JJ Delaney tips Joey Holden to rise to the challenge in defence
As well as tipping the Cats to win, Delaney sees Holden, who also captains the team this year, taking his old spot, with Paul Murphy, who had lined out there for the vast majority of the league, returning to his more familiar corner-back berth.
Against Wexford’s starlet Conor McDonald, the nine-time All-Ireland winner believes Holden will be more than up to the task. “The way the modern game has gone, there could be one, maybe two at most in the full-forward line. A lot of teams are drawing out an extra half-forward or midfielder there. It will suit the more agile person. I think Joey will start full-back. Paul hits a mountain of ball in the corner. He’ll hit more ball there than full-back. He is a specialised corner-back, has that position nailed down for the last four or five years.
“Joey has been flying with the club as well. Man of the match in the All-Ireland club final so he’s plenty of experience at full-back. I’d see Joey slotting in there and I can’t see him missing a beat to be honest.”
Even though Kilkenny are 12 weeks without a competitive game, Delaney fancies his native county to see off a Wexford side who have been raising expectations. “The first game of the championship is always difficult. You think you’re right but you won’t know it until the first 10 minutes of the championship game. They’ll have this date in mind doing the gym work in January, February, March and during the league. This date will always be in their minds.
“We’ll find out Sunday but I can’t see why they won’t be. They broke up for the clubs and played three games and then they had a month to prepare for Wexford and they’re taking Wexford very seriously.
“Wexford had a great championship last year and you know from talking to Wexford supporters through work they’re looking forward to this game and they will go to Nowlan Park in numbers on Sunday. If they get their gander up and if Wexford do get on top the crowd will get behind them as well and it’s going to be a serious game for Kilkenny. It will be good to see where they’re at but I have a sneaky feeling they’ll get across the line.”
Delaney also rubbishes the idea Wexford need to win on Sunday to show they’ve progressed from last season when they reached the All-Ireland quarter-finals after beating Clare and Waterford in the qualifiers.
“You can’t dictate your summer by one game. You have to go through the whole summer, try and win a game but if you don’t win it take some bit of positive out of it. I’d say if they did they would be looking back at the end of the year and seeing if they went further than last year. They’d be looking at it year-on-year and seeing what kind of developments or players they brought through. You can’t pinpoint a whole summer on one result.”
In this weekend’s other Leinster semi-final between Galway and Laois on Saturday, Delaney has credited Cyril Donnellan’s return to Anthony Cunningham’s team as a major boost for both Joe Canning and the side. “He does a lot of hard work, he wins a lot of dirty ball and he is very, very effective. You seen him the first day against Dublin, he got three or four points from play. He is a focal point at centre-forward and that keeps Joe in around the goal where he is dangerous. Joe doesn’t have to come out the field to win the ball, you have Cyril Donnellan and Johnny Glynn who is a year on again.”
Delaney sees Canning posing the biggest threat at full-forward although he added: “Sometimes you would be marking him and he’d be gone but the ball never came in. You’d be kind of saying to yourself ‘I got away with that one.’ I’d be a lot more direct and getting the ball in there because the full-forward line showed what they could do in the replay against Dublin.”
- JJ Delaney will be in the Sky Sports studio for the live Leinster SHC match between Galway and Laois this Saturday. Sky Sports will show 20 live GAA matches this year.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
