A great opportunity for Kilkenny to demote Wexford. Iād say subconsciously they were going to ease off a bit next week but thereās a chance to bury a bogey team for them now. Sending Wexford down to intermediate would surely give them a small degree of schadenfreude.
Is that a case of him throwing the players under the bus or the players throwing him under the bus?
That is an unbelievable turn around. For a team like Westmeath to beat Wexford by 4-13 to 0-7 in a half of hurling is crazy stuff. Itās hard to imagine what they spoke about in that Westmeath dressing room at half time. 0-16 points down and no real history of that kind of performance. If Kilkenny did it v Wexford from 0-16 down they would be getting lauded.
Itās such a tough day for all Wexford hurling people. I hope to fuck they donāt get relegated for next year.
But for the people of Westmeath they must be 10 foot tall tonight.
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@Gavin ?
Wexford might just be better served in the longer run by getting relegated.
Who was actually at the match? @Gman? Anyone else?
Were there mutinous scenes? I remember being at a Leinster minor football semi-final years ago & the manager took awful abuse from random Wexford Gaels in the stand at full time. And that was a respectable stage & way for a Wexford football team to exit.
But losing to Westmeath in senior hurling championshipā¦losing to them at homeā¦losing to them at home after being 16 or 17 points upā¦thatās worst result in the history of Wexford GAA territory.
Are matchgoing Wexford folk just ground down & totally bewildered/disenchanted & possibly shellshocked? Or was a good dollop of anger prevalent with abuse being thrown out at BDE & the players at full time?
The āsack the managerā culture usually associated with SOCCER surely applies in this specific scenario. Thereās no logical way any board could retain a manager that presided over that.
Give it Rossi & Doc to end of the season.
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Have they any split season in Westmeath?
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Football and hurling club championships are played on alternate weekends
Heās useless as a pundit.
He lost the head with Spratt. Not hard tbf! The whole thing is a shitshow. There needs to be an EGM of the Co.Board to prepare for McDonagh.
How many senior hurling clubs have Westmeath?
6 clubs
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Just remembered his ramblings about an 8-1 lead in squash being whittled down to 8-7 against a lesser opponent and the power of momentum in sport. The Westmeath boys were in raptures beside them. They all mistook Gerry Forde for Billy Byrne.
Yep you could say he was getting his excuse in first. Joe Fortune also interviewed, he said he told the players at halftime to forget about systems and shapes and go out and hurl. He told them to man up and give something back to the supporters that travelled down.
He told BDE at fulltime that he will do everything in his power next weekend to make sure Westmeath get a result v Antrim.
He got emotional towards the end. He said hes a proud Wexford man and he even sounded shocked with they way they got the goals so quick together.
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Wexford have brought Leinster Hurling into disrepute
I wouldnāt blame ye for walking out on it
We are considering our options
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Maybe let the minors play away in it for development
I went in. With 2 of the childer. Lovely harmless atmosphere at half time out on the pitch pucking about with the hundreds of others out there. āJeez dad, theyre useless, weāre hammering themā, as the young fella pucked the ball over and back with his sister. We, like a good few others, moved from the clonard end of the open terrace to the town side, to get where the second half action would be. Westmeath were useless, 5 points in a half, all frees, and most of them of the very, very dubious category of a ref playing for the underdog. Nevermind, we were turning them over handy and scoring at will. The ref missed a lot of frees for us in scoring positions when they dragged down players bearing down on goal. Nevermind, control the controllables, winning handy in spite of the ref.
Second half. Another couple of frees. Then their first score from play, a goal. Fuck sake lads, pick up the pace a bit here now. Tippy tappy, hit a ball, half hearted attempts to go for it, lose it and they score again. Down to 10 points, then 9. Penalty, Rory has the headntaken of him, black card. Right, finish the fucking contest. Whoās taking it? Jacko? Ok, strange, but sure lets see. A scuttery half hit shot that bounces 3 times before the keeper stops it standing in the middle. If you thought Conor Macs penalty was bad? But wait, heres jacko again bearing in on goal, scuttery shot, falls to Mac, surely gets hia hat trick but alas, his half hearted pull is easily blocked. Anyway, another break, heres Dunbar with his third touch of the game coming through. Pass out to the side, to Jacko, then to Mac, then to Rory who tries to Arsenal it to jacko or someone else on the goal line and its cleared. Fuck sake.
Then a goal. What the fuck. Harmless high ball in. Devitt doesnt go for it, neither does Ryan. Falls to the ground and the full forward whips it in. Down to 5 points now. Jesus lads will you now cop on. Chin with a free, 30 yards out. Wide. Fuck. Ball up to Rory, but his man grabs his hurl and fucks it away, Rory stops, no free. They get it, launch it high, the big sub grabs it and it bobbles into the net. Fucking hell. 2 points. Conor Hearne clean through, goal, point? Takes the sensible option and hits it high and wide.
Another dodgy free for them. Lob it high and long. The sub grabs it again over Jippo and Matt and its a goal. And then we lose it and they score a point from play. They stop us coming through the middle and Chin hits over a free. Then Matt poleaxes a fella and is very lucky not to get a red and they score the free and thats that. The players make a very quick exit and not many go out onto the pitch, other than the couple of Westmeath supporters and the squad. It sounded like there were some boos over at the main stand, but the general feeling was one of disbelief and the worst performance seen for a long time. āI cant believe thatā, the most overheard phrase, as well as the Fr Ted Chris the sheep episode with a few "fucking hell"s being heard in the distance in overheard conversations.
It was a bizarre game. It truly was. Now whilst i will be hugely, hugely critical of the ref who made some utterly, utterly terrible calls, we fucked that away. Free count was 22.8, which shouldnt be a measure of fairness, but that much of a disparity is odd. He was absolutely awful amd at times it seemed like he didnt know what to do, but Iām far from going to blame him for that. On one instance, the ball was going over the sideline, and when it went out of play, a westmeath lad drove a shoulder into jackos chest and put him on the ground into the open terrace railing. The linesman, Colm Lyons, calls the ref over and points to the Westmeath man. Jacko gets up and the ref calls him over, and Lyons runs out as if to clarify something. So he then gets the Westmeath offender and books both of them. He looked confused at times, didnt blow his whistle and didnt point which way he was giving the free until the players started complaining. A really inept performance, only outshine by the Wexford ineptitude.
And they really, really were awful. No leaders, no one putting their hand up to take control of the game. I can only think Chin is still injured ashe did fuck all. I hope thats the only issue. Dunbar had the game completely bypass him. Mogie got on a good bit of ball, but wasnt sharp. Reck struggled with their corner forward in the second half. Conor Mac started well, but after his goal, he did very little other than have a point handed to him on a plate. His goals he couldnt miss, but he made the space and got the ball and scored, whichbis good forward play. But he was totally outmuscled in every physical battle he was in.
They kept going for goals rather than take handy points. We won no breaking ball at all in the second half. Iād love to see the puck out stats and how many balls we lost off a break. I spoke about the 20s the other night and how Offaly wanted it more, and today was worse. Our lads tipped into tackles and just never fought for the ball or break like they did. Too many lads were passengers throughout doing fuck all work.
Jesus it was fucking awful. You have to credit Westmeath, they never gave up and kept plugging away. But call a spade a spade, they are seriously limited side and pretty poor quality. That shouldnt sound like sour grapes, they absolutely deserve their win, but lets not pretend they played class hurling and just outplayed us. We were dogshit. Absolute utter useless. They were game and worked hard and got their rewards. They saw we coildnt catch a puck out to save our lives, so made sure they got every break. They had a big man in full forward and got 2 goals out of him.
Bullet points:
- Wexford should have won that handy
- Fair play to Westmeath, they worked hard and did well
- Wexford deserve nothing after such a gutless display.
- Fuck that, Iām still fucking seething.
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Thatās a fucking magnificent rant. There must be steam riding off you/the phone. Iāll be disappointed if you didnāt curse the entire way through it.
The rant or the game? Or both!
To be honest, i was genuinely speechless as it hit full time to curse. It was unbelievable. I cant recall a team ever leading by 17 points and lose by 2, that wasnt an under 10 game played on the side of a mountain in a gale force wind. Westmeath were shite, it wasnt like they were shocked into action or anything. We just entirely stopped playing and the challenge match attitude just permeated through the team.
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