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Replying To StoreysTash: "Yes but the point is that we need an All-Ireland win at underage, minor or u20, to really jump-start things. People who say "you don't need to win at underage" don't realise that you play the same players, year in year out, be that club or county. We had a great rivalry with one club we beat in a minor county final and for years we talked "we beat these before, they aren't as good as they think" and had the upper hand for a few years until some more young players came along.
Nobody is saying we have a right to be beating teams like Laois, Kildare and Offaly but the fact is if a Munster county came up against them they would say "who, Laois?"
I can't stand the "we won the shield so came 5th" mindset in Wexford. We need to stop settling for 2nd best. We need to stop talk ourselves down, we have an inferiority complex which means we don't believe in ourselves.
Am in Asia at the moment and met 2 friends from college. One is a teacher in a prominent hurling county starting his travels. He said to me that in his school, he has the 2nd class out hurling every day TWICE. Even those with no interest go out and bang a ball for 10 minutes. Those with big interest play during breaks as well. I would say this happens in no school in Wexford, even schools with hurlers and ex-hurlers as teachers. He did say he has a principal who is interested in hurling.
Its just culture, isn't it. We just do not have it." I don't think anyone is celebrating coming 5th in an underage competition, the point is that while we're not fantastic, the sky is hardly falling in either
And similarly, everyone knows we don't have the same culture as Kilkenny/Tipperary/Cork, the question is how do we address that
ElGranSenor (Wexford) - Posts: 790 - 20/01/2026 18:46:08
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Am guessing the team on Saturday will look a lot like the side that lined out against Dublin in the Walsh Cup, don't know whether Jack Redmond is injured, the game probably comes too soon for Cian Byrne (Although he could probably come off the bench), and we should have Simon Roche available for this one
So thinking....
Mark Fanning
Niall Murphy
Conor Foley
Darragh Carley
Eoin Whelan
Richie Lawlor
Éamon Wickham
Corey Byrne-Dunbar
Seán Rowley
Ross Banville
Kevin Foley
Mike Kelly
Simon Roche
Tucker Kinsella
Ciarán Regan
Think the forwards are a bit lightweight and this team is very vulnerable given the lack of experience. On the flip side, Antrim look like they've a good few lads who dropped off the panel (Looks like they didn't have much time for Davy), think they only had three lads starting against Kildare in the Walsh Cup who started against us last year (Although three starters from last year did come on, one of whom was James McNaughton). Keelan Molloy was a very good player for them but he looks to be gone and Eoghan Campbell looks to be gone too
They've a woeful record outside of Antrim as well, certainly don't expect it to be a great match (And will likely be a very small crowd), get the win and blood in the young players and I'll be happy, not really too fussed on the performance
ElGranSenor (Wexford) - Posts: 790 - 20/01/2026 18:53:11
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Replying To StoreysTash: "Yes but the point is that we need an All-Ireland win at underage, minor or u20, to really jump-start things. People who say "you don't need to win at underage" don't realise that you play the same players, year in year out, be that club or county. We had a great rivalry with one club we beat in a minor county final and for years we talked "we beat these before, they aren't as good as they think" and had the upper hand for a few years until some more young players came along.
Nobody is saying we have a right to be beating teams like Laois, Kildare and Offaly but the fact is if a Munster county came up against them they would say "who, Laois?"
I can't stand the "we won the shield so came 5th" mindset in Wexford. We need to stop settling for 2nd best. We need to stop talk ourselves down, we have an inferiority complex which means we don't believe in ourselves.
Am in Asia at the moment and met 2 friends from college. One is a teacher in a prominent hurling county starting his travels. He said to me that in his school, he has the 2nd class out hurling every day TWICE. Even those with no interest go out and bang a ball for 10 minutes. Those with big interest play during breaks as well. I would say this happens in no school in Wexford, even schools with hurlers and ex-hurlers as teachers. He did say he has a principal who is interested in hurling.
Its just culture, isn't it. We just do not have it." Now you are getting it. We don't have that culture. We don't have the numbers of hurling people that successful counties have. Players, teachers, parents, coaches etc. That's because outside of 2 successful decades, over the course of the history of hurling we only have 1 more AI than Laois and Kerry.
Now the bit you don't seem to be getting. Bearing in mind the above, any year we are competitive at all the age groups with the top counties, the counties with all the things in the first paragraph of this post that we don't have as many of, thats not too bad. That's not accepting mediocrity. Its stating a fact. Mediocrity is not being competitive at all.
And we were better than many of the top counties last year at various different underage groups. Also our u14s, u15s, u16s, minors and u20s all beat their Dublin counterparts last year. That's the 1st time thats happened this millennium.
That's improvement. Its not the finished product by any means, but its a step forwards. And that statement is also not accepting mediocrity, its being realistic about where we are at.
Just out of interest, while we are on the subject of culture, and this is something a friend from Cork asked me a long time ago, how many conversations about hurling do you have in the course of an average day? 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50?
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 18067 - 20/01/2026 19:51:25
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