Allianz Hurling League 2016

[beano]

Finbarr, like everyone Im gutted about today , However giving out about the management is not the way to go! this management is the most professional we have ever had. If they went you would see how bad things can get really quickly!! The team that played today should have been good enough to beat Kerry! The players have to shoulder the blame, they were the people between the white lines. Just a couple of things to note, From looking at Laois over past few years our strength and conditioning is not up to inter-county standard. This starts at 14 not when they come into a senior set up! Also people are raving about our development squads which in my opinion are a joke most years. Also how many hurlers do we have that can hurl both sides. Cha is the only one. Today is a wake up call about where we really stand in the pecking order!!

[finbar o tool]

Cheddar has brought in a professional set up, i will always say that about him, but thats what any county trying to improve has/needs. I would be delighted if he left, give me any manager in the country who wont play defensively against f**king Kerry any day. Its not progressive hurling. Its not improving our hurling. Ive said all this before, i said it last year when lads were singing his praises after beating a bad Offaly team with long range points. If cheddar cant go out and take on Kerry hurlers then he will never do it. What kind of message do you think that sends to the players?? Do you think it fills them with confidence??
Kerry were able to move off the ball and take us on, dont you think that came from coaching/management? Only for that late goal Kerry would have beat us by 10pts!! They won pulling up! Does anyone still think this sweeper/3rd midfielder bullshit is working, at all??!

[G@@]

Very disappointing result today. A few players on that team that are not anywhere near IC standard. Very poor performance from Scully. Our first touch was very poor when compared to Kerry. Credit to Kerry who have some good players and they brought hunger and intensity to todays game.

[Ogie]

This blind faith & backing that Cheddar has got up to now can't continue with such performances,
Management can be questioned and should be after performances & results like today,

Beaten out the gate by Kerry!!
Scully was a hell of a lot better than Dwyane Palmer or Ben Reddin!!

This game was taken for granted by players and management,
What's going to happen the rest of the year??
Win no game in the league, hurl Antrim in a relegation play off
I wouldn't put the house on us winning that,

In Championship probably hurl Kerry again in a Leinster quarter final,

We had 3 big matches to aim at and win this year, starting with today!!

[TheGreatGame]

Today was a bad, bad day alright, no question about that.  I think the penny has dropped that without Hyland, Keenan, Joe Fitz etc we are a Division 2 team.  It's one thing talking about implementing game plans, but Kerry had better hurlers than us today and fair play to them.  We have a lot of hurlers that have some of the attributes required to hurl at this level, but very few, if any, that have them all.  And jeez, we are so small physically....watching the other two hurling games on TG4 when I got home was a bit frightening really.   I felt for Cha today, a really top class hurler that showed the will to win.  Healy as well fought to the last and scored a cracking goal to stop it being a total rout.

The rest of the league is daunting to say the least.  I hate being defeatist but we won't beat Offaly without our four best forwards and then we have the strongest three teams in the division to follow.
The priority now has to be getting Roddy, Zane, Hyland, Delaney etc right and fit for championship.  I do feel getting a few basics right, such as our puck out stategy (we hit an opposing player with them as often as we hit our own guys) will help matters

Considering the u21 draw, serious thought should be put into prioritising this squad with a view to getting them into a Leinster final.  We finished the game today with about 8 u21's on the field today.

I'm not going to go into criticising individuals and I don't agree with posters picking guys out as I know the players will be hurting and some of them probably read these forums.  I felt a lot of the lads tried hard today, but to me it really seems like certain lads only put in the effort when it suits.

[redsetanta]

Kerry was always going to target this game and they brought an almost championship intensity to it.

Their thinking was that they beat Laois and the pressure is off. They have quality players and fair play to them they have given themselves breathing space.

Laois on the other hand had too many players who weren't 'up' for it and couldn't match the intensity Kerry brought. Everyone knew so the Laois lads should have been ready and went at Kerry. Maybe there was some complacency but there shouldn't have been.

I really like what Cheddar has brought to the Laois set up and his passion and committment cannot be questioned however someone should be making decisions on the line because he has always been very slow to make changes.

Laois should have burst out of the blocks in the second half yet it was Kerry who came at us.

It's a sad day for Laois hurling considering where we've come from over the past few years to a performance like that today.

Hard to know where we go from here because if we do end up in Div 2 after all the effort that went in it would be a disaster.

[OldAlly]

Very poor performance. I felt that the man marking along the half forward and midfield lines done the most damage. Two half forwards for Kerry were let do what they liked. In regards to the forwards I couldn't understand what we were trying to do, we were left with one in the full forward line for most of the time. When are we going to hurl 15 on 15 and cut out this crap of pushing lads out the field. Dwane Palmer should have been corner back let alone half forward. Paddy purcell was our best player last year at midfield and now he's hurling full forward?? Scully is a very good hurler but his work rate is nowhere near county standard I'm afraid. I'd like to see us go conventional against Offaly. Frustrating to say the least.

[Joeythelips]

In fairness to Cheddar he can only use a game plan for players at his disposal, Laois must be physically one of the smallest teams around and we don't have a huge pool of talent. He plays a defensive system to limit the other team and try and counter attack to get scores.  People have short memories as Laois were a joke before Cheddar, also we have lost some of our best players since last year, today some players had a chance to step up to the plate but did not take it. Laois need players coming through and in fairness there is good work being done at underage but they dont turn into top IC players overnight. Also one other point, Kerry are a similar shape to Laois  in that they are a side in development and on an upward curve so its not the massive shock some make out, they would have been preparing all winter for this fixture.

[redsetanta]

https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport/the-next-one-is-still-a-battle-for-a-quarter-final-cheddar-plunkett


Cheddars take on the game.

[Keyser Söze]

This blind faith & backing that Cheddar has got up to now can't continue with such performances,
Management can be questioned and should be after performances & results like today,

Beaten out the gate by Kerry!!
Scully was a hell of a lot better than Dwyane Palmer or Ben Reddin!!

This game was taken for granted by players and management,
What's going to happen the rest of the year??
Win no game in the league, hurl Antrim in a relegation play off
I wouldn't put the house on us winning that,

In Championship probably hurl Kerry again in a Leinster quarter final,

We had 3 big matches to aim at and win this year, starting with today!!

Just to reply to your post, as a general reply/post regarding the match.

Firstly, Cheddar has serious limitations as an Intercounty Manager. I do believe he has made huge strides/improvements though and deserves some faith. The performance today was terrible.
Some of the decisions from the line were poor. I wouldn't have taken Matthew off, but then again he was caught in possesion 3 times in the first half and was getting on almost zero ball in the second half. Just an illustration of the point that all of the players need to shoulder responsibility for today also.

As for Scully (seeing as you mentioned him), he has fantastic talent, but of the 36/37 players who participated today his workrate was by far the worst. This is a regular thing and he will turn into a player we cannot afford to carry if he doesn't change his ways very quickly.
Say what you like about Palmer, Reddin, Collier, Cha, Purcell, Whelan etc but each of them fought to turn ball over. Scully didn't and doesn't. Take the rose tinted glasses off my friend.

We are in a bit of trouble.
Hyland, Keenan and Delaney will start. Other than that who are we missing off our strongest 15? I cannot think of anyone else.
I can only think of 1 player outside of the current panel who should be there (retirements excepted).

Hard to see us beating Offaly. One thing in our defence would be that I would reckon that Kerry targeted training wise and did alot more ball work than we have. I would say they are aiming to peak a month or two earlier than we are.

[finbar o tool]

Keyser Scully was winning ball back on his own half back line with 10 mins to go so i dont see how he had the worst work rate!!
Another thing to remember about Scully, hes the type of player you want on the end line and being fed good quality ball, that, is certainly not happening! You do that with Scully and he will deliver for you all day long.

In fairness to Cheddar he can only use a game plan for players at his disposal, Laois must be physically one of the smallest teams around and we don't have a huge pool of talent. He plays a defensive system to limit the other team and try and counter attack to get scores.  People have short memories as Laois were a joke before Cheddar, also we have lost some of our best players since last year, today some players had a chance to step up to the plate but did not take it. Laois need players coming through and in fairness there is good work being done at underage but they dont turn into top IC players overnight. Also one other point, Kerry are a similar shape to Laois  in that they are a side in development and on an upward curve so its not the massive shock some make out, they would have been preparing all winter for this fixture.

Joey Cheddar has had the same game plan for the last 4 years no matter what the team, damage limitation, and guess what, it hasn't worked!! And Laois were a joke before Cheddar?? What would you call today?? Its as bad as getting hammered by Cork a few years ago, at least Cork were a good team! It wont matter who we have back for the next day, cheddar will have the same plan and we'll be beat again! I do agree with one thing, Kerry are a developing team, Laois on the other hand....

[blueandwhite1]

It was truly awful today. Kerry looked like Kilkenny in comparison. They had some lovely hurlers but had all the space in the world to operate. Most of their scores came from lads with an acre of space.

Darren Maher, Cahir Healy, Neil Foyle and Cha looked like inter county hurlers. Mark Kavanagh did well when he came on. Outside that, we lost every position. We are simply not producing enough hurlers to add strength and depth. Zane, Willie and Roddy will help but all 3 are forwards.

On Cheddar, again he showed that his game planning and line management is questionable. Ben Reddin midfield and Paddy Purcell in the corner? Joe Phelan corner back? Matthew Whelan not particularly mobile at centre back and expected to play midfield? I know he is limited in terms of the panel but surely when we were being cleaned out for every puck out for the entire game he could have pushed more support in there?

Think it will be a miracle if we pick up a single point in this division.

[Keyser Söze]

Keyser Scully was winning ball back on his own half back line with 10 mins to go so i dont see how he had the worst work rate!!
Another thing to remember about Scully, hes the type of player you want on the end line and being fed good quality ball, that, is certainly not happening! You do that with Scully and he will deliver for you all day long.

In fairness to Cheddar he can only use a game plan for players at his disposal, Laois must be physically one of the smallest teams around and we don't have a huge pool of talent. He plays a defensive system to limit the other team and try and counter attack to get scores.  People have short memories as Laois were a joke before Cheddar, also we have lost some of our best players since last year, today some players had a chance to step up to the plate but did not take it. Laois need players coming through and in fairness there is good work being done at underage but they dont turn into top IC players overnight. Also one other point, Kerry are a similar shape to Laois  in that they are a side in development and on an upward curve so its not the massive shock some make out, they would have been preparing all winter for this fixture.

Joey Cheddar has had the same game plan for the last 4 years no matter what the team, damage limitation, and guess what, it hasn't worked!! And Laois were a joke before Cheddar?? What would you call today?? Its as bad as getting hammered by Cork a few years ago, at least Cork were a good team! It wont matter who we have back for the next day, cheddar will have the same plan and we'll be beat again! I do agree with one thing, Kerry are a developing team, Laois on the other hand....

He didn't try a leg as regards closing down Kerry defenders.
All forwards would surely claim to be at their best when being fed "good quality ball".
A quote from an article on Henry Shefflin when he retired; "Among the Kilkenny forwards he committed the greatest number of hooks, blocks, tackles, fouls and acts of physical defiance. In his spare time he scored 7 points, 4 of them from play"
I have no problem agreeing that Cheddar has limitations in terms of team selection and line management. Please don't peddle this argument whilst allowing club allegiances to blind your judgement regarding the performances of individual players. Talent, ability and potential do no equate to performance.

On the specifics of him winning ball back on his own half back line, I cannot recall this. Laois spent most of the last 10/12 minutes with only  3/4 defenders. Even Joe Phelan spent time placed beyond his own half forward line. I can only guess that the instance you are talking about came after a long range free/'65 he came out to take. He certainly did not drift back there whilst chasing an opposition player in possession.

I'm sure Cheddar can address some of the deficiencies in his game management, likewise I'm sure PJ can too! B/K posters need to remember both sides of the coin!

[finbar o tool]

Keyser dont pretend to know where im from! You have no idea! every player today was shite, no matter where they're from, your the one singling out PJ! I singled out one person, Cheddar. And i will stand by that 100%. He'll address f**k all.
And by the way, There was a camera there today, get the video and look at it, it'll jog your memory. 

[Keyser Söze]

I stand over everything I said.

As regards me "singling out PJ"......have a read back. I replied to somebody comparing him to others.

Are you contradicting the fact that he generally does not hassle/harry opposing defences from general play and short puck outs? He certainly did not today?