It was odd wasn’t it?
We have the height of time, and respect, for Ger Loughnane, but his comments last week about the Kilkenny senior hurling squad were more than a little odd.
The former Clare manager lowered the blade into Brian Cody’s current charges, and wondered aloud how on earth they were going for three All-Ireland titles in-a-row considering the obvious dearth of talent in the squad.
“Looking at Kilkenny now and their personnel, there is no way that Kilkenny should be winning the All-Ireland.
“There is no way this Kilkenny team should be going for three-in-a-row. Teams that won three-in-a-rows were legendary teams. Now the present Kilkenny team is functional beyond belief.”
Loughnane did praise Cody for getting the absolute best out of his squad year-after-year, but overall the comments seemed baffling.
Those confused by Loughnane’s comments include Kilkenny hurler Colin Fennelly, who, speaking to RTE, admits that he’s not quite sure what the Feakle man’s point was.
“I thought it was weird what he said, probably more disappointed with what he said.
“I think, what was it, that we shouldn’t have won the last two All-Irelands? It’s weird because in 2014, there’s four competitions there to be won and we won all four of them.
“It’s very unusual for a team to do that. You have to win so many games to win all four trophies. It’s not pure luck that you win all those competitions or all those games.”
“I don’t know, is Ger out of the game so long that he doesn’t realise all the hard work that you put into winning?”
Fennelly’s comments echo much of what most GAA supporters were expressing last week in the wake of the comments, which seemed to vex Kilkenny fans and those beyond Noreside too.
We feel what Loughnane was trying to say was how poor other counties have been to allow Kilkenny dominate in the last number of years with a side, in his eyes, is well below the incredible four-in-a-row team of the last 2000s.
But the choice of words left the message more akin to an insult on the current team, rather than an overall assessment of the challenges to the Cats’ crown.
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