Messages

We've started the season well, just hope we can keep it up, if we can get a win in offaly then we're safe in division 1 for another year which would be good.

Offaly gave us a lesson last year, so all to play for.

Em yea, i see plenty of ads for dodgey drugs and very little hurling talk on there. Shame because someone has gone to the effort of designing a decent looking site - methinks they need to work on a spam filter and getting some people involved!

Just wondering what price a man would get to back the Dub's to win the Leinster Final next summer?  With Keaney back and that ex-Tipp lad and a few more little alterations I would not be afraid to put a few bob on them.

Good luck with that, lets just see how Keaney fares back at the hurling, but we still have some serious weaknesses that will hold us back unless Daly can address them. Know very little about this O'Dwyer lad from Tipp, no guarantee that he'll bring anything special to the mix.

We'll find out next year! ... seriously though they should be able to give antrim - laois a right rattle.

Last year they played a full strength Wexford team and narrowly lost.
This year Wexford needed to be decimated by injuries before Dublin beat them.
I wouldn't be be giving Anthony Daly the Freedom of Dublin just yet!

We were a lot more competitive all through the league then before, in every game, gone were the up and down performances from previous year when we'd run a big gun close and then get hammered the following week.

Wexford had their injuries but we were missing two of our best players from last summer as well, Fallon is simply irreplaceable and O'Carroll was out second highest scoring forward last summer. You'd expect Wexford to be able to replace first team players better then Dublin can.

Yea, we wasted some amount of possession. youngsters up front kept taking too much out of the ball and running into cul de sacs when the pressure had come on, we seemed to revert to old style Dublin, backs started hitting aimless balls forward which the limerick HB line started hovering up, or, hit them straight over the line which is criminal when the game is there for the winning.

Still all in all a good season, a lot learnt hopefully, by the players and Daly. We need a bit of luck with injuries next year, Fallon back and O'Carroll fit would be a good start but with no new injuries, possibly asking for too much there! I'd try and rope in Rory O'Carroll asap, Think he'd fill in at CHB better then Joey who i don't think has looked comfortable there at all - he's needed in midfield.

Tactically on the puck outs we were very poor in the first half with the management telling the players to step back whil the kilkenny keeper hit the ball short to them and they promptly put it over the bar. Very naive.

Yea, Anto Daly highlighted the poor tactics in his match report in the herald, you can't force the HB line to stay back and leave their men roam out the field unless your HFs are playing deep to cover the space or you leave the opposition room to pick off scores from distance, which kilkenny did again and again, as you'd expect kilkenny to do. Made some of the Dublin defenders look a lot worse then they actually are. Very naive from the sideline. We got roasted at the start and just couldnt ever catch up sadly, just like the seniors we leaked a bad goal just when we were fighting back, desperately disappointing for the lads.

On the plus side most of the best players will be underage again next year, apart from the lads now playing regularly for the seniors, I thought Peter Kelly played really well in the second half, took some great scores and worked back well. O'Carroll looks very strong and potentially dominating at CHB. Bring in lads like McMorrow, Kevin O'Loughlin, Bill O'Carroll and co and we'll have a decent team again next year.

Ross is indeed overage this year. Rory will have to make the football v hurling decision sometime soon. Bill is a quality defender and a natural leader by all accounts, hope he makes a full recovery from the cruciate, should do at his age.

Too right Bud, great too see the strides being made by the traditionally weaker hurling counties. Here's hoping all can keep the effort going and shake up the big guns. Carlow deserve a mention as well.

A good performance is vital for Waterford, have the players to trouble anyone on yer day. I just want someone to beat kilkenny at this stage, no offense to them or anything but just for a change.

Yerra sher you may as well turn up and give it a lash! 

I can see what yer sayin Bottle, but it was imperative that we emerged from the Leinster Final with confidence as intact as possible. In reality both goals could be chalked down to mix-ups and be considered a bit on the soft side, so we might have been closer at the end. As it is we've emerged into the quarter final with confidence high enough and everything to play for, the quarter final, funnily enough, is almost a more important game then the Leinster final - a good draw and things could get very interesting. I do think next year we'll see a more open Dublin team with, hopefully, McCrabbe spending more time in attack then roaming around midfield. Fallon's retuen would free up Joey Boland to play midfield alongside McCaffery. 

No thanks to the guy with the mic trying to get crowds going, what i love about football and especially hurling is that it starts reasonably quiet and as the match gets going gets louder and louder as the scores keep going over - especially if it's a good close game, or, if one team starts making a comeback and rattles over a few scores, if the game is still in the melting pot by the end the noise can be spine tinglingly loud. I'd hate to have some goon ruin that by annoying everyone to "sing along" etc. thanks but no thanks.

Best of luck in retirement to O'Sullivan.

How is anyone supposed to go into that set-up and call the tough shots that need to be called at this stage. do anything unpopular and they'll have you out the next chance they get. feckin ridicilous at this stage.