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Best way to sum our underage teams up atm is probably irrelevant when it comes to actually winning stuff. Which is pretty disappointing to state the obvious. TBH our senior team suffers from this too. (Like we've beaten Kilkenny and Galway in recent times but we never do anything after so we're just an afterthought. Dublin have gotten to a few Leinster finals in last few years so they actually get more talk than us). The only time we get a mention about underage is when we've lost to Kildare, Laois the last few years. Even those Leinster u20 finals it felt like we were just there to be the team that looses to the feel good story that was the Offaly u20 teams. It's pretty stagnant across the board, we're never a market leader in anything hurling related. I mean there is a lot of work going on but it's hard to know if it's being full bought into or work going into wrong areas. I mean we're not pathetic by any stretch but we're just…..there without being a serious player at any level. It's the same year over and over Throughthemidfieldhewasstormin (Wexford) - Posts: 318 - 07/05/2025 20:30:39 2607462 Link 0 |
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The development leagues for 16s znd 18s are a joke . Championship not started properly until after all teams are out of intercounty . Formertownie (Wexford) - Posts: 357 - 07/05/2025 22:46:43 2607479 Link 0 |
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That's fairly depressing but I can't argue with any of it. The only exception is probably 2019.... Even still we were written off before the Leinster final, and all Ireland semi. Doylerwex (Wexford) - Posts: 3565 - 07/05/2025 23:04:12 2607483 Link 0 |
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Huge gap between underage and senior alright. Its much easier blend into a well oiled machine like limerick but lets not forget coughlin and these lads are around limerick a few years. I agree with you that the golden crop of offally underage players came at one time but theres very little ahead of it and behind it. They struggled against galway when there was a bit of pressure on at home and looked tired the other day against dublin u20. Alot of them are involved with the senior team aswell but they will be very dissapointed to bow out of the u20 like that. It was dissapointing to see they left screeney on with one leg and is now gone for a few weeks for the senior. Kk lads will tell you that the u20 they won a few years ago was poxy and they benefited from other counties losing players to that silly rule. A kk lad was telling me at the u20 game a few weeks ago not one player from that team can nail down a place on the senior team and lets face it it's hardly a vintage kk team at the moment. Theres a lot of doom and gloom here but im expecting a huge performance next Saturday and a important win to get back on the horse and give the county a lift.id expect the minors to start the day off with a win over laois. Jippo will immediately strengthen the defense even his presence. Will richie lawlor lose out after a shuffle? After a very good league the form has definitely dipped but form is temporary. Management will have had some long discussions over players for this weekend. There will be casualties but i also think there will be a huge reaction. Can not have someone like jacko coming in wound up and getting sent off. Id expect the players to be wound up but its vital discipline is held. Match ups could decide this game. Mannion could be tracked by shane reck. He is there main player at the moment. He has to be tied down. Let them worry about chin. Its a huge game because kk look to be already in a leinster final and dublin will be expected to beat antrim and follow kk so at the moment these 2 teams could be fighting for the 3rd spot. This will be treated like knock out. Wexford have more often got a result at this stage and they will certainly hold no fear of a inconsistent galway team. They have some slow defenders so that will surely be a tactic to run at them as much as possible. I hope to see the supporters gwt out and travel to salthill and support the lads because this is a huge game and they need support. Slowandshortsighted (UK) - Posts: 56 - 08/05/2025 00:46:45 2607495 Link 0 |
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Doylerwex I was not referring to the Harriers who as you say create their own. StoreysTash (Wexford) - Posts: 1826 - 08/05/2025 02:19:42 2607499 Link 0 |
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You are a depressing poster. This could still be our year to win something. Or maybe not. Same as it could for most of the other counties. Except Antrim and Offaly. No other county has won anything this year either yet in championship. We are in a Leinster Minor QF, we are 3rd in the Leinster round robin. The 2 oldest by far of the Leinster premier competitions. Offaly are joint last in the round robin, and already gone at minor and u20 in the hurling. Yet you and others keep saying they are going better at hurling than we are. Go figure...... Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 06:22:03 2607506 Link 0 |
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Fanning has been a loyal servant to Wexford hurling for over a decade now. Yes he has his faults but really is there any goalkeepers within the county good enough at the moment who could step in and replace him? Lawlor and Duggan to a lesser extent were tried but it didn't work out. Kennedy is our sub net minder currently. Is he worth coming in as our numer one? Hard to say as we haven't seen him at senior intercounty level at all. Somebody will have to replace Fanning eventually but for now I believe he is the best we have. He has made errors with short puckouts and it can be costly but he has learned from his mistakes and is less of a problem now. Long puckouts would be difficult for any goalkeeper as we simply don't have high fielders apart from Chin that can win ariely. Mark has received a lot of criticism on this forum by some posters. Sometimes it's justified but let's be honest here and admit that our defence can be quite shaky at times as was evidenced in a lot of our games over the years. It's unfair to single out one man when really the big problems are further out the field. I Magpie2 (Wexford) - Posts: 449 - 08/05/2025 08:02:33 2607512 Link 0 |
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All 3 of those clubs aren't any of our biggest 5 clubs as regards underage playing numbers. Probably not in the top 10 come to think of it.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 09:08:56 2607521 Link 0 |
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A good few lads from ladt years u14s didn't make this year's u15s. Not sure between u15 and u16, or u16 and minor.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 09:10:28 2607522 Link 0 |
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Offaly had a unique crop of brilliant minors coached by Pilkington and others which "matured" into that under 20 team which contained brilliant lads like Screeney and Ravenhill. Their one saving grace this year might be that they were promoted to Division One as you would have to fear for them against Antrim which is likely to decide who goes down as Antrim are old hands at survival. Hope Offaly do stay up even just from Leinster perspective and, , well we do not need to mention any other!! BarneyGrant (Dublin) - Posts: 3508 - 08/05/2025 09:11:21 2607523 Link 0 |
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I'm not singling out Mark. I was answering a post that asked what would we do if we didn't have Chin. To say he has made errors with short puckouts is the issue here. He actually attempts very few short puckouts because of it. If we don't have Chin we will have to play a shorter game again. Mark isn't very good at short puckouts unless we play a sweeper and have a defender completely unmarked. Being as we now don't play a sweeper that means we can't have a short game with Mark in goal. Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 09:16:01 2607525 Link 0 |
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Simon Roache is from oulart he's on the panel.
Wexfordgaa (Wexford) - Posts: 362 - 08/05/2025 09:17:46 2607526 Link 0 |
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I just don't see the logic in how letting 18 year olds play adult hurling is going to do anything to improve our fortunes as a county. If a club or county has to rely on an 18 year old to be the pivotal person on their adult team then there is a bigger problem. The negatives far outweigh the positives - Our Minor hurling championship runs on too long as it is. If Minors can hurl adult then it means there will be no minor championship during the 12 week adult hurling / football window. We have enough issues trying to get our domestic U21 championship played. There are very few minor hurlers in Wexford that are good enough to play senior club hurling - there maybe the exceptional one or two but do we change this rule and then hold up the entire minor championship for the other 200+ players. MyOhMi (Wexford) - Posts: 182 - 08/05/2025 10:38:20 2607549 Link 0 |
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The issue is of our starting u20 team against Kilkenny only 4 had played any adult club hurling at all, while nearly all the Kilkenny lads had 2 years of it under their belts. And we wonder why we weren't competing physically? Laois won the majority of breaking ball against us also. I do think a bigger issue is that our u20s only got together twice a week, and often 1 of those times was for a challenge game. Even Kilkenny went to 3 times a week this year, nearly all the other counties got together 3 times a week, in fact I don't personally know of any that only got together twice a week. We were noticeably poor on puckouts and restarts also, but when you are only training once a week how much work can you actually do on important parts of the game such as these. Again Laois were noticeably better organised than we were at these. Their teamwork also, again something that gets better with more coaching contacts, and more time spent together. Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 10:56:23 2607551 Link 0 |
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The issue is of our starting u20 team against Kilkenny only 4 had played any adult club hurling at all, while nearly all the Kilkenny lads had 2 years of it under their belts. And we wonder why we weren't competing physically? Laois won the majority of breaking ball against us also. I do think a bigger issue is that our u20s only got together twice a week, and often 1 of those times was for a challenge game. Even Kilkenny went to 3 times a week this year, nearly all the other counties got together 3 times a week, in fact I don't personally know of any that only got together twice a week. We were noticeably poor on puckouts and restarts also, but when you are only training once a week how much work can you actually do on important parts of the game such as these. Again Laois were noticeably better organised than we were at these. Their teamwork also, again something that gets better with more coaching contacts, and more time spent together. On your point about championship why couldn't the minors play mid week? Or start earlier in the year after the Junior cert is finished? I do realise we would need more referees, but that's an issue that already needs more done to sort out as it is. I get the issue around Garda Vetting etc, but that could be got around by saying lads can't share changing rooms with adult teams until they are actually 18. Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 10:59:54 2607552 Link 0 |
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The point i trying to make is players in squads are in confirt zone and may or may not improve depending on attitude etc . Whilst the club underage player is playing possibly 3 or 4 meaningless games that's if their club can field a team as squad players unavailable . Is this telling squad players they are too good to play or is it telling club players they aren't. The gap widens club players lose interest maybe walk away . Leaving their team short . From what I m hearing county wide at minor a distinct lack of interest and participation at this level at present. We are running a 2 tier player participation sport . I don't care who u are or what age no chap wants ro feel 2nd best Formertownie (Wexford) - Posts: 357 - 08/05/2025 11:01:13 2607555 Link 0 |
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It's just why are we always behind. It's always surviving, never thriving at any level. Cus it's obviously not working. Also Offaly I've said if they're going to do anything it'll have to be in next 2/3 years cus they have a decent cohort of lads ahead of that all Ireland u20 winning team. The likes of Brian Duignan, Kiely, Oisin Kelly etc but once those older better lads come to an end and the u20 lads are the older lads they've nothing coming behind them. My point is they have their all Ireland and Leinster titles at minor and u20 level, they've actually won stuff. They're giving themselves a chance at doing something a senior level. How ever hard it is to do anything at senior with successful underage teams it's a whole lot harder do without any success. Our underage and senior teams mirror each other…just middle of the road with the odd bad low of a shock loss and the odd against the odds back to wall win. Just never being a big player in the end of the year. Here's hoping we do win something at any level or at least go the later ends. Feels like we have the same conversation every year about the same things. Throughthemidfieldhewasstormin (Wexford) - Posts: 318 - 08/05/2025 11:32:03 2607565 Link 0 |
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Disagree. Any player who shines for their club at u14, u16, u18, u19 or u20, even adult, can get onto a county panel. Jones and Cassin started for our u20s this year, but were not county minors. Shane Reck and Eoin Ryan didn't hurl county minor either AFAIK.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 12:15:40 2607574 Link 0 |
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I get what you are saying about us being a middle of the road county. But that's what we are. And barring the 19 teens in Football, and the 1950s and 1960s in Hurling, that's all we ever were. It's not as if where we are now is a fall from our mean. We are currently at the level where we usually always were. A bit like every other Hurling county outside of the big 3, and nearly all the Football counties.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15673 - 08/05/2025 12:19:30 2607577 Link 0 |
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Bernard Brogan made an interesting Twitter post this morning with regards to the demise of Dublin underage football - he is solely blaming it on the decrease of participation levels in secondary schools over the last 8/10 years. MyOhMi (Wexford) - Posts: 182 - 08/05/2025 12:27:57 2607580 Link 0 |