Offaly Vs Kilkenny Leinster Hurling Championship

[Plain of the Herbs]

Thanks CB. Cody just doesn't do variety. TJR can be handled - quite one-sided.

KK team named. POTH was very close. TJ Reid in half forward line only difference.

Eoin Murphy
Paul Murphy
JJ Delaney
Jackie Tyrrell
Tommy Walsh
Brian Hogan
Kieran Joyce
Michael Rice
Lester Ryan
TJ Reid
Richie Power
Eoin Larkin
Colin Fennelly
Richie Hogan
Aidan Fogarty

[beirut]

Offaly flag outside your house in Lusmagh POTH?

[The Bogman]

Time to get the green, white and gold geansais out again and get ready to roar on the lads tomorrow. Give it loads, stranger things have happened. The longer we can stay with them you'd never know. I'd actually expect the team to line out pretty close to the one named. I definetely expect to see Healion at 6 and (as much as I don't like it) Rory beside him. Best of luck to young Cleary and I hope he does well, but I just can't see it. I fear for our full back line if they line out as selected. And by that I mean, I fear that Kevin Brady will get burned by Colin Fennelly. I also think we'll need at least 3 goals, and 1 early, while also denying them(wishful thinking I know).
Hopefully the "Oofallya" chants will get going and drive the lads on.
Uibh Fhaili Abu!

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Best of luck to the lads and the management team today. It has been a long time since the draw was made and now the day has come. Go out and hurl to yer best, and hopefully the crowd will be there and will get behind the lads. Please God the lads can hang in with Kilkenny and give themselves a chance.
Some of us were lucky enough to be born and reared at time when this was a day we all headed for Croker and the turf and nails would still be done. So to all who can, no excuses get out and support YOUR team!

And Poth is right, tis a disgrace that the town has not made more of an effort around the Flags and a few signs of encouragement. Tis the biggest game to come to Tullamore in years. Feckin sick to the teeth of looking at "Down" flags up all over the place!

[townman]

best of luck to offaly today i hope we get a display with everyone giving 100 per cent
god what i'd give for a 1980 display return to the big stage

[onthefence]

Best of luck to d lads and management 2day.never give up

[DAF]

Yes!!!!

We broke the sandwich record.

[DAF]

Great fighting performance by Offaly they never gave up and hopefully this gives the players a big boost and they can push on and win in the qualifiers. I thought Brian Carroll played his best game for a good while today he was excellent. Bergins first goal was pure class.Chris McDonald done very well today and Ger Healion won a lot of ball at centre back I thought he would be taken to the cleaners but he was very composed and his reading of the game was excellent .David Kenny played very well from the middle of the first half onwards. Little mistakes like missing a few frees and our first touch let us down at times but considering I thought we would lose by 20 points today I am delighted with this result and the last 2 weeks have restored a bit of pride in Offaly GAA we need to push on in both codes in the qualifers.

Also there was a much bigger crowd than 8000 at the match today.The stand hold 7000 thousand and it looked almost full and the terrace looked to be 3/4 full.I would say there was easily more than 10,000 at the match today .

[the Untouchable]

While I agree with DAF's analysis that there is a lot of positives to be taken from this result...I think the reality is that having got an unbelievable start...getting 2 quick goals we couldn't pull away from Kilkenny & that half time seemed to kill our momentum...In the 2nd half certainly Kilkenny upped their game...but to only score 3 points in 29 mins of hurling is poor regardless of who the opposition is & the 2 late goals just put a bit of respectability on the scoreboard!!

I take nothing away from the effort the lads put in today, they hurled kilkenny & Kilkenny knew at half time that they were in a game...the thing that the players and management need to build on is to get this sort of performance for 70 mins in a game...not just a 30 or 40 mins sprinkled throughout lathe game!!

Hopefully the backdoor offers us the opportunity to take a big scalp or 2 along the way to an all Ireland quarter final which I think should be the goal for this team this year!! I don't think they would have a lot of fear any of the teams...because they have already faced the best team in the country!!

[kingscounty]

First off fair play to the lads they gave it everything against a team that has dominated hurling for the past 12 years or so. I have to say I was very impressed by Chris McDonald at corner back I thought he was outstanding and my man of the match, he never gave Fogarty a chance and he was taken off to. Colin Egan played very well and I would have left him in full forward for the whole game where he would have caused more damage in the second half. Carroll gets alot of stick at times but I thought he was excellent today and Kilkennys midfield were kept very quite all day. Joe Bergin caught some great ball and took his scores well and never gave up. Slevin in my mind should have been taken off at half time it just didnt go well for him today , I also thought Dooley was extremly poor and playing from behind your man as a forward just is not good enough , he didnt battle hard and I cant remember him on the ball at all apart from taken a few poor frees and he to should have been taken off. Kilkenny got alot of handy frees and were very good at drawing frees and the ref seemed to award them alot of easy frees. The backline did very well to keep Kilkenny from scoring any goals and if we can start taken scores from half forward line like Kilkenny were doing we could cause alot of teams trouble , well done and great effort.

[Toxicity234]

Feck it, I'll cook the humble pie tonight and eat it tomorrow.

great 1st half, the backs let the ball in early and long. Bergin Goal was special. Goal of the year. in the second half our wing back took the ball into the tackle and turned it over a little two much.

were going to get Tipp in the draw, i can feel it and if we can Morkan back it will improve the team a lot.
It was good to see Offaly get stuck in but we have to be carefully not to push it too far.
The game plan today was Excellent, top class, Healion at centre back just stop the ball from getting inside. Kilkenny were left frustrated and took it out on David Kenny.
our midfield could have being better in the second half but did well in the the 1st half. our half forward line was working hard, Slevin and Mahon were unlucky to be taking off so early, now they were not play well but i thought Dooley could have come off before both of them. When Mahon went off Hogan came into the game.
we only score 9 points that disappointing but for most of today we look like a team playing to a new game plan but that game plan was a big improvement on the rubbish we saw for most of the league. If we can stick to this game plan with slight adjustment depending on who were playing, results will come.
The great results for Limerick today over Tipp shows that 1b isn't that bad division.
Today was huge improvement, not the results but we had a good game plan. We gave ourselves a chance and all we have to do now is learn to take that chance.
Today was only one day, The next day is the big one.

[Phoenix]

That would have been an upset win for Offaly in the days before teams could handily run up basketball points totals, especially with the ref handing out handy frees to the expected big winners.

Anyway, a great effort by Offaly. Massive restoration of pride today from the Faithful who just refused to die! Let's stick with the Jack Charlton bombardment style and see where it takes us!!

[Bord na Mona man]

Much pride restored by Offaly today.
Bizarrely Offaly outscored Kilkenny by 4 goals to 0 and won the open play exchanges by 16 points to 14.

A bit like the Kildare game last week. Offaly got stuck in hard early on, got battered for a while in the 2nd half, stuck gainfully to the task and were within touching distance with late goals.

We've spent the last 14 years getting whipped by Kilkenny, usually losing by double figures, so we'll take some solace from the result today.

We need to build on this though!

[Plain of the Herbs]

In each of the last two years Offaly’s best championship performances have come in defeat to Cork, losses which brought an end to their championship years, with ne’er a match to come for almost eight long months.

This year is different. Offaly are still in the championship. And playing Kilkenny will bring them on a whole lot. Now it gets difficult though. Today Offaly had to contain Kilkenny. Next day Offaly have to be creative, take the game to the opposition and control the pace of the game. Which isn’t Offaly’s default position, but in a banana skin fixture they are going to have to dictate play.

Today Ger Healion proved alot of doubters wrong.

Brian Carroll worked his bollix off. Kevin Brady used his head. Alot. Which is great to see. Chris Mac came of age today. One occasion when Aidan Fogarty gained possession, McDonald had the awareness to know to stay on Fogarty’s right side. Fogarty struck wide under pressure and was called ashore soon after.

Playing Shane Dooley and Joseph Bergin close to goal was always going to be done. Adding Colin Egan to the full-forward mix really paid off. And in the second half when sited at left half-forward Colin showed a lovely way of moving across Tommy Walsh to catch puckouts. Derek Molloy won some good ball when he came on. Seán Cleary did reasonably well on Tommy Walsh. He shouldn’t hang his head as a result of being taken off.

Shane Dooley did hit some frees wide but he remains Offaly’s best freetaker and should be left to take the frees the next day.

One of the highlights was David Kenny apparently telling Ollie -put me bak on at centre-back and I'll do a job for you - as he recovered from his arm injury on the sideline.

Friends from Kilkenny tell me at every opportunity that Offaly have underachieved for the duration of the last decade. Today was the first time I saw what they meant. Feckitt, nearly all of them are good in the air now. Which means driving the ball in from outfield will yield scores. Ciarán Slevin will be all the better for today too. As will Cathal Parlon.

Offaly won’t meet a team as good as Kilkenny again this year. Until the All-Ireland! Then again, other teams might have more mobile forward lines and would cause different problems for Offaly. Item: Galway in Portlaoise last year. Still, on law of averages Offaly are due a non-Division 1 team in the first qualifier round. not that the law of averages can be depended on.

Real competition for places too, with Currams and Molloy good alternatives in attack, Seán Ryan as a runner, Cleary for defence. Bodies will be sore in the morning and hopefully there are no injuries which will cause lads to miss the next round.

[Kevin]

Was exciting over the radio, must have been something to be at it.

The boys on Radio 3 seemed to indicate that we were not winning many of the puck outs when we were leading in the first half despite an all out effort. It 'sounded' as though it was a matter of time before Kilkenny came to terms with us...BUT it took a long time.

The boys in the booth got pretty excited about a number of mystery frees (referred to by a few above) that were awarded to the opposition. In one instance apparently Brian Carroll was mauled on his advance to the goal from an easily scoreable position - no call. Not 30 seconds later Offaly was called for what was described as nothing. That's a tough 2 point swing there. I know they are 'our' announcers, but still - how partisan were they at that point? I don't know if anyone present recalled the sequence, but anyway...

Very proud of the team for giving it everything and not letting up until the final whistle. How many times over the last 10 or so years we've been in similar circumstances with 10 minutes to go and at the final whistle it looked like a cricket score? Great job guys.

Going out the next day with a plan, belief and a never say die attitude and we will be tough to beat no matter who we draw. One game at a time boys.

Tox, very funny I see you believe Tipp will come out of the hat for us. As soon as I saw the result of their game, that was the first thing I thought too.