace. He doesn’t appear to be blessed with pure speed. He’s outstanding in the air, brilliant hand-eye co-ordination, great vision/awareness, strong, two-sided and fairly unflappable.
It could become predictable if we repeatedly lash high balls into him if the opposition full back can disrupt to a certain extent with a centre back dropping deep in front of them too to crowd him out.
[QUOTE=“Bandage, post: 960487, member: 9”]No.
My only concern with McDonald is pace. He doesn’t appear to be blessed with pure speed. He’s outstanding in the air, brilliant hand-eye co-ordination, great vision/awareness, strong, two-sided and fairly unflappable.
It could become predictable if we repeatedly lash high balls into him if the opposition full back can disrupt to a certain extent with a centre back dropping deep in front of them too to crowd him out.[/QUOTE]
In his 1st or 2nd year minor when Storey was in charge he had balls lumped in on top of him with 3 KK lads on him and still managed to win at least half of them.
However, I don’t think we’ll be resorting to that as it’s a lot to expect of him to dominate the likes of Peter Kelly. His reading of the game is top notch however and he’ll often always pop up in the right place at the right time.
I believe the Antrim full back was hitting him a few belts off the ball the last day and got no reaction out of him at all.
[QUOTE=“tallback, post: 960481, member: 1158”]I appreciate your love and knowledge through what can only be described as barren years, however I know too many Wexford hurling supporters too not notice the general tendency to optimism bias…
That being said, I shall be in attendance in Wex on Sat (cheering for the Dubs) and look forward to a cracking game.[/QUOTE]
I’m a realist, pal. I realised how things tailed off after an initially promising start under John Meyler and that Colm Bonnar’s reign was disastrous. I haven’t expected anything in Dunne’s first two years as we needed to start from a very low base again.
But I sensed a long way back that this year is different - we’ve massively closed the gap on other teams in terms of panel depth, pattern of play, general fitness and strength and conditioning. League performances were promising without taking a scalp so now we need to actually beat a team that’s rated higher than us. I’m very confident we’ll deliver on Saturday night.
Enjoy your trip to Wexford anyway, bro.
Unchanged Wexford team announced. Eoin Moore and Conor Devitt are added to the bench in place of Jack O’Connor and Eoin Conroy. As mentioned after the U21 game in Kilkenny, I think Devitt is capable of contributing strongly at senior level already too.
[QUOTE=“Bandage, post: 960507, member: 9”]I’m a realist, pal. I realised how things tailed off after an initially promising start under John Meyler and that Colm Bonnar’s reign was disastrous. I haven’t expected anything in Dunne’s first two years as we needed to start from a very low base again.
But I sensed a long way back that this year is different - we’ve massively closed the gap on other teams in terms of panel depth, pattern of play, general fitness and strength and conditioning. League performances were promising without taking a scalp so now we need to actually beat a team that’s rated higher than us. I’m very confident we’ll deliver on Saturday night.
Enjoy your trip to Wexford anyway, bro.[/QUOTE]
I think you need to be more bullish and optimistic pal. Optimism is great.
Wexford aren’t getting to an AI semi, keep your money.
Yeah?
well you’re a cunt.
so there.