offaly hurlers (great effort)

[kingscounty]

well done to the lads today they did their best.big ask for some of the lads who never played at this level before or in croke park.hopefully the draw will be kind to us and we can get some games under the belt and get our full squad back.we needed a big target man at full forward who could break the ball someone like big joe brady.missing 6r7 players i thought we did great and the heart and never say die attitude was definitely there to see.dublin are not the team the pundits make them out to be and i reckon galway will hand down a heavy defeat to them in tullamore .

[thegander]

Fully agree with ya great effort and some lovely scores taken. Well done to my club mate Eanna big game you can be proud young fella...Come on lads keep up that determination..

[DAF]

Offaly shoud have won that they had Dublin on the ropes who completely fell asleep and seemd to think they just were going to stroll through the last 15 minutes after the sending off.Offaly improved after the sending off where as Dublin fell asleep and unfortunately were not punished.Joe Bergin was outstanding when he moved out the field.I thought Molloy was unlucky his second yellow he was trying to get the ball in fairness to him.Considering a huge amount of Offalys team were missing that was a very encouraging performance from Offaly and fair play to the lads they showed alot of heart which cannot be said about the match on Saturday.Hopefully we can get all our players back for the qualifiers.

[Slieve Bloom Man]

Well done today. Realistically was as good as we could have hoped for considering our injury situation. 1st half was poor hurling until Offaly put in a decent last few minutes. 2nd half was better standard but for a while we we were totally outclassed. Even though Derek Molloy was harshly sent off, Sexton did give us a load of frees. For once we got more decisions from a ref. Keaney saved Dublin in last 3 mins moving to centre back and setting up 2nd goal. In some ways we could have got more scores but so could have Dublin. Dublin-Gal should be a cracker in Tullamore as Dublin will be underdogs. Offaly will hopefully give the qualifiers a decent run.

[Kevin]

Thank you men for a courageous effort.

Painful to come close so often as we have inrecent years.

We will find a way to overcome this situation.

Let's get the heads right and cause some pain in the qualifiers!

Thanks again to all involved. You could have thrown it in when the score stood at 1-18 to 1-10, but fought on.

I too think Dublin/Galway will be a tight one

[Fargo Boyle]

Have to disagree with ye lads. I was happy with the effort that the lads on the field put in.

But where has Offaly hurling sunk to when we are happy and back slapping each other for a moral victory against an average Dublin side. We have never sunk so low in 35 years

[Long John]

Well done to the lads yesterday. A spirited display. As somebody said it would have been easy to lie down with 14 men and 8 points in arrears. They battled back and gave Dublin socks of it. I am not one for moral victories and I personally think the Dubs were there for the taking.

We need to push on, a few championship wins could do this team the world of good. Brian Carroll, Rory Hanniffy and Franks are three of the best hurlers in the country and they definately would have swung it yesterday. I thought Bergin could have been brought to the 40 a bit earlier. He went to town on Dublin when he got out there. If only we had two of him.

I thought the workrate of the players was top notch. Could not fault that.

For me a few decisions went against Offaly, there was the first point that was clearly wide, the sending off was ridiculous and after the bit of a bust up on the sideline I thought it should have been a throw in instead of a free in for the Dubs which they converted. So looking at it, I personally think the ref was not overly generous to us. Any free's they did get were hard earned. Parlon was fouled 3 or 4 times before he was finally given the free at one stage in first half.

There is plenty of work to be done but with the right attitude and a few players back they are well capable of winning these big games. Just looking at the bench yesterday it was a pity they are down so many hurlers with injuries. Also it would be great to have a few lads like the Horans to come in.

[gutless08]

Have to disagree with ye lads. I was happy with the effort that the lads on the field put in.

But where has Offaly hurling sunk to when we are happy and back slapping each other for a moral victory against an average Dublin side. We have never sunk so low in 35 years

Offaly have to be commended for not throwing in the towel and they showed great heart however Dublin were very poor and there shooting was very wayward.The backs were impressive ,Kenny and hayden in particular struggled early on but grew into the game.

Midfield got through alot of work and showed plenty of aggresion.

Well done shane dooley who was fantastic and kept offaly in the game in the first 40 minutes and was then starved of the ball for the next 20.

Joe bergin had a very poor game at full forward but had a magnificent last 20 when brought to centre forward which brings me to my next point.

How did Ger Healion last 70 mins ?.Dublin were without there centre back and this was an area i felt offaly could expose them rather than trying to break even against an inexpierienced centre back.

Anytime he was ran at he fouled straight away and bergin showed the difference when brought out that someone who can pick up loose ball and take scores at centre forward can make. Look at seamus callanan or noel mcgrath as examples of this.

There was one moment in the first half when keaney burst by healion and he was ten yards by him within seconds.To me it showed the fitness and proffessionalism difference of respective teams and how they were prepared.

As for the umpire in the first half .....it was an awful call .

Best of luck in qualifiers and hoping the injuries clear up.

[Bord na Mona man]

Realistically the only way we could have gotten close to Dublin was for them to be completely flat, or else build up a lead and switch off too early. They did the latter. There were similarities with the Galway game last year where the sending off of an Offaly man prompted the opposition to start winding down and Offaly to throw the kitchen sink at it.

The comeback from Offaly was brave and gutsy. While some of Joe Dooley's methods have been criticised, he at least had Offaly well primed for a backs to the wall performance. 5 or 6 years ago, I suspect there wouldn't have been the appetite in the side to start trying to reel in an 8 point deficit.

However, I fear the real gap between the sides was shown at the start of the second half when Dublin powered into an 8 point lead in a straightforward manner. For most of the day, Dublin used the ball more efficiently. Some of the balls played into their forwards were top class. Offaly just lack that sort of clarity in play at the moment. They made for it by fighting like dogs for the scraps, but that alone will only progress a team so far.

An injury hit Offaly getting within 4 points of a Dublin side who are on the up is probably better than most expected. Talk of Offaly having left it behind, I'm not so sure of. If Dublin had only been 3 or 4 points ahead coming into the 4th quarter, maybe they would have kept their foot on the gas to the end.

[Lone Shark]

Similarly to the above, you'd have to commend the hurlers for competing wholeheartedly throughout, and never once doing anything but their utmost to win this game. I'd be of the same view as some others that I think that Dublin had another gear in them and I don't think that a four point loss to Dublin suddenly means that everything is okay with the way things are being done, however we all remember a few years ago where an eight point deficit with fifteen minutes left would have resulted in a fifteen point defeat. The lads went down with honour and pride and deserve our thanks for that.

The qualifiers, when we have a few more players available to hurl, should give a fairer reflection of where we really stand.

[kingscounty]

nobody is saying everything is ok,of course we didnt want to be beaten but the lads have to get credit.they wont get to far if so called supporters keep knocking them.you have to remember we were missing 7 regulars,half a team! i for one wont knock the lads who stepped in and gave a great account of themselves. i dont think dublin had another gear,their two midfielders were taken off, even after one of ours was sent off!the work rate offaly put in was best ive seen them put in, in years.we were left wanting in the forwards,we need a full forward that can hurl and move.joe bergin was more effective at centre forward.no one gave them a chance against dublin , some even saying we would be hammered so credit where credits due.

[Long John]

Have to go along with Kingscounty. I think they gave it a right good rattle and even when things were going against them they kept the heads up and plugging away. That's the least you can expect from a team and in fairness they did that.

I have no doubt that if even Hanniffy and Carroll were playing at full fitness Offaly would have won the game. Two brilliant hurlers. David Franks is also a super hurler. I think it says alot that he is so highly rated in Kilkenny where he plays his club hurling.

Offaly had nobody to bring in late in the game, they are down to the bare bones now and I saw some of the subs warming up and I dont think they would have been up to that type of intense game.

If nothing else I always expect a bit of fire and passion in Offaly teams and I think that came through a bit yesterday. I think Dylan Hayden and a few lads showed that they were not there to be walked on when the scuffle started. The fecker of a ref should have given a throw in after that but anyway some days those things go against you.

Offaly have a huge way to go to reach the top guns but with the same fire and belief, a full panel to pick from and a little bit of luck they can certainly give themselves a good shot against alot of teams.

[walshisland]

Very proud of the lads yesterday.
the did the best the could, stayed fighting till the very end.

[backofthenet]

I would be of the opinion that Dublin are not that great a team, I think they will get beaten by Galway, However it was still a good effort by offaly missing so many players, but this is an indication of what we can achieve, I think one of the biggest problems with Offaly is we have so many good players who have been beaten at intercounty level too often, On sunday it was encouraging to see so many first time starters go out and give it a go. If we get our better players back with the same enthuisism as the newcomers showed on sunday I have no doubts that we can make at least a quarter final. Rigney for one is a big loss in this area, he is a real leader and he hurls his heart out, If we get 15 Offaly men on the field with that attitude I think we can compete with a lot of teams.

I presume the game was in croke park because of a home away arrangement offaly have?? I would never ever have agreed to this if I was on the offaly county board, A neutral venue gives Offaly a massive advantage, get Dublin down to Port Laoise where it would have been fixed for and i think you would see far less dublin support, they really dont travel in numbers and the last thing you want is for dublin to get used to drawing big crowds to croke park as youll end up like the footballers, playing them there every time.

On the dublin support, I was heckled more than a few times during and after the game, Its not the normal good natured banter that has long been associated with the GAA, this is the usual sh*te I get every time I go to watch the footballers play dublin, It is good for the gaa in terms of revenue, but in terms of the game itself it is bad news

[townman]

fair play to the lads they put in a great show, i don't care what anyone says if we had the lads that were out plus a fit Brian Carroll and Joe Brady
we would have won well. we showed that we are as good if not better than Dublin and we were the more skillful team i though.

if we get a nice draw in the next round and get a win we might have a say later on in the year, as for Dublin beating us by 20 points and that
we are way behind them we put that to bed as well love to meet them later on in the year with a fulhand to play with.