By Michael O’Leary
Former Limerick Senior Hurler Ger Hegarty says that Limerick have a great chance of defeating Kilkenny if Richie Hogan and TJ Reid are playing around midfield.
Speaking exclusively to KCLR ahead of Saturday’s All-Ireland Qualifier, Ger says that Kilkenny are having to work a lot harder to get the ball into the forward line.
“TJ and Richie are at their best within 30 or 40 yards of goal and the last 10 years have proved that.
“Now, obviously, Kilkenny are working harder for that ball, that ball isn’t coming in as easy anymore now. As well as finishing it, they have got to win it and I think that’s what an awful lot of people are missing is that both of those players are now looking to win an awful lot of ball that they would have been given before.
“So they are playing deeper outfield roles, but they are still two tremendous players and both players are quite young, but of course I think Limerick would be much happier to see them out around midfield or in their own half-back line rather than closer to goal but time will tell that,” he said.
Ger also says that Kilkenny are heading towards rebuilding.
“For me, if I was to sum up Brian over the last 15 years, everybody reacts to what Brian does. This time around, it looked the other way in that Brian was reacting to what Wexford were doing which would surprise me.
I would definitely say that Kilkenny are very much now in a rebuild stage or they are starting to go into a rebuild stage, but it’s very un Brian Cody like that it took him so long to get his team out there and it suggested to me that he is not sure of well maybe his top 20 players.
“It’s a 20 man game now and that again is a slight chink in the armor of Kilkenny that everybody else is feeding off them and maybe there is an opportunity to beat them here,” he said.
