What’s the point in having a Ferrari if you’re going to keep it in the garage?
Ciaran Kilkenny is too good to be just another link on the chain but that’s exactly what he was last year.
There are plenty of lads in the Dublin panel able to do the job that Ciaran Kilkenny was doing in 2017 but none of those lads have the same gifts as him.
The Castleknock powerhouse was wasted. Plain and simple. He’s too good to be worrying about marking his man when he should be plotting the destruction of the opponents with his power, speed and threat. Watch him go now.
The footballer of the 2018 National League was given a licence to play his own game for the first time in his Dublin career this year and he’s made us all wonder why he was never given that opportunity before. He was in at 14 and he wasn’t chasing back to his own defence every few minutes.
Ciaran Kilkenny has it all and Jim Gavin has seen that. The thing about the St. Pat’s Drumcondra student is that he was too honest for his own good. He was too good at playing the role of the dogged half forward, he was too good at the job that he shouldn’t have had to be doing.
Thankfully Jim Gavin has seen that and now we’re seeing the best of the 24-year-old as a result. And he’s only going to get better and better and better.
He’s changed that and now we’re seeing the best of Ciaran Kilkenny who played the most of his League campaign at full forward.
Last year, Colm Parkinson was one of Kilkenny’s critics. For him, the 24-year-old got too much credit for playing a lateral, non-threatening game. The most frustrating thing of all was that it was clear there was so much more in him.
Just as Kilkenny’s game has changed, so has Wooly’s tune.
“Now he’s in the full forward line, he’s scoring a lot more. He got 2-16 from play during the Leauge. The lateral passing and the pointing is gone and he seems a much more direct, likeable player.
“That was the critique I had of him last year, when he was getting all of those possessions in games and getting man-of-the-match, I was unimpressed by him, I was like, he’s so much better than what he’s showing.
“He’s so efficient. When you look at that Dublin half forward line, and it was always a critique I had, Kilkenny and Connolly were spending half their time chasing Donie Vaughan and Lee Keegan.
“I don’t want my two Ferrari players doing that. You’re in the full forward line, you might have to chase out the full back the odd time, but you won’t be killed doing it.
“It’s so restrictive for Ciaran Kilkenny to be using all of his energy, to do a job that Brian Howard could do. It’s a great move for Dublin. He’s a born leader, he’s the man. I think he needs that, to be the main man. I think he is now and I think it’s vital that he is.”
Kilkenny isn’t just getting to show off his endurance now, but his speed, his power, his skills, his abilities that so few other players can claim to have.
Conan Doherty also feels it was a wise move by Jim Gavin to cut Kilkenny loose.
“There’s nothing he was doing out around the middle that they’re missing now. Scully and Brian Howard, they can do that.
You can listen to this chat and much more from Thursday’s GAA Hour Show right here.
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