Curate's egg of a year really. The injury situation is a disgrace. No other county seems to suffer it only us. We seem to have the same tactical/coaching issues in both codes. We never seem to adapt or identify underlying issues with our senior sides. Kickouts have been an issue all year long, there doesn't seem to have been any improvement as the championship progressed. You'd wonder if there is any specific training done on kickouts. I would imagine that most intercounty sides would nearly have a specialist coach now for this alone, do we?
Our tackling continues to be really poor unfortunately, far too much swinging out of fellas. Some players we have are walking yellow/black cards and to be honest defensively they are liabilities. Dean Rock kicked 8 frees today and not one of them was outside 45 metres. All handy ones. You simply cannot concede those scores and hope to win. I thought the full back line is the one line of the field where we are seeing progress. Shanley is solid if not spectacular. I think the S&C is improving but still a distance off.
You look at Eoghan McSweeney, he's blown out by half time, gives his all and in time will be an asset but he needs to be built up and his fitness improved. If you look at Sherlock you can see he has filled out a lot and is a lot stronger in contact than previously. I was hoping they would try Brian Hayes today from the start, he looks to have serious promise, is naturally athletic, tall and is a hybrid midfielder, Centre Forward and could be interchanged easily. We need to find some Midfielders. Hopefully Killian O'Hanlon will be back soon. Callaghan is stop gap at best but in fairness I thought he did an ok job today. Ian Maguire is someone you should be looking to replace on 45 min. He kills himself running and is on empty come 50. We still seem to be a team that has no great teamwork and are reliant on individuals.
There is plenty raw talent that with good coaching and management could be turned into a useful side and could be difficult to beat. The off season is of vital importance now to see if guys can kick on physically off the field and if our coaching ticket can identify and put in place a gameplan and strategy to challenge in the league next year.
