{"id":312246,"date":"2026-02-23T01:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/312246\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T01:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:39:07","slug":"lack-of-quality-forwards-emerging-in-kilkenny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/312246\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack of quality forwards emerging in Kilkenny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lack of classy forwards coming through is an issue for Kilkenny as they look to take that extra step and win back Liam MacCarthy, according to Liam Sheedy.<\/p>\n<p>The Cats suffered lost narrowly in the last two All-Ireland semi-finals and before that reached successive deciders. They are Kilkenny and will never be far away.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, they narrowly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/hurling\/2026\/0222\/1559780-kilkenny-edge-waterford-after-arm-wrestle\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">accounted for Waterford in Division 1 of the Allianz Hurling League<\/a>, but Sheedy, speaking on League Sunday, felt their attacking unit did not create the scoring opportunities a more fluent Cats machine would have registered in the past &#8211; and noted that again they will have to call on the veteran TJ Reid.<\/p>\n<p>Missed frees from Cian Kenny and Eoin Cody were also highlighted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Kilkenny are as honest as ever and bring a great attitude to the pitch every time. To me they are lacking up front and are going to ask a 38-year-old to come back in,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">&#8216;They bring a great attitude but they really are lacking up front&#8217; &#8211; Liam Sheedy says Kilkenny may have to go back to the tried and trusted amid issues with their forward play<br \/>\ud83d\udcfaWatch League Sunday on RT\u00c92 &amp; the RT\u00c9player <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/k6xngNYnoi\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/k6xngNYnoi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheSundayGame\/status\/2025690303114437114\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He [TJ] will nail 90% of those frees and will get his hands on the ball.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They could do with one or two forwards coming through but I just don&#8217;t see them in the pipeline, so far in the league.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the last two All-Ireland semi-finals they were within a puck of a ball of getting to a final. The team that beat them both times went on to win the cup.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see the real quality of forwards coming through when you think about the quality of forwards in the game &#8211; I don&#8217;t see Kilkenny having enough.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Adrian Mullen is a big loss as well. I could not see them having enough to make a consistent push, though the likelihood is they&#8217;ll be in an All-Ireland semi-final again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lack of classy forwards coming through is an issue for Kilkenny as they look to take that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-312246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}