Kilkenny lost out to Tipperary on Sunday afternoon with a six-point defeat in round two of the Allianz Hurling League Division 1B at UPMC Nowlan Park.
Cats boss Derek Lyng was speaking with the media after yesterday’s game, suggesting he wasn’t particularly happy with his side’s first-half performance.
“There’s plenty to take out of it – (the) first half wasn’t good enough. We stood off Tipp too much, gave them too much room and you can’t do that. They’re too good a team and they punished us”, Lyng told KCLR in the wake of Sunday’s home defeat.
“We tightened up in the second half, there was a bit more purpose to it, we played with a bit more pace but we had a few chances that would have brought us back into it and brought it closer but ultimately we weren’t good enough. Today we were second best, so lots of learnings from it. Today is useful if we can learn from it and build on it.”
Too much space
Pressed on his side’s performance, Lyng wasn’t happy with the basic aspects of the game.
“You can’t allow too much space and you can’t stand off players, things like that I probably wouldn’t have been happy with. We said to the players that we’re trying to work on different things, we’re trying to be a lot more comfortable on the ball. We made life very hard on ourselves, in particular in the first half and maybe we don’t want to favour one style over another but we have to get better at making those decisions on the field and just mixing it up a little bit more.”
“I think from the first half, for me (it) was just giving them too much space and you can’t do that. I said to the players I don’t mind mistakes, that’s what we’re saying to them because we’re going to have to break a few eggs. That’s the reality of it and there’s great learning in that, so at the same time, there’s a lot of takeaways from that, that’s one of them and we just have to keep working at it and getting better at it.”
Summing up how he felt, the manager was disappointed as “some of our decision-making wasn’t good enough, we just gave them too much room.”
“That’s the reality of it, that’s my takeaway – the second half was decent you could say but really when you’re reflecting on the game it’s about the first half and that’s what the focus will be on.”
Listen back to the full interview on Scoreline Extra below:
