National Forum

2022 Wexford Intercounty Hurling

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Replying To ExiledInWex:  "I have lurked here for a long time and as a true blue exiled in Wexford involved with a club with sons playing at various grades, I might be positioned to give an objective view. (BTW I hurled for a Dublin club for 15 years in senior and won a couple of county titles, before anybody says he is probably a football man)

First up, how anybody could even think it remotely credible that Joe Fortune should have got the Wexford job, is beyond me. He was involved with the ill-fated defeat to Kildare in the u20 last year. And people think now they said he should have got the Wexford senior job? Holy moly. All it would have taken was a bad result against Carlow in the Walsh Cup for the knives to be out and him to be said "out of his depth, how did he get the job after the u20 fiasco" to start. Yes he has done well with Westmeath and Boden but it is a huge jump to a top hurling county.

Secondly, people all the time talk about giving new players game time and 2-3 pages back they are saying Charlie McGuckin is not good enough? How will he ever get good enough? Maybe he won't be. But writing a chap off after 2-3 games, strange view. Wexford supporters need to realise they are on the cusp of the biggest rebuild since after the Colm Bonner era, and how that is managed could be the difference between a decent team and hurling Joe McDonagh for year or two while a new team is built. Wexford have not blooded enough players in the past 5 years and have an ageing team and that is going to come back to haunt them if people write off players.

Thirdly, people in Wexford talk about "better structures" as though there is something wrong with the Wexford structures. The structures in Wexford are as good as Limerick or Waterford or Cork and I know this as I know people involved with them all. What might be lacking is the overall intensity and ability to hurl at top intensity for the hour. Wexford teams often hurl for 50 minutes and then collapse, or have a 10 minute period where they go out of games and then ship a couple of goals. Wexford by their own admission are lacking S&C but it sounds like work being done in that regard.

Fourthly, my brother is in Kilkenny and a cousin lives in Tipp. We were talking a while back after the minor defeat and both thought the biggest difference between a Wexford and a Kilkenny/Tipp team is a Wexford team hopes to win, a Kilkenny/Tipp team believe they will win. The psychology of this, while a small point, is massive and the victories of the U21 teams over Kilkenny drove Wexford to a Leinster title in 2019.

Fifthly, Wexford need to focus on winning at underage and being as good as every other county at Feile, Arrabawn, minor and everything in between. The psyche needs to change from "we did well v Kilkenny" to "how did we do against everyone else"?

Finally, when it comes to coaching, etc Wexford is full of ditch hurlers. People who talk about "we need better coaching" yet have never done a coaching course, or would never give up so much as 1 evening per week to coach their team. Bar a few clubs, most clubs have problems getting anybody to take teams and once they find somebody that is all that matters. Our Coiste na nÓg AGM every year has plenty of "too busy" parents who are never too busy to drop their children to the gate. If everybody did a bit, it doesn't become a burden on anybody and plenty of parents need to get their finger out and help out. And the same parents have all the answers when the matches come around, or blame the manager when their Johnny or Paddy isn't on the team, in spite of their Johnny never practicing his hurling in between sessions. Yet mummy and daddy are "too busy" to help but aren't too busy to abuse a free babysitter. I would bet a weeks wages some of the posters on here are in this category and know I am right about what I say here.

I know I am an outsider in the county and will ever be and do not expect everybody to agree, but the above is my experience involved in Wexford hurling."
Really, really good post, hits the nail on the head.

Davy's biggest failing as a manager was that he pretty much stuck to the same core of 17-18 players and didn't really develop any up-and-coming young talent. He did this as players needed time but he had a win-now mentality and paid no regard to the future. Young hurlers need time; the way I see it is that we should set out a pathway for any young player trying to break into the Senior team.

Year 1 (Age 20): Brought into the Senior panel, don't play in any games but should learn a lot through the standard and intensity of the training plus improved S&c
Year 2 (Age 21): Start around 3 league games, improve conditioning plus general hurling speed and ability, maybe come off the bench in the Championship
Year 3 (Age 22): Permanent starter in the league, starts a few matches in the Championshi
Year 4 (Age 23): Fully-fledged regular starter for the Senior hurlers

Now some hurlers may come along quickly and might be regular starters before the age of 23 but I think the above is a realistic pathway for a lot of hurlers trying to break into the Senior team.

I really agree about the psychological point too. For years, I can never understand why St Peter's never beat St. Kieran's except for the odd time. If anything, Good Counsel have a better record against the Kilkenny side than Peter's yet if you look at the feeder clubs, you would expect Peter's to be better than GC! The only possible explanation I can think of, and you alluded to it in your post, is that Peter's do not believe that they can win Leinster titles. And when you look at the feeder clubs, there's no reason why they shouldn't be winning Leinster titles, they're well able to!

ElGranSenor (Wexford) - Posts: 618 - 16/05/2022 17:11:38    2417861

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Replying To Afinestick:  "As far as I know we go through with a win regardless of other results ? Should we beat Kilkenny and Dublin beat Galway we finish ahead of Kilkenny on head to head. Should we win and Galway beat Dublin it's a three way tie and between us Dublin and Kilkenny and we have a better score difference than Dublin."
Win we progress but unlikely to a Leinster final, anything else we're out. Very straightforward scenario. Imagine being in Waterford's shoes where not only do they have to win in Ennis but also need cork to draw or lose v Tipp

HurlingBuzz (Wexford) - Posts: 556 - 16/05/2022 17:33:56    2417869

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Replying To tearintom:  "Yet Joe Fortunes credentials are every bit as valid as those of our current manager!

And personally i went to school with Joe, if someone had told me in school that Joe Fortune was going to go on and have the hurling managerial career i would have laughed at him but fair play to him hes done it.

I agree, i dont think anyone is writing young players off, but this is championship hurling, it isnt nursery. You either perform or you dont, im pretty sure those young hurlers will improve year upon year but if theyre not ready for championship hurling you dint persist with them for the sake of it, if anything thats ruining a chap which isnt right like had happened with young Pepper, simply not right, in fact disgraceful.

Yes we do have some good structure yet are behind on s and C, how long has that been going on? People here harping on about genetics and the size of players as if theres some genetic code that kicks in when you cross the bridge in Ross into Kilkenny, utter rubbish, look at out u20's v Kilkenny and the only difference size wise was the the s and C work gone into them, thats all.

Yep youre right in your points in regards to the expectation and psychology along with the point about winning underage and again i go back to the point above and the point i made following the U20 game against Kilkenny, we have players taking the pitch already at a disadvantage because of what we lack in terms of S and C which is not right for players with huge ability and heart, give them every opportunity, dont hinder them.

And yes wexford is full of hurlers on the ditch who talk but wont do the coaching, so is every other county, again its not like something thats just switches the minute ye cross the border into Wexford, its in every county in Ireland and every club in ireland.

But one thing i will say about wexford is we never seem to see good Club coaches being approached to help at county level, always the same faces, a little bit of a closed shop is what i can see, its still very much the case that being an ex county player automatically means youre a good coach when coaches who never played county are doing sterling work with teams underage but never get approached"
I'm not seriously saying Wexford people are genetically smaller than Kilkenny people. That's firmly tongue in cheek. But our senior hurling team is generally smaller, as in shorter, on average than most other top counties. That's at minor, u20/1 and Senior as long as I've been following hurling. We had a good team in the noughties backboned by a double Leinster u21 winning team that came within a point of winning an AI at that grade and the likes of Fenlon, Mccarthy and Fitzhenry from the 90s team. That team won 1 Leinster in 2004 and bar a couple of those games where we raised our intensity didn't do too well through the backdoor, which we saw alot of on account of That Kilkenny team. Tommy Walsh was their "small" fella and I think he was an exceptional hurler. Apart from Chin and Mac when he's in the mood who would you class as a high ball winning forward in our current intercounty squad? In fact go back over the last good while we had Podge Doran briefly and Stephen Banville even more briefly. Jack Guiney for a short while too. Who else am I missing? If its not down to genetics, and I agree it's not, what do you think the reason for this is?

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16782 - 16/05/2022 17:36:05    2417871

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Replying To ElGranSenor:  "This is something I agree 100% with. It was a great result for Westemath, they battled very, very gamely throughout, and they look very well-coached but at the end of the day, they gave a very, very limited performance in attack. I feel a lot in the media just looked at the scoreboard at the end of the game and felt that Westmeath must have been brilliant whereas Wexford really should have won that game by about 0-28 to 0-13 (I'm assuming here that Wexford should have shot around 14 wides instead of 21, that we shouldn't have conceded those two stupid goals, plus we gave away a stupid 65 from a sideline in the first half and a stupid free in the second half from a sideline that was too short)."
Westmeath man here in peace.

I think that's a good summation of Westmeath's performance with a couple of additional notes:
Wexford should have been out of sight by the end of the third quarter but they somehow took their foot off the gas and allowed WM right back into it. Its speaks well to the fight in WM.
As for the quality of Westmeath, I think they're much better in the back six than most would give credit for.
Tommy Doyle, Egerton, Clarke and Arron Craig ( formerly of St Martin's in Wexford- He reached a county final with them a couple of years back) are very good quality players.
Only for a lack of gumption in front of goal, they could have done the same shock against Dublin a couple of weeks back, and against Kilkenny held them to one goal until T Doyle went off injured around 50 minutes. He was marshalling TJ Reid quite well up until then.
O'Brien and Killian Doyle and Niall Mitchell (used as a sweeper) are the only forwards anyway consistently producing for them. That's a big issue.
They also had 17 wides I believe so there were two at the auld tango.

A good result for Westmeath but they have a lot of work to do to get up to grade.
A lot of good stuff happening at schools and underage level there also.
I hope they can pull off the win against Laois next week.

35OLT (USA) - Posts: 102 - 16/05/2022 17:43:10    2417879

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Replying To ElGranSenor:  "This is something I agree 100% with. It was a great result for Westemath, they battled very, very gamely throughout, and they look very well-coached but at the end of the day, they gave a very, very limited performance in attack. I feel a lot in the media just looked at the scoreboard at the end of the game and felt that Westmeath must have been brilliant whereas Wexford really should have won that game by about 0-28 to 0-13 (I'm assuming here that Wexford should have shot around 14 wides instead of 21, that we shouldn't have conceded those two stupid goals, plus we gave away a stupid 65 from a sideline in the first half and a stupid free in the second half from a sideline that was too short)."
Yes way too lackadaisical all through. Just weren't up for the game. Physically or Mentally. Hope it's very different on Saturday .

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16782 - 16/05/2022 17:59:43    2417890

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Replying To ElGranSenor:  "This is something I agree 100% with. It was a great result for Westemath, they battled very, very gamely throughout, and they look very well-coached but at the end of the day, they gave a very, very limited performance in attack. I feel a lot in the media just looked at the scoreboard at the end of the game and felt that Westmeath must have been brilliant whereas Wexford really should have won that game by about 0-28 to 0-13 (I'm assuming here that Wexford should have shot around 14 wides instead of 21, that we shouldn't have conceded those two stupid goals, plus we gave away a stupid 65 from a sideline in the first half and a stupid free in the second half from a sideline that was too short)."
Should have, could have but didn't, not good enough on the day, whole performance and attitude smacks of complacency, Wexford aren't entitled to a place at the table in Leinster, need to earn it.

Jedobi (Wexford) - Posts: 262 - 16/05/2022 20:04:15    2417920

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Replying To ElGranSenor:  "This is something I agree 100% with. It was a great result for Westemath, they battled very, very gamely throughout, and they look very well-coached but at the end of the day, they gave a very, very limited performance in attack. I feel a lot in the media just looked at the scoreboard at the end of the game and felt that Westmeath must have been brilliant whereas Wexford really should have won that game by about 0-28 to 0-13 (I'm assuming here that Wexford should have shot around 14 wides instead of 21, that we shouldn't have conceded those two stupid goals, plus we gave away a stupid 65 from a sideline in the first half and a stupid free in the second half from a sideline that was too short)."
100%

WEX98 (Wexford) - Posts: 548 - 16/05/2022 20:11:40    2417921

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Replying To ElGranSenor:  "Really, really good post, hits the nail on the head.

Davy's biggest failing as a manager was that he pretty much stuck to the same core of 17-18 players and didn't really develop any up-and-coming young talent. He did this as players needed time but he had a win-now mentality and paid no regard to the future. Young hurlers need time; the way I see it is that we should set out a pathway for any young player trying to break into the Senior team.

Year 1 (Age 20): Brought into the Senior panel, don't play in any games but should learn a lot through the standard and intensity of the training plus improved S&c
Year 2 (Age 21): Start around 3 league games, improve conditioning plus general hurling speed and ability, maybe come off the bench in the Championship
Year 3 (Age 22): Permanent starter in the league, starts a few matches in the Championshi
Year 4 (Age 23): Fully-fledged regular starter for the Senior hurlers

Now some hurlers may come along quickly and might be regular starters before the age of 23 but I think the above is a realistic pathway for a lot of hurlers trying to break into the Senior team.

I really agree about the psychological point too. For years, I can never understand why St Peter's never beat St. Kieran's except for the odd time. If anything, Good Counsel have a better record against the Kilkenny side than Peter's yet if you look at the feeder clubs, you would expect Peter's to be better than GC! The only possible explanation I can think of, and you alluded to it in your post, is that Peter's do not believe that they can win Leinster titles. And when you look at the feeder clubs, there's no reason why they shouldn't be winning Leinster titles, they're well able to!"
Around half of any GC team are Kilkenny lads.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16782 - 16/05/2022 20:44:36    2417926

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Replying To ElGranSenor:  "Really, really good post, hits the nail on the head.

Davy's biggest failing as a manager was that he pretty much stuck to the same core of 17-18 players and didn't really develop any up-and-coming young talent. He did this as players needed time but he had a win-now mentality and paid no regard to the future. Young hurlers need time; the way I see it is that we should set out a pathway for any young player trying to break into the Senior team.

Year 1 (Age 20): Brought into the Senior panel, don't play in any games but should learn a lot through the standard and intensity of the training plus improved S&c
Year 2 (Age 21): Start around 3 league games, improve conditioning plus general hurling speed and ability, maybe come off the bench in the Championship
Year 3 (Age 22): Permanent starter in the league, starts a few matches in the Championshi
Year 4 (Age 23): Fully-fledged regular starter for the Senior hurlers

Now some hurlers may come along quickly and might be regular starters before the age of 23 but I think the above is a realistic pathway for a lot of hurlers trying to break into the Senior team.

I really agree about the psychological point too. For years, I can never understand why St Peter's never beat St. Kieran's except for the odd time. If anything, Good Counsel have a better record against the Kilkenny side than Peter's yet if you look at the feeder clubs, you would expect Peter's to be better than GC! The only possible explanation I can think of, and you alluded to it in your post, is that Peter's do not believe that they can win Leinster titles. And when you look at the feeder clubs, there's no reason why they shouldn't be winning Leinster titles, they're well able to!"
Alot of the Peters lads play football there too. Rory O Connor got to a Hogan Cup Senior A final with them in 2017 after winning Leinster. Few lads off that team play or played senior Football and Hurling for Wexford and Barry O Connor is playing AFL.
Problem is they are playing Kilkenny sides like St. Kierans and CBS who pretty much specialise in Hurling. Nicky Rackard went to St Kierans. Did neither his hurling or confidence any harm!!!!

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16782 - 16/05/2022 20:53:12    2417929

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Before I say anything, the laois minors deservedly beat us and a fantastic achievement to get the Leinster final. However, there not a good team. A massive opportunity left behind I feel for Wexford. In saying that, very impressed with Offaly. A strong backline with some decent forwards. They look physically strong for that age group as well. If they can keep producing these types of teams, they'll be back in no time. Wexford can't afford to be left behind as these counties are on the rise.

Finchfurlong996 (Wexford) - Posts: 255 - 16/05/2022 21:00:59    2417931

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Replying To Viking66:  "Around half of any GC team are Kilkenny lads."
Kilkenny club hurling is stronger and faster at all grades than Wexford.

A lot of good lads in St Peters are also good footballers and could be playing football two nights a week and hurling two nights.

The Kilkenny teenager more than likely hurling 4 x times a week and no football distractions.

That has always been the difference in my eyes.

Past hurler (None) - Posts: 975 - 16/05/2022 21:49:18    2417946

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Ah yeah,

It never takes too long for the "its because of football" argument to arise in Wexford, county team struggling, sure its football isnt it, club teams struggling to win leinsters, well theyre also playing football, school teams struggling, well they do play football aswell ye know.

Always, there, always lurking in the background, "well look at Kilkenny, they dont play football ye see" nudge, nudge, wink wink.

Because we are only behind Kilkenny apparently!

Dublin, Galway, Waterford, Cork, Tipperary, Clare, Limerick even Westmeath drew with us and hurling is a far distant second up there and they all play football also.

Tipperary have a population similar to ours and have won all irelands in hurling in recent years whilst also getting to an AI semi final in football, Limerick footballers on the rise once more, Clare have been a consistent Division 2 football team and thats leaving aside the other counties who have been always strong in both codes.

Other counties look at the likes of Kilkenny and dont look for excuses for how they are better, they look for actual solutions to actual problems, we have a cohort of clubs and people in GAA in Wexford who say say "ah shur" its football isnt it, what can ye do? Thats the problem

tearintom (Wexford) - Posts: 1544 - 17/05/2022 08:12:30    2417962

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If football is the issue (it isn't), how can you explain that it's probably the more popular code in Laois, yet they were able to produce a team capable of rattling a few cages on the way to a minor Leinster final? Heck, football is definitely more favoured in Westmeath too. Tipp, Galway, Cork, Clare and Dublin are all stronger dual counties than ourselves- Limerick footballers aren't doing too bad in the shadows of the hurlers either.

It's a cop out even mentioning football as a possible reason why we are behind. Yes having exclusive hurling in Kilkenny helps their lads develop, but almost every county just get on with it and let both codes develop organically. Do you think lads from the hurling hotspots in Tipp are bemoaning football for their poor year to date? Not at all.

beano (Wexford) - Posts: 1503 - 17/05/2022 08:51:26    2417967

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Replying To Past hurler:  "Kilkenny club hurling is stronger and faster at all grades than Wexford.

A lot of good lads in St Peters are also good footballers and could be playing football two nights a week and hurling two nights.

The Kilkenny teenager more than likely hurling 4 x times a week and no football distractions.

That has always been the difference in my eyes."
That difference is over stated in my opinion. At schools level, there is no need for specialisation and they should play hurling, rugby, soccer, gaelic football at that age. My lads did play all 4 although not rugby any more. None are good enough to hurl for Wexford but I don't think specialising on hurling would have made them good enough.
What is wrong in Wexford is that senior A hurling is only for St. Peters and GCC. I don't know if a combined school could work logistically for all the others, but I do think maybe Enniscorthy CBS and Tech could have a "Combined Enniscorthy Schools" team?
Although saying that, there are other schools in Kilkenny which do not play senior A hurling so it is by no means a magic bullet. But anything which increases the level of which chaps are hurling at needs to be on the table. Where there is a will, there is a way.

ExiledInWex (Dublin) - Posts: 1454 - 17/05/2022 09:09:12    2417974

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Replying To Finchfurlong996:  "Before I say anything, the laois minors deservedly beat us and a fantastic achievement to get the Leinster final. However, there not a good team. A massive opportunity left behind I feel for Wexford. In saying that, very impressed with Offaly. A strong backline with some decent forwards. They look physically strong for that age group as well. If they can keep producing these types of teams, they'll be back in no time. Wexford can't afford to be left behind as these counties are on the rise."
That particular group have been excellent for Offaly since u14. And Offaly have obviously upped their game to keep these lads hurling together. Well done to them! And good luck to them and Laois in the AI series.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16782 - 17/05/2022 09:20:44    2417977

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Replying To 35OLT:  "Westmeath man here in peace.

I think that's a good summation of Westmeath's performance with a couple of additional notes:
Wexford should have been out of sight by the end of the third quarter but they somehow took their foot off the gas and allowed WM right back into it. Its speaks well to the fight in WM.
As for the quality of Westmeath, I think they're much better in the back six than most would give credit for.
Tommy Doyle, Egerton, Clarke and Arron Craig ( formerly of St Martin's in Wexford- He reached a county final with them a couple of years back) are very good quality players.
Only for a lack of gumption in front of goal, they could have done the same shock against Dublin a couple of weeks back, and against Kilkenny held them to one goal until T Doyle went off injured around 50 minutes. He was marshalling TJ Reid quite well up until then.
O'Brien and Killian Doyle and Niall Mitchell (used as a sweeper) are the only forwards anyway consistently producing for them. That's a big issue.
They also had 17 wides I believe so there were two at the auld tango.

A good result for Westmeath but they have a lot of work to do to get up to grade.
A lot of good stuff happening at schools and underage level there also.
I hope they can pull off the win against Laois next week."
I agree with this and it must be said that Westmeath deserve a lot of credit for how they have battled this year. I always think that you're at nothing if you don't battle hard in games and the Galway game aside, Westmeath seem to have given their all in their other three matches. I'd like to see them beat Laois because Laois have offered absolutely nothing this year (They have had injuries to be fair). But Laois probably targeted this game from a long way out, like they did with Antrim in the league.

On the wides count, I was going by Wexford GAA on Twitter, who said Wexford had 45 scoring chances to Westmeath's 31 and had 21 wides compared to Westmeath's 10. I accept that this could be wrong and apologise if that is the case

ElGranSenor (Wexford) - Posts: 618 - 17/05/2022 09:44:24    2417985

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Replying To Viking66:  "Around half of any GC team are Kilkenny lads."
If I were to quibble though, I'd say that the Kilkenny feeder clubs to GC are the Rower, Tullogher, Glenmore, and Barrow Rangers (Could be missing a few admittedly). Some of these are Senior but they are hardly heavyweights and you would think that Kieran's and Kilkenny CBS would have a much stronger pick of clubs. And how many current Kilkenny players played for GC? Walter Walsh for sure and then the likes of Ger Aylward, Kieran Joyce, and Richie Doyle in the past but then I think Alan and Eoin Murphy would have been either New Ross CBs or the Tech down there. I don't personally think the number of top-class Kilkenny hurlers at GC is the same as those in Kieran's or Kilkenny CBS

ElGranSenor (Wexford) - Posts: 618 - 17/05/2022 09:49:09    2417987

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Replying To Viking66:  "Alot of the Peters lads play football there too. Rory O Connor got to a Hogan Cup Senior A final with them in 2017 after winning Leinster. Few lads off that team play or played senior Football and Hurling for Wexford and Barry O Connor is playing AFL.
Problem is they are playing Kilkenny sides like St. Kierans and CBS who pretty much specialise in Hurling. Nicky Rackard went to St Kierans. Did neither his hurling or confidence any harm!!!!"
Devil's Advocate: GC play football too yet they seem to have perform at least as well if not better against Kieran's and Kilkenny CBS in hurling than the Peter's do

ElGranSenor (Wexford) - Posts: 618 - 17/05/2022 09:50:55    2417991

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TJ Ryan said on Anthony Daly podcast last night that the first yellow was not for the quick sideline but rather a clip Hegarty gave David Mc before the ball went out of play.

LohansRedHelmet (Clare) - Posts: 2697 - 17/05/2022 09:55:16    2417993

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Replying To tearintom:  "Ah yeah,

It never takes too long for the "its because of football" argument to arise in Wexford, county team struggling, sure its football isnt it, club teams struggling to win leinsters, well theyre also playing football, school teams struggling, well they do play football aswell ye know.

Always, there, always lurking in the background, "well look at Kilkenny, they dont play football ye see" nudge, nudge, wink wink.

Because we are only behind Kilkenny apparently!

Dublin, Galway, Waterford, Cork, Tipperary, Clare, Limerick even Westmeath drew with us and hurling is a far distant second up there and they all play football also.

Tipperary have a population similar to ours and have won all irelands in hurling in recent years whilst also getting to an AI semi final in football, Limerick footballers on the rise once more, Clare have been a consistent Division 2 football team and thats leaving aside the other counties who have been always strong in both codes.

Other counties look at the likes of Kilkenny and dont look for excuses for how they are better, they look for actual solutions to actual problems, we have a cohort of clubs and people in GAA in Wexford who say say "ah shur" its football isnt it, what can ye do? Thats the problem"
You are missing the point. Football isn't the problem and no-one is saying it is. But we are fmdifferent to most of the counties you mention there in that nearly all our clubs are proper dual clubs. In Galway, Clare, Cork and to an extent Limerick most of their senior team don't play club football to any high level at all. They even have football areas and hurling areas. Limerick have maybe half dozen lads in their match day 26 that play senior/Intermediate club football, and Galway, Cork, Clare etc also. Nearly all our panel play senior or Intermediate club football and train for it accordingly. Yes Tipp have around the same population as us but have twice the number of club hurlers that we have. They have had a good generation of footballers lately much as we had in the noughties but it doesn't change the fact that large chunks of the county are mainly hurling. Of their top intercounty hurlers not many compete for club football titles as our lads do. The Mcgraths and other Loughmore- Castleiney lads, which would be more of a football club traditionally, would do for sure but they would be the exception in Tipp rather than the norm.
At the same time what we have is truer to the ethos of the GAA. I think its great my lads train for hurling 1 night a week and football 1 night a week and alternate between codes for matches every weekend. But anybody who thinks my lads hurling is definitely going to be as good as an equivalent lad in East Clare, East or South Galway, East Cork etc who only trains for hurling 2 nights a week and only plays hurling matches at the weekend has to be some way delusional.

Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 16782 - 17/05/2022 09:57:34    2417994

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