Hurling 2022

[onefineday]

Absolutely no evidence on the handpasses - but that's long been my impression, it's an unpoliceable rule, so it should be amended to one that refs can actually call out.

My point around goals aligns pretty much with yours, there's no incentive to try and work a goal, the advent of stats has confirmed that. Better to try and thump a few over from 100yds, misses are acceptable because the maths still makes sense. The easiest way to change that equation is to bump up the value of a goal, plus, to my mind, goals are so much more fun and make the game more entertaining for players and spectators and at the end of the day, that's what we want.
Nicky English had similar thoughts in this article:
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/hurling/nicky-english-making-goals-worth-five-points-could-work-wonders-for-hurling-1.4596191
As for the physicality, my point is that not everyone will/can develop to the levels that top intercounty players are currently at, and with how the game has gone, that will make it very difficult for those players to compete at the top level. To my hurling uneducated mind, there was room for such players in the past, but modern hurling allows physicality to be an attribute way beyond what it ever was in the past. It's not dirty play necessarily, but to me looks borderline all the time, smaller players will get manhandled and refs seem reluctant to call fouls unless blatantly obvious and even then....

[imtommygunn]

You basically need to be a beast to play inter county hurling these days.

[marty34]

You basically need to be a beast to play inter county hurling these days.

Tony Kelly, Shane O'Donnell and Cian Lynch etc. etc.

[seafoid]

It looks as though the chasing pack bridged most of the gap to Limerick. Can the cats skin them ?

[Milltown Row2]

Absolutely no evidence on the handpasses - but that's long been my impression, it's an unpoliceable rule, so it should be amended to one that refs can actually call out.

My point around goals aligns pretty much with yours, there's no incentive to try and work a goal, the advent of stats has confirmed that. Better to try and thump a few over from 100yds, misses are acceptable because the maths still makes sense. The easiest way to change that equation is to bump up the value of a goal, plus, to my mind, goals are so much more fun and make the game more entertaining for players and spectators and at the end of the day, that's what we want.
Nicky English had similar thoughts in this article:
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/hurling/nicky-english-making-goals-worth-five-points-could-work-wonders-for-hurling-1.4596191
As for the physicality, my point is that not everyone will/can develop to the levels that top intercounty players are currently at, and with how the game has gone, that will make it very difficult for those players to compete at the top level. To my hurling uneducated mind, there was room for such players in the past, but modern hurling allows physicality to be an attribute way beyond what it ever was in the past. It's not dirty play necessarily, but to me looks borderline all the time, smaller players will get manhandled and refs seem reluctant to call fouls unless blatantly obvious and even then....

We move with the times, physical fitness is part and parcel of most sports, even snooker players have developed from the 70's and look at every angle in which they can improve their game..

You have to adopt to the times we had over 50 scores yesterday, would we prefer a scoreline of 5-8 to 1-24? Scores are scores and if someone can score from 90 meters on the move that is some skill, you should try that sometime just to see how difficult it is, these guys make it look easy because the practice/train most of their days from the age of 6 ..

Small players, what can I say, I'm 5/6 never played senior county, played county juvenile for few years and played senior for club well into my 40's, size has its place, and if I was still playing I'd have to adopt my game, get stronger go to the gym (which we never did as players) and adopt accordingly.

As for the throws, a handpass can be changed to play the pass off the stick first, still think that the ref is policing it as best as he can, and few years ago there was something mentioned about a clear gap from the ball/hand, and if not pull them up, it went away for a bit, the throws were being coached and copied, there used to be the tap the ball on the stick and take another 4 steps, thats been sorted and they don't do it as much now

[imtommygunn]

You basically need to be a beast to play inter county hurling these days.

Tony Kelly, Shane O'Donnell and Cian Lynch etc. etc.

a) they're are exceptions to that rule though not that many and b) Lynch is built like a tank, look at the arms on Kelly and there's no way O'Donnell is running through boys the way he is unless he is strong as a bull.

[didlyi]

You basically need to be a beast to play inter county hurling these days.

Tony Kelly, Shane O'Donnell and Cian Lynch etc. etc.

a) they're are exceptions to that rule though not that many and b) Lynch is built like a tank, look at the arms on Kelly and there's no way O'Donnell is running through boys the way he is unless he is strong as a bull.

They aint no beasts! There is still plenty of room for small players if your good enough. If your good and 6'4 then it helps for sure.

[keep her low this half]

An enjoyable weekends hurling which went completely the opposite way to what I and many others expected
Kilkenny simply blew Clare away. John Conlon was a bad miss but so was Tony Kelly and he was on the pitch for 70 minutes. Kudos to Mikey Butler for the man marking job, highly impressive. Clare really lacked leaders with those two players missing or missing in action and the game was over by half time.
Limerick started like a train looking to blow Galway away. Fair play to Galway for hanging in there. Second half was excellent stuff. its not often you will see Tom Morrisey and Hegarty both being subbed with the game in the balance. Limericks calmness and knowhow just got them over the line. Perhaps teams are finally catching up with Limerick as eventually happened the Cats. Waterford, Clare twice and now Galway have given them serious championship games this season. The fact that Limerick remain unbeaten is more credit to them.
Looking forward to the final, hopefully its a classic.

[didlyi]

What really frustrates me about the modern game is when a players with the ball in hand gets surrounded by 3 or 4 players he has the easy option of handpassing 'throwing' the ball out of the tackle. It ridicules all the hard work of defending. If the defenders manage to stop him they will most likely have to foul him with a spare hand so now we have another layer of issues with the handpass.
Most legitimate one handed handpasses are fancy throws TBH and when there are too many of them it waters down the skill factor in the game. I sincerely hope something is done soon, it has to happen!

[Milltown Row2]

What really frustrates me about the modern game is when a players with the ball in hand gets surrounded by 3 or 4 players he has the easy option of handpassing 'throwing' the ball out of the tackle. It ridicules all the hard work of defending. If the defenders manage to stop him they will most likely have to foul him with a spare hand so now we have another layer of issues with the handpass.
Most legitimate one handed handpasses are fancy throws TBH and when there are too many of them it waters down the skill factor in the game. I sincerely hope something is done soon, it has to happen!

If Croke keep at the ref's to be more stringent on the handpass, blow for it if its not definitive, some passes that have been pulled for throws have actually when slowed down and checked at various angles have been a handpass.. so either handpass off the stick or allow the underhand 'throw' I wouldn't be for that though tbh.

[didlyi]

What really frustrates me about the modern game is when a players with the ball in hand gets surrounded by 3 or 4 players he has the easy option of handpassing 'throwing' the ball out of the tackle. It ridicules all the hard work of defending. If the defenders manage to stop him they will most likely have to foul him with a spare hand so now we have another layer of issues with the handpass.
Most legitimate one handed handpasses are fancy throws TBH and when there are too many of them it waters down the skill factor in the game. I sincerely hope something is done soon, it has to happen!

If Croke keep at the ref's to be more stringent on the handpass, blow for it if its not definitive, some passes that have been pulled for throws have actually when slowed down and checked at various angles have been a handpass.. so either handpass off the stick or allow the underhand 'throw' I wouldn't be for that though tbh.

Even the mention of allowing throws gets a negative reaction from everyone yet we continue to allow the rules to be broken so they can do exactly that. Only in GAA

[johnnycool]

Heart goes out to the Offaly minors, but the Tipp lads kept battering away till the fat lady cleared her throat, got the goal at the death to literally steal that game, but that's the way it goes.
And yes, the Offaly lad did look to have been fouled on the way out just before the ball was dropped in for the final goal, hard to stomach and all that for these young lads, but the future of Offaly hurling looks on the up if they can keep feeding the conveyor belt with lads of this quality for the next while.


As for Clare, they (a) didn't show the same ruthlessness and hit an awful lot of poor wides albeit from distance which were splitting the posts in Munster and (b) Kilkenny upped their game to a level they hadn't reached so far in this championship and were the better team all over the pitch. Who'd write them off in the final against Limerick now,  I wouldn't.
Still, it's a positive year for Clare as no one expected them to get to out of Munster, let alone a semi-final, but once they got there they were favourites to win but Cody knows best at this level.


Limerick did just enough to put away a spirited Galway and will know that won't be enough in two weeks time but unsure if Kilkenny will enjoy the sort of aerial dominance they had over Clare..

Kilkenny's plan B will be tested a lot more stringently as well.


Roll on the final.

[onefineday]

We move with the times, physical fitness part parcel of most sports, even snooker players have developed from the 70's and look at every angle in which they can improve their game..

You have to adopt to the times we had over 50 scores yesterday, would we prefer a scoreline of 5-8 to 1-24? Scores are scores and if someone can score from 90 meters on the move that is some skill, you should try that sometime just to see how difficult it is, these guys make it look easy because the practice/train most of their days from the age of 6 .

On the physical side, the impression I get is that refs let loads of things go and more skilful players don't get the protection they deserve.
Re the scorelines, I would absolutely prefer 5-8 to 1-24. I have no doubt about the skill involved in tapping over from 100yds, that's doesn't make it something I enjoy watching, yes, once or twice it's great, but time after time, no thanks. As English pointed out in that article, who remembers points really? Maybe a few particularly significant ones or a sideline cut or two, but when it's more than a shot a minute with a 50/50 split between point and wide, does it not get a little bit boring for everyone else too? Am I the exception here?
The thing is and as you probably know from my puke football contributions, we don't have to accept that times have changed and that's it, rules can be tweaked to achieve a desired outcome, it happens in other sports and to my mind there's an argument for changes in hurling too. A proper black card would be another that needs introduction, football's needs work, but at least it's something. The refusal to embrace a black card/sin bin is emblematic of hurling's 'macho' culture.

[Milltown Row2]

We move with the times, physical fitness part parcel of most sports, even snooker players have developed from the 70's and look at every angle in which they can improve their game..

You have to adopt to the times we had over 50 scores yesterday, would we prefer a scoreline of 5-8 to 1-24? Scores are scores and if someone can score from 90 meters on the move that is some skill, you should try that sometime just to see how difficult it is, these guys make it look easy because the practice/train most of their days from the age of 6 .

On the physical side, the impression I get is that refs let loads of things go and more skilful players don't get the protection they deserve.
Re the scorelines, I would absolutely prefer 5-8 to 1-24. I have no doubt about the skill involved in tapping over from 100yds, that's doesn't make it something I enjoy watching, yes, once or twice it's great, but time after time, no thanks. As English pointed out in that article, who remembers points really? Maybe a few particularly significant ones or a sideline cut or two, but when it's more than a shot a minute with a 50/50 split between point and wide, does it not get a little bit boring for everyone else too? Am I the exception here?
The thing is and as you probably know from my puke football contributions, we don't have to accept that times have changed and that's it, rules can be tweaked to achieve a desired outcome, it happens in other sports and to my mind there's an argument for changes in hurling too. A proper black card would be another that needs introduction, football's needs work, but at least it's something. The refusal to embrace a black card/sin bin is emblematic of hurling's 'macho' culture.

Black car is in hurling now at intercounty level, I'm surprised you didn't know that

Tweaking football rules, so since the 70's the GAA has been tweaking rules, you could handpass the ball into the net back in the day, that was changed for the better.. then came a load of changes that tbh I haven't actually seen the rule changes as making football any better, in fact it creates more issues..

If you feel that football was better in the 70's then go watch your local junior club team, you will not be disappointed, or stick to juvenile games, highly entertaining and no defensive set ups

As I said, if you feel striking a ball 70/80 yards off the run (while being chased down) is simple, go try it.

As for goals, Limerick and Kilkenny on the way to the final have been involved in games that have produced 31 goals...

In the Munster championship there was on average 3 goals a game.

So if you prefer loads of goals go watch a under 10's tournament or a team that are far stronger that the other and you'll get that.

Some people harp on about the past, well the past is over and we've got a new style, it will adopt and change again over time, tactics will have a large part to play in that

[Link]

Offaly minors robbed judging on highlights. Tipp scored 1-1 where the ref didn't award offaly deserved clear frees plus he didn't allow advantage following the throwing of the hurl, offaly had the ball in the net within seconds.