YOU MIGHT NOT have expected a man such as Andy Comerford to become a breakout star in punditry, but all year he has been offering up his too-hot-to-hold takes on Kilkenny hurling.
Maybe it’s easier to be recognised when things are going wrong, when you can identify the problem. But Comerford’s colourful way is uncommon in Kilkenny, a county that was known for doing a whole lot of talking on the pitch and took pride in saying little off it.
With the absence of Billy Ryan and Huw Lawlor being felt throughout the league, he questioned the need for players to take a year out to go travelling.
Back in March, he said in an interview with Community Radio Kilkenny City, “I was in Australia, you see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and you see the beach. There’s a beach in Tramore.”
Somewhere on the other side of the world, those comments would have been relayed to Ryan and Lawlor, who no doubt knocked great fun out of it.
In the wake of their All-Ireland aspirations ending last Sunday in sunny Parnell Park, Comerford was unmissable again on the wireless.
The comments bear repeating in full once more, as he took aim at development squads.
“Development squads, they’ve gone by their sell-by date now,” said Comerford.
“I’m after ringing 15 or 16 lads there to know what their opinion is on development squads. It’s just not working.
“Let these lads go back to their clubs at 14 years of age. Put in a team, enter a team in Tony Forristal (tournament). By all means, enter a team but release them to a manager five days prior to that.
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“Lads are getting browned off. Players are getting sick of it. Mentors are getting sick of it. I’ve heard they’re receiving 29, 30 phone-calls from parents. ‘Why isn’t my young lad on a development squad?’ ‘Why isn’t he on this?’ ‘Why isn’t he on that?’ It has to stop. End of story.
Players are getting ragged off of hurling. You need to look forward to going to training. Not dragging your legs into going to training.
“Players are coming back with egos, back into their clubs, and they’re untrainable. I’ve often heard players are coming back after being with county teams, and they’re not producing the goods for their clubs.”
At first glance, this might reek of populism.
After all, the work that went into the youth of Limerick brought through a great number of their current senior team.
Offaly’s re-emergence as a proper force once more has been widely credited to the work undertaken with their youth at the Faithful Fields.
In another way, there might be a point squirrelled away. Anyone who has coached a group of kids will recognise how some prove difficult to coach at their own age group if they are strong enough to play up an age grade.
Of course, without the correct parental guidance, some get carried away with the status of owning county kit and a kitbag at an early age.
Tyrone football even took measures to guard against this kind of stuff. They stopped providing the branded gear to kids to keep them grounded.
The merits of development squads will always have people on either side of the debate.
However, a contribution to a 2010 book, ‘Voices from Croke Park’ by Peter Canavan stands out when he recounted how he played precious little underage football due to a split in the old St Ciaran’s Ballygawley club, leaving his family and others with an unofficial club, Glencull.
“Looking back, one of the benefits of the dispute was that I wasn’t playing the same amount of games as others. Burnout was never going to be a factor and I had more time to practise. If you look at what’s happening now to talented U14 or U16s, they’re out every other night training,” he told Brendan Crossan.
“They don’t even get to train with their clubs because they’re with development squads, their county teams, and if their schools are successful, they’re going to be heavily involved there. I didn’t have that at an early age, which meant I had a stronger appetite for the game by the time I was 18, 19 and 20 years of age. And because I didn’t play as many games as a lot of other players, it probably left me more competitive.”
Kilkenny’s underage woe this season was telling. Beaten in the Leinster final of minor and U20 by Galway, the minors are still active but not fancied for All-Ireland honours.
While there is an unofficial root-and-branch enquiry happening in the shops and bars around the county of how far they have fallen as to be out of the All-Ireland senior race in late May, the same themes are cropping up.
When Brian Cody’s side were winning All-Irelands, they felt no need to deviate from what had brought them success. In Jackie Tyrrell’s book, he mentioned how they never went in for the fluffy stuff around the team; they would provide their own training gear and very little was handed to them.
Pampered, they weren’t. Even something like adapting the new style of tighter fit jersey was a long time coming to Kilkenny.
Underneath the hood, things were let decay. Club facilities in the county are not what they are in other top counties. When you are winning All-Irelands and Liam MacCarthy is making an annual trip to Langton’s Hotel, all that stuff seems trivial.
The idea of a centre of excellence, against all that success, might have struck the Kilkenny hurling public as, to quote Sean Dyche, ‘Utter woke nonsense.’
But these factors have come back to haunt them. The Dunmore Training Centre has served its purpose, but the fact that underage teams have had to travel to Carlow and Waterford for winter training tells a tale.
Maybe it’s all a bit less nuanced than that.
“We just don’t have the talent around the county,” said Nickey Brennan to us last week. Proof perhaps that nothing lasts forever.
Does Dublin, for example, no longer have the football talent around the county with their fall from grace?
Have Cork been lacking talent for the last 21 years?
Does the same apply to Tipperary, who had the talent last year but couldn’t make it out of Munster this time?
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We might have to keep a watchful eye out.
When Kilkenny hurlers and management were at their peak, they measured the simple things.
We had an insight into that in Paul Murphy’s column in The Kilkenny People.
‘It just felt like Kilkenny were second best in all areas. Every time the ball broke, there was a Dublin player nearly throwing themselves at it – I’d say Kilkenny won very few of those battles,’ he wrote.
‘…Even the blocks and hooks got the Dublin crowd going and the team itself took a lot of energy from that. I suppose just in that entire area, it was Niall Ó Ceallachain’s team that were dictating matters, with Kilkenny really struggling in that part of the game.’
In Cody’s time as manager, and Murphy’s time as a player, they were seldom beaten for appetite.
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Rumours of Kilkenny's demise are greatly exaggerated. Or are they?
YOU MIGHT NOT have expected a man such as Andy Comerford to become a breakout star in punditry, but all year he has been offering up his too-hot-to-hold takes on Kilkenny hurling.
Maybe it’s easier to be recognised when things are going wrong, when you can identify the problem. But Comerford’s colourful way is uncommon in Kilkenny, a county that was known for doing a whole lot of talking on the pitch and took pride in saying little off it.
With the absence of Billy Ryan and Huw Lawlor being felt throughout the league, he questioned the need for players to take a year out to go travelling.
Back in March, he said in an interview with Community Radio Kilkenny City, “I was in Australia, you see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and you see the beach. There’s a beach in Tramore.”
Somewhere on the other side of the world, those comments would have been relayed to Ryan and Lawlor, who no doubt knocked great fun out of it.
In the wake of their All-Ireland aspirations ending last Sunday in sunny Parnell Park, Comerford was unmissable again on the wireless.
The comments bear repeating in full once more, as he took aim at development squads.
“Development squads, they’ve gone by their sell-by date now,” said Comerford.
“I’m after ringing 15 or 16 lads there to know what their opinion is on development squads. It’s just not working.
“Let these lads go back to their clubs at 14 years of age. Put in a team, enter a team in Tony Forristal (tournament). By all means, enter a team but release them to a manager five days prior to that.
“Lads are getting browned off. Players are getting sick of it. Mentors are getting sick of it. I’ve heard they’re receiving 29, 30 phone-calls from parents. ‘Why isn’t my young lad on a development squad?’ ‘Why isn’t he on this?’ ‘Why isn’t he on that?’ It has to stop. End of story.
“Players are coming back with egos, back into their clubs, and they’re untrainable. I’ve often heard players are coming back after being with county teams, and they’re not producing the goods for their clubs.”
At first glance, this might reek of populism.
After all, the work that went into the youth of Limerick brought through a great number of their current senior team.
Offaly’s re-emergence as a proper force once more has been widely credited to the work undertaken with their youth at the Faithful Fields.
In another way, there might be a point squirrelled away. Anyone who has coached a group of kids will recognise how some prove difficult to coach at their own age group if they are strong enough to play up an age grade.
Of course, without the correct parental guidance, some get carried away with the status of owning county kit and a kitbag at an early age.
Tyrone football even took measures to guard against this kind of stuff. They stopped providing the branded gear to kids to keep them grounded.
The merits of development squads will always have people on either side of the debate.
However, a contribution to a 2010 book, ‘Voices from Croke Park’ by Peter Canavan stands out when he recounted how he played precious little underage football due to a split in the old St Ciaran’s Ballygawley club, leaving his family and others with an unofficial club, Glencull.
“Looking back, one of the benefits of the dispute was that I wasn’t playing the same amount of games as others. Burnout was never going to be a factor and I had more time to practise. If you look at what’s happening now to talented U14 or U16s, they’re out every other night training,” he told Brendan Crossan.
“They don’t even get to train with their clubs because they’re with development squads, their county teams, and if their schools are successful, they’re going to be heavily involved there. I didn’t have that at an early age, which meant I had a stronger appetite for the game by the time I was 18, 19 and 20 years of age. And because I didn’t play as many games as a lot of other players, it probably left me more competitive.”
Kilkenny’s underage woe this season was telling. Beaten in the Leinster final of minor and U20 by Galway, the minors are still active but not fancied for All-Ireland honours.
While there is an unofficial root-and-branch enquiry happening in the shops and bars around the county of how far they have fallen as to be out of the All-Ireland senior race in late May, the same themes are cropping up.
When Brian Cody’s side were winning All-Irelands, they felt no need to deviate from what had brought them success. In Jackie Tyrrell’s book, he mentioned how they never went in for the fluffy stuff around the team; they would provide their own training gear and very little was handed to them.
Pampered, they weren’t. Even something like adapting the new style of tighter fit jersey was a long time coming to Kilkenny.
Underneath the hood, things were let decay. Club facilities in the county are not what they are in other top counties. When you are winning All-Irelands and Liam MacCarthy is making an annual trip to Langton’s Hotel, all that stuff seems trivial.
The idea of a centre of excellence, against all that success, might have struck the Kilkenny hurling public as, to quote Sean Dyche, ‘Utter woke nonsense.’
But these factors have come back to haunt them. The Dunmore Training Centre has served its purpose, but the fact that underage teams have had to travel to Carlow and Waterford for winter training tells a tale.
Maybe it’s all a bit less nuanced than that.
“We just don’t have the talent around the county,” said Nickey Brennan to us last week. Proof perhaps that nothing lasts forever.
Does Dublin, for example, no longer have the football talent around the county with their fall from grace?
Have Cork been lacking talent for the last 21 years?
Does the same apply to Tipperary, who had the talent last year but couldn’t make it out of Munster this time?
We might have to keep a watchful eye out.
When Kilkenny hurlers and management were at their peak, they measured the simple things.
We had an insight into that in Paul Murphy’s column in The Kilkenny People.
‘It just felt like Kilkenny were second best in all areas. Every time the ball broke, there was a Dublin player nearly throwing themselves at it – I’d say Kilkenny won very few of those battles,’ he wrote.
‘…Even the blocks and hooks got the Dublin crowd going and the team itself took a lot of energy from that. I suppose just in that entire area, it was Niall Ó Ceallachain’s team that were dictating matters, with Kilkenny really struggling in that part of the game.’
In Cody’s time as manager, and Murphy’s time as a player, they were seldom beaten for appetite.
Maybe it is that simple.
Doubt it.
***
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Hurling Kilkenny SCALDED CATS