O'Byrne Cup - December/January

I see our poor city cousins took yesterday’s defeat to heart. 


https://twitter.com/unofficialgaa/status/1216269775510425600?s=21

Should know league panel within next few days

Big Full Back wrote:

I see our poor city cousins took yesterday’s defeat to heart. 


https://twitter.com/unofficialgaa/status/1216269775510425600?s=21

I love the comment below it which says "The GAA should pump millions into their reserves to make sure this never happens again."

Maynooth got lesson yesterday from an Ulster team who were well coached , tactically aware and with a definite game plan.Jack Robinson and Niall O Sullivan were only Kildare players who broke even or got better of their immediate opponents.
The size, build, speed and skill set of St Marys will make them hard to beat in Sigerson.As Taibi said you would be worried that Kildare players who won Leinster and All Ireland's who are now hitting 20-22 mark have regressed. The amount of time Maynooth players ran into trouble yesterday when hit with blanket defense at opponents 45 was scary with turnovers and subsequent Mary's breakout at speed. Maynooth lads could not accurately kick the balls,no angled run,solo efforts by individual players to break through blanket defense, fitness and movement in forward line with exception of Jack Robinson was poor. Reminded me of Kildare seniors under previous regime. Are lads spending too much time in Gyms and not enough time with ball? Surely mangers know what to expect with Ulster teams and have some sort of game plan, kick to corners, angled run from wing forwards, loop arounds, and runs from deep from midfielders or half back to disrupt a well organised defensive set up for starter. I hope Kildare seniors have something in mind as we have 3 of these teams who will set up with sweeper/blanket in NFL.(Fermanagh,Cavan, Armagh)

I read some where yesterday where professional Rugby players are more worried about there stats or what targets they hit than playing rugby off the cuff you can be sure that is the same for most gaa teams now the ball skills are dying out and are training more to a system I suppose its the time we live in now.

Hard to imagine that JOC training sessions won't involve a lot of football being played. Tomas O'Se once said that all Kerry training sessions started and ended with players kicking the ball to each other.
Would be a bit more worried about the league than I was earlier, Roscommon put up a cricket score against Leitrim yesterday. Last time they came to Conleths they scored 24 pts!

Think it more about decision making and been able to kick quickly before pressure comes on. Inside forward also have to move. Anyone read Joe Brolly on how Corofin dealt with blanket defense v Ballintubber. all forward ran to one spot and then broke back leaving defenders chasing them. at least this was original and caused confusion. they key in Corofin tactic was corner and wing back running hard to space and drifting in behind blanket defense. Kildare players go lateral across 45 with slow handpass and no set up for somebody coming at pace from different angle to break tackle and do it over and over gain with this system (ala Carlow game). Some of Maynooth effort at tackling yesterday was terrible, head high instant free and ended up in Red card for CB. Bring back Davy Burke's methods with 20's and Sash....at least he had a plan and nobody got away with the lazy stuff.

I've been saying it for a while – and it's not an original opinion – but Corofin are one of the best football teams I've ever seen. The style they play with is absolutely sensational. One of the things I was really proud of with the U20 All Ireland was the flair we played with – blowing away Dublin, Kerry, Mayo with silky attacking football honestly one of the biggest highs I've had following Kildare.

You need the width playing defensive teams – but the idea of going lateral is that you then create little pockets of space to attack. Sometimes we're so paranoid about bringing the ball into contact we forget to break lines at all.

In fairness, you won't see a better dismantling of a blanket defence than what we did to Fermanagh in 2018. We played some phenomenal stuff that day – there was one move where Neil Flynn did a stepover and a chip-lift and finished the whole thing with a goal.

Obviously harder replicating that performance on a heavy pitch mid-winter but we need to use the principles of that display again. And using our brains – not just going over and back because we've been programmed to. Again we had some lovely improvised moments in Newbridge v Fermanagh 2017 so a repeat would do nicely.