KILKENNY GREAT EOIN Larkin has clarified statements he made over the weekend, regarding his county’s dismal performance in the Allianz Hurling League.
Larkin published a Tweet after Kilkenny’s 2-19 to 0-12 defeat to Clare, which marked their second consecutive loss in the campaign and leaves them at the bottom of Division 1A.
The 2012 All-Ireland winning captain drew some negative comments in the aftermath, with some accusing him of focusing his criticism on the younger players and pardoning his former teammates.
He later clarified his position with further Tweets before discussing his insights on Newstalk’s Off The Ball last night.
He said:
My phone hasn’t stopped going since last night. I was merely expressing an opinion and I’m sure other people have different opinions. I certainly wasn’t slamming any of the younger lads, I know there’s great young lads in there and it probably will take them time to adjust to the county level.
“I know I definitely didn’t set the world alight when I started. I was just expressing an opinion.”
He went on to further explain that his frustrations were about the lack of work rate coming from the Kilkenny players as opposed to any criticism about skill level.
“It certainly wasn’t skill levels (I was talking about). As I seen over the last couple of years, most of those young lads have come in on training panels, kind of making up numbers with the panel.
“There’s certainly bundles of skill they have. It wasn’t that that frustrated me, it was literally the workrate.
“I’m not expecting miracles from them, that has to come in time as well. I expected a small bit more out of them yesterday.
“That’s (work rate) what we would have associated with Kilkenny over the years, your starting point was your work rate and then the hurling took over. I was hugely disappointed with the work rate yesterday.
“In saying that, I know there’s still a couple of injuries to come back and things like that and that could certainly help the younger lads. I’d be expecting a better show out against Cork in two weeks’ time.”
Off The Ball / SoundCloud
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