Cats’ role takes Ryan from Wexford set-up
THE Wexford senior hurlers are on the look-out for a new goalkeeping coach – all because of the Kilkenny County Board.
PJ Ryan, star of their 2009 AllIreland final win over Tipperary, had been working with Davy Fitzgerald last year but has been appointed as his native county’s Games Development Administrator that will give him the responsibility of rolling out coaching programmes. He replaces Jimmy Meagher, who has switched to a coaching position with Clare.
Under GAA rules, a full-time coach can’t take up a position with any other county or club team, unless it’s their own. Ryan has a BA in Sport and Exercise from IT Carlow which he followed up with a degree in Sports Management and Coaching.
As expected, Cillian Buckley has been appointed Kilkenny hurling captain for 2018 after Dicksboro’s county title success.
They will be without Colin Fennelly and Paul Murphy for the league as they are with the Defence Forces on a tour of duty, while Shane Prendergast and Kieran Joyce have retired and Jonjo Farrell has left the squad.
Michael Fennelly has committed to the Cats for another season, despite ongoing injury issues.
THE quadruple is still on for Pep Guardiola’s currently unstoppable Manchester City team, victorious on penalties against Leicester to earn a place in the Carabao Cup semi-finals, although not before they lost a lead in injury-time through a refereeing decision that suggests the video assistants cannot come soon enough.
They won the tie on penalties with surprise misses in the shoot-out from Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez but not before a dramatic end to the regulation 90 minutes when referee Bobby Madley gave Leicester a penalty that took the tie into extra-time.
Guardiola’s side had led from 25 minutes through Bernardo Silva’s goal and were five minutes into the eight that referee Madley had added on at the end of the 90 when the official gave Leicester a penalty to equalise when Kyle Walker had won the ball cleanly from Demarai Gray. The drama had begun when Gray, a second-half substitute, tested his own startling pace and forced Walker, who also recently come on, to make an intervention. Walker got his right foot to the ball but Gray went down and Madley pointed to the spot. Another substitute, Vardy, converted the penalty and as Madley blew for the end of the regulation 90 minutes and the start of extra-time, Guardiola mimed a dive to the Leicester bench. The City manager pulled his players away from the referee at that point but added his own view on the decision.
There was no Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero, Fernandinho, David Silva or Raheem Sterling even on the bench for the Manchester City manager to call upon although his opposite number Claude Puel, had given himself the option of his senior players. Having picked a weakened team, and trailing to Bernardo Silva’s first-half goal, Puel brought on Vardy, Mahrez and Gray to get back in the tie.
OPPOSITE
Guardiola went in the opposite direction: as well as starting with academy graduates Phil Foden, Brahim Diaz, and Tosin Adarabioyo, there were debuts for Lukas Nmecha and Tom Dele-Bashiru, on as second-half substitutes even when the pressure was on.
Guardiola made nine changes from the side that started against Tottenham on Saturday and one of the two who remained – Gundogan – was only in that side because of David Silva’s late withdrawal at the weekend for a family issue. Gundogan was magnificent for periods in the first half, making the run after 26 minutes and then the pass for Bernardo’s goal, going past the Austrian defender Aleksandar Dragovic with a slight sway of the shoulders and brief change of angle. Bernardo toed the ball through the legs of Ben Hamer, the Leicester goalkeeper.
Puel had made seven changes to his Leicester team, a bold move given that this was a quarter-final and his opposition were never going to have to play the league version of Guardiola’s side. He picked the former Manchester Ciy striker Kelechi Iheanacho, booked in the first half for a lunge that the referee Bobby Madley regarded as reckless on away goalkeeper Claudio Bravo.
Guardiola’s goalkeeper does not see much action in the new era of Ederson.
By the end of the first half, Leicester tried to put him under a bit of pressure by getting the ball into the box from the wings and attacking it. In the centre of defence, Eliaquim Mangala was the other starter from Saturday alongside the academy graduate, Tosin Adarabioyo.
In the early stages, Gundogan and Bernardo had sensed an uncertainty in Hamer and the former had tried to lob him from out on the right side, a shot that the Leicester goalkeeper got a hand to but only directed onto his own bar. Harry Maguire had come to the rescue of his goalkeeper before then, when he blocked Gundogan’s shot.
Gundogan would later be booked for diving, an unfortunate aspect of his game but one he seemed fatally tempted by when attempting to beat a second
Leicester man on the edge of the home team’s area.
By then the tempo had picked up considerably thanks to the introduction of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, the former of the two having eased himself into the game by sprinting full throttle at Bravo within seconds of coming on. Having decided he was indifferent to whether he won the game, Puel was introducing Plan B which was to bring on the players he should have started the game with.
Iheanacho and Marc Albrighton were both replaced and Leicester looked much more threatening. Demarai Gray came on for Ben Chilwell with 18 minutes left and Leicester tried to make up the gap that they had allowed the away side to open in the first half. Guardiola’s team controlled that initial surge from the away team and then with 80 minutes played lost Mangala with a bleed after he had smashed his nose into the back of Vardy’s head challenging for a ball in the air. Danilo switched to centre-back alongside Adarabioyo and Kyle Walker came on at right-back for what promised to be a hectic closing stages.
It was Mahrez that got the first decent run on goal, stepping over the ball and deceiving Oleksandr Zinchenko who had played well himself. Bravo managed to stop that shot but could do nothing about the Vardy penalty swept into the corner after referee Madley had given that penalty against Walker.
In extra-time Walker was booked for diving when it looked like he was fouled in the Leicester area by Vardy, another strange decision, and it went to penalties to decide it. (© Daily Telegraph, London)
FIFA has received a complaint from Atletico Madrid over an alleged illegal approach from Barcelona for Antoine Griezmann with Catalan media having reported at the weekend that Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu had met with the Frenchman’s family.