Conor McKeon

Yesterday kind of put the tin hat on it now that they are getting back to a place where they can be competitive again.

But Derek Ling said afterwards that he had a hunch that this year might be hard.

I don't know whether he was speaking specifically about Hugh Lawler and Billy Ryan.

Obviously Adrian Mullen is only back from injury, so you're putting a fella on the pitch who hasn't got much hurling.

Owen Cody has had to come out the centre forward to kind of be the linchpin of the attack.

Mikey Carey's a good player, but he's probably a reluctant full-back.

They had an issue earlier on the championship when they weren't sure between Owen Murphy and Tallis.

And I suppose all of those factors...

retrospectively look like issues as the white Kilkenny but the broader thing is that if they had the sort of talent that they used to have these wouldn't be major issues like Kilkenny by the time the senior All-Ireland comes around next year would be 12 years without a senior All-Ireland which is incredible when Derek Ling managed them to the 2022 under 20 All-Ireland they hadn't won at that age group since 2008 so

And I haven't won a minor in Ireland since 2014.

Now, for a county like Kilkenny, if you take the previous 20 years by comparison, that's a massive dip.

So something has happened at a developmental level that I wouldn't know or understand.

But the bottom line is that if you don't have the talent to come in and to press...

Then what happens is you have to rely on players who haven't had a lot of hurling, who are injured, who might be out of position.

You might have to play guys in certain positions and you're just kind of vulnerable.

So, yeah, like there were situations like the penalty yesterday that, I mean, the farce of the black card in hurling is just, it's completely ridiculous.

Like if that wasn't a denial of a goal scoring opportunity, I don't know what was, but...

The point is, it was a Kilkenny crossfield ball that was cut out and it was a little bit careless and it was poorly executed.

And like people who know the scene better than I do down there will tell you that the way the Kilkenny are trying to hurl now to be relevant to the current kind of tactical zeitgeist.

It doesn't happen at club level in Kilkenny.