Bord na Mona man wrote:Job well done by Offaly.
First half the tactics were spot on, get men behind the ball, use a sweeper to deter the long ball, hold onto possession, run down the clock.
Tipperary never got a run of scores at all despite the gale behind them. In a 35 minute half against the wind, you could defend brilliantly for 30 minutes and get destroyed in just 5 minutes. Only once did Offaly give away a blatant turnover score, despite playing a lot of 'keep ball'.
What was pleasing to see is that now fellas are working much harder with supporting runs.
Take McConway and Pender in the full back line for example. There were several occasions when they broke out of defence, gave the pass and kept running in support to receive the ball again and carried it into the other half of the field.
This wasn't happening last year and Offaly were always running out of options when trying to work the ball out of defence.
The half back line did well also. Eoin Carroll looks a real find here, though he tire with about 10 minutes to go.
Of the 5 players who started in attack Guilfoyle and Connor carried the ball at times and broke tackles. McNamee, Casey and Anton are all coming back from lay offs, so aren't 100%, but will be happy enough with their outings.
The negatives. Offaly didn't immediately look to put Tipp to sword with the wind and lost their shape around the time of the conceded goal. It was only later in the 2nd half that Offaly started really going direct at Tipp. Also, the ref moved up far too many frees for dissent. Two of them turned difficult frees into very scorable ones.
This time last year, there were jibes coming from all angles about how if there was Division 5, Offaly would be in it etc.
3 games in to this campaign, promotion didn't look likely either. Credit must be given for the turnaround. The management should be applauded for steering things back on course after the Clare defeat.
Finally, some of the complaints on this topic throughout the league are bemusing. Do lads really pay into matches and expect to see laser guided 40 metre kickpasses hitting the "O" on the Carroll's logo. Yesterday was trench warfare in difficult conditions and escaping Division 4 was all that mattered. I'd have settled for 0-1 to 0-0 if that was what was needed.
If Tipperary were any good they would have won yesterday.The tactics Offaly have employed this year are fine against poor teams but against better teams (like Kildare) it won't be good enough to put men behind the ball and hope Niall McNamee does something special.Niall was clearly getting frustrated yesterday at the lack of support, the half forward line have to push forward in my opinion and give the team more balance. Its frustrating to watch Offaly play because in spasms when we are more positive we play some good football and look like a decent team unfortunatley we don't play with this kind of positivity for long enough.Our support running up to the half back line is fine but further up the field it isnt good enough.The team have improved massively this year and at least they are fit and have some organisation and 8 wins from 11 matches already is a huge improvement.Nobody is expecting champgane football but Offaly are goals a key times in games have put a gloss on things, we won't get those goals every week.
that accompanied our efforts last year especially. Kildare will be a tall order for this developing Offaly team but a good showing is what we are all looking for and on the day anything is possible. I remember back in 1978 a very untried Offaly were given no chance against a rampant Dublin team with 3 all Irelands under its belt but we played out of our skins and but for a really bad decision against Martin Furlong and the resultant Dub goal from the spot , we would have pulled off a sensational victory .By the way Offaly were Leinster champs two years later so there's always hope.Keep the faith guys !