senior football final Rhode vs Tullamore 15.30 sunday 13th

[townman]

Tullamore win 27 title, Dooley scores two goals, thats senior titles in hurling and football for Shane and Shane Kelly and James Keane, they are some team in a final.

[timber]

Two big upsets today.


Tullamore are always a different team in a final. They seem to know how to grind out a result. Well done to them.

Well done to Shamrocks on a massive win in the minor. hopefully they can bring on some of these lads and get more commitment from the adult players in the coming years.

[Lone Shark]

Incredible stuff from Tullamore - completely shut down the Rhode attack and took their chances brilliantly at the other end. I won't lie, I couldn't imagine how it would happen, but to go one on one with Darby, McPadden and McNamee and completely neutralise all three was a fantastic achievement.

No other club in Offaly would be able to lose games like they did against Rhode and Tubber and yet brush it off and see it for what it was - off days - and come back swinging. Genuinely delighted for them, and best of luck to them in Leinster now.

[DAF]

I wonder how Gerry Hickey feels now.

Tullamore were fully deserving of their victory although they invited Rhode onto them in the second part of the second half and could have paid the price for that.Kevin Williamson was top class his distribution was outstanding.Shane Dooley finishing was top class definitely the best finisher in the county of only he had a bit more pace he would be a very good intercounty footballer, I'd say only McNamee is a better forward in the county.Michael Brazil and Paul McConway were excellent as well for Tullamore. Pauric Sullivan was the only Rhode player who had a really good game.I don't know why Pascal Kellaghn was brought on he looked terribly unfit and seemed to spent most his time on the field whinging at the referee.

[High School Musical]

Amazeballs!!!

[jimbob17]

I thought it was a strange type of game today with little atmosphere for long stages. Tullamore were fully deserving today and should have won by more even... It appeared that when Tullamore relinquished their early lead by half time that there was an air of inevitability about the result with Rhode set to dominate..... However it was Tullamore who gained the upper hand again in second half and pushed on to dominate the second half. They did let Rhode back in near end for a goal chance that could have changed things if it were taken but that aside the result never seemed in doubt. I thought all the Tullamore backs were excellent and for me McConway was super nullifying McNamee but Dean Carroll totally outplaying McPadden had a massive bearing on the game as he had been a big player all year for Rhode and was the alternative striker to McNamee. With these 2 shut down, Niall Darby and co had difficulty playing the ball in as there were never two many options....

Brazil and Johnny O'Donoghue marginally shaded midfield but on the breaks it seemed to be Tullamore that were hungrier for possession with Bracken and Williamson picking up a lot of loose breaking ball in the first 15 mins of 1st half and most of second half...... I thought Williamson was excellent off the ball today too and his work ethic turned over at least 3 balls he had no right to win. This is untypical of him and if he can add this to his game on a consistent level then there is no reason he cant play senior for Offaly.... Tullamore moved the ball a lot more effectively than Rhode at times and looked capable of scoring and creating goal opportunities..... Maloney was majestic at full forward and both Shane Sullivan (assume he was injured?) and Rigney struggled with him... The Tullamore management made some excellent calls in bringing him back full back for last ten minutes as he shut up shop and nullified any goal threat.....

Rhode management may have panicked a little with all the subs even if they had to do something. Niall Darby in particular would have been hard done by as he seemed the only lad capable of creating something... Padraig Sullivan was prominent for rhode throughout and did some very strong running but often with no end product as he never had anyone running off his shoulder. I thought that the introduction of Kellaghan did nothing for Rhode and he looked way off the pace and unfit for this level of football in the position he was played. If he were to be used properly, it should have been in front of the square at full forward and give Niall Mc a foil to work off for a goal which they needed at the time. Kellaghan was again up to his old tricks with a dirty dig on a Tullamore player when the game was nearing the end and was lucky to only get a yellow.

To me this Rhode team are just past their best with some of their key players getting on in age with the younger lads lacking the physique to replace them. With their poor underage record of late, it may be that they will struggle to win championships in two or three years time when the likes of Kellaghan, Alan McNamee and Shane Sullivan decide to call it a day in the next year or two. It'd be interesting to get Gerry Hickey's perspective on this game after he was controversially shafted last year after winning the championship......

Also, by all accounts, some of the Rhode players didn't help themselves as some of them shouted derogatory comments into the Tullamore dressing room at the Tullamore players before the game..... it came back to bite them in the ass as they were totally outplayed by a team they beat by 15 points in the 1st round......

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Well done to Tullamore.
They had a clear game plan and Rhode had no answer when Niall was clearly off form. Paul McConway had a great game but Nialler missed some great chances at crucial stages.
Tulllamore plundered two poachers goals and these were vital in a low scoring game.
Brazil was very good and Maloney had his moments at full forward. Dooley did well and kicked a couple of great points near the end.

Rhode are at a crossroads, they made a big error in getting rid of Hickey and a bigger error in bringing in Daly. There was no pattern to their play when the pressure came on. Now some of that is not his fault, as on field decision making let them down on the day. Niall Darby's free taking as off, and he missed a great chance near the end of the game.
But they are nearing the end of an era, and this will hasten if they dont make the right managerial appointment. However they remain a fine club and the standard bearers in the county.

Overall the standard was poor, and very little atmosphere during the game.

[kingscounty]

Firstly hard luck to Rhode who deserve great credit for their hunger every year. Great day for Tullamore , rank outsiders and really pull together as a team. I didn't think they would do much this year after Phil Reilly didn't take the job and went to Ferbane and after some early round defeats but when it comes to knock out in hurling and football Tullamore are always hard bet. Well done on title number 27 is it?

[ryot]

I had not seen either team this year and was expecting a handy jog for Rhode so never saw that Tullamore display coming.

They were much the better team and after holding Rhode scoreless for the first 17 minutes they could have been much further ahead at HT.

McConway was the star, even if that judgement is clouded by Niall Mc kicking 5 non-typical wides. Was impresses by James Keane, Johnny O'D & Mickey B ( even if he is very loose in possession), Kevin Williamson & Shane D. As has already been said, with a bit more pace Shane could be a useful County Footballer, but that pace is a big issue. Having said that he fair buried his 2 goal chances. They were as well struck as any I have seen.

Did Rhode make a big mistake subbing Niall Darby and while they had a good supply to the forwards late on that came from half back & P Sullivan with Alan Mc & Dunne very poor. P Sullivan was lucky to get away with a lead elbow & Rhode got a point from it while Pascal was a straight RED as was the episode on the final whistle & the culprit was lucky the Tullamore subs were more interested in celebrating !!!

Only downside is I don't see Tullamore as a major factor in Leinster but I would be delighted if wrong !!!

[ryot]

I had not seen either team this year and was expecting a handy jog for Rhode so never saw that Tullamore display coming.

They were much the better team and after holding Rhode scoreless for the first 17 minutes they could have been much further ahead at HT.

McConway was the star, even if that judgement is clouded by Niall Mc kicking 5 non-typical wides. Was impresses by James Keane, Johnny O'D & Mickey B ( even if he is very loose in possession), Kevin Williamson & Shane D. As has already been said, with a bit more pace Shane could be a useful County Footballer, but that pace is a big issue. Having said that he fair buried his 2 goal chances. They were as well struck as any I have seen.

Did Rhode make a big mistake subbing Niall Darby and while they had a good supply to the forwards late on that came from half back & P Sullivan with Alan Mc & Dunne very poor. P Sullivan was lucky to get away with a lead elbow & Rhode got a point from it while Pascal was a straight RED as was the episode on the final whistle & the culprit was lucky the Tullamore subs were more interested in celebrating !!!

Only downside is I don't see Tullamore as a major factor in Leinster but I would be delighted if wrong !!!

[The Magpie]

Congratulations to Tullamore. They were excellent. A very quick summary.

This win was built on:

- Paul McConway doing as good a job on Niall McNamee as I’ve seen
- Mickey Brazil constantly taking the fight to Rhode in the middle
- Kevin Williamson’s smart roving, constant availability and use of the ball throughout
- Johnny Maloney’s presence in the full-forward line
- Shane Dooley scoring two superb goals when most forwards would’ve elected for the easier points
- Honesty, hard-work and good fair hitting. Tullamore were bigger and stronger.

Ultimately, the goals were the deciding factor. The timing of each was crucial too. The first came from Johnny Maloney robbing Shane Sullivan as a high-ball dropped. Although the Rhode man looked like he’d won it, Maloney somehow managed to get a hand in. The ball broke for Dooley and he struck with his right foot to clip-in off the goal-keepers left-hand post at the town end. It was far from a straight-forward chance. This gave Tullamore a 1-1 to 0-0 lead. Rhode would fail to score for the first 15 minutes.

The second goal came from another ball in near the square that both Shane Dooley and Brian Darby tried to punch. It spun into Dooley’s hands and again, when a point looked far easier, he slotted it home with his left-foot to the goal-keepers right, leaving the score at 2-3 to 0-5. After that, when it was clearly a day of low-scoring, Rhode’s best chance to get back into the game fell to David Hope. I’m pretty sure the score was 2-5 to 0-8 (may have been 0-7) at the time, so it could well have levelled things, but he failed to test the goal-keeper, dragging his shot badly wide.

Regarding Rhode, there’s no doubt that we’re looking at a lot of miles on the clock now for key players. Remember that a large number of these guys have won 6 county medals since 2004, with 3 of them holding an additional medal as far back as 1998. Yet they come every year, generally with great hunger. When Clara gave them as good a beating as I’ve seen them get in 2011, I for one felt that they were starting to falter, but then they came back stronger in 2012. I wouldn’t start writing them off just yet. Don’t forget that the McPaddens, Eoin Rigney and Stephen Hannon are all young men, while Anton Sullivan (also the same age) will return next year to freshen them up again. In addition, the two younger McNamee brothers (cousins of Alan and Niall) are young and preparing to break-in to the team. The likes of Paschal Keelaghan and Roy Malone are probably going to retire (those two have proven hard to replace for the village), but Alan McNamee looks like he will still contribute at club-level. To be fair, since Paschal and Roy have been used sparingly this year, Rhode are likely to have a stronger first-15 next year – the question is how strong their panel is likely to be? Aside from Rigney’s introduction in the County Final, they didn’t really have any substitutes that were going to change the course of the game. Also, as a footnote, they might be struggling a little bit in terms of fielding quite a number of small players. Anyway, all of those questions will be answered next year, but there’s no doubt that many of both the key Clara and Rhode players have been slugging it out now for ten years... at some stage, time just catches up.

Back to the new County Champions. I’ll be honest, I felt they won a cheap championship in 2007, avoiding Rhode and beating a Shamrocks team that didn’t ever do well in County Finals. I thought this view was endorsed in 2008 when Rhode turned-up to beat the reigning County Champions in such fashion. But the same cannot be said this year. At the start of the year, Rhode and Clara were recognised by most as the two best teams in the County. After the semi-final draw, it became clear that Tullamore would have to beat both. And they did so convincingly. Will they be back next year? Are they going to become a sustained force? It certainly looks like they have the raw materials.

Congrats again.

[Lone Shark]

I've gotten plenty of messages since Sunday pointing out how I underestimated Tullamore, and now that I've had time to digest the game and appreciate what happened, I have to say that they were really impressive in terms of game planning, organisation, knowing what they needed to do to put themselves in with a shout of winning, and finishing the job from there. I find it very hard to get my head around the fact that the round robin stages are essentially irrelevant when it comes to the Blues, I keep falling into the trap of watching them in July and August and thinking that they are way off the pace, even allowing for key absentees. Yet I would share Magpie's view that the 2007 championship was as much lost by Shamrocks as it was won by Tullamore, but this was nothing of the sort. This was a comprehensive, dominant four point win - like something you'd expect from Crossmaglen in their peak.

I would wonder if their lack of scoring power will hurt them in Leinster all the same. Kevin Williamson is doing a great job of picking up loose ball and directing the flow of the game around the middle, but it's at the cost of taking a proven scorer away from goals - and while Shane Kelly and John Moloney are both doing a job very well at the moment, neither of them has the potential to hit five or six scores on a day, as Williamson does. Nonetheless it's working, and what it also means is that more than any other team I've seen in Offaly for some time, Tullamore are excellent at defending from the front. That was crucial against Rhode, normally you see Brian Darby, James McPadden, Ciarán Heavey and Shane Sullivan all charging out of defence - only McPadden really had any influence on the game in that regard. By stopping Rhode at the start, Tullamore allowed themselves the time to drop players back in cover, while still being able to go man on man in general play. That's not easy to execute and it takes real concentration and fitness from every player, but they delivered in brilliantly.

Other thoughts, in no particular order:

(1) On the one hand, it's hard to condemn Dingle Daly too much for a season in which they won the league and won seven championship games in a row, all bar one in comfortably fashion. Any team can have one bad day. Last year under Gerry Hickey, Rhode had their bad day one round later in the Leinster club. However by taking over in the manner in which he did, Daly made a clear statement that what Hickey did was not good enough. By that standard, this certainly wasn't good enough. There also were aspects where I feel Daly has to stand indicted. For example, I thought that the decision to move Brian Darby back onto Shane Dooley was misguided. Darby was breaking even with Williamson and while Dooley was clearly on form, Shane Sullivan I thought matched up well with him physically. It's easy to have hindsight, but I don't know if Dooley would have won possession for the second goal like that if Sullivan was marking him at the time. Equally, Williamson got on a mountain of ball in the last third of the game. Up front also, you have to have a plan B. It's not good enough to have three intercounty panellists in your full forward line - one of which is the greatest player we've seen play football in the county in the last 25 years - and to leave one man there to keep fighting against McConway who was playing the game of his life, and to just take the other two straight off. I've huge time for Rúairí McNamee, I think he's one of the brightest prospects we've produced in the county for a long time - but lads like McPadden and Darby have to do more, or be redeployed. That fateful Rhode AGM is looking significant now.

(2) For his tackling alone, I thought Michael Brazil was immense and I'd be hopeful that he'd be deployed in a more central role for the county next year. He was hugely influential in the middle and the quality of his defensive play was excellent.

(3) John Moloney's attitude for the first Tullamore goal was text book. It was a hopeful ball in that suited the defender, but he hassled and tackled and scrapped against two men and eventually got a critical toe poke on the ball. Dooley's finish was very neat, but that goal was all about Moloney's refusal to let the ball be cleared for me.

(4) I'm not trying to attach an asterisk to the win or anything like that, but I can't help but feel that the absence of Anton Sullivan was critical here. On a day when Tullamore tackled legally but very vigorously, Anton would have had the strength to get through a tackle or two and make something happen. I was very disappointed with how Rhode persisted with long ball football even though carrying the ball at Tullamore was working better for them (witness three of their first half points, and again their mini-burst towards the end) and Anton would have had the presence of mind to look at the field and try a new approach if needed. In contrast, several Rhode players kicked away a load of possession that they didn't need to, just because normally that tactic bears fruit.

(5) It's not that Rhode aren't young enough to come roaring back, or that they don't have the talent - however they are a little lacking in terms of natural leaders - there aren't too many of the younger group that seem to have the same instinct to take control of a game and to look for the ball when the chips are down as you would have got from some of the older guys. I know that a lot of that will come in time - it's far too early to blame under-21 players for that kind of deficit when senior players will always take control - but there wasn't anyone out there who was leading by example and trying to rally the cause. I felt that a lot of players were trying to do their own thing, but with a few exceptions, nobody was sticking a flag in a key battle ground in the same way that Brazil, Williamson and McConway did for Tullamore.

(6) To echo what we're all thinking - I don't know if Shane Dooley playing intercounty football is realistic, or if he'd still stand out at a higher level, but it'll be a terrible shame if it never happens and we never find out. He's clearly well worthy of a run in a few meaningful league games, if that's something that can be worked out.

[blue biffo]

I put up a post before the final and said Tullamore needed everything to go well and Rhode to have an off day. Now looking back you could say that what has happened. I mentioned Tullamore just might hold Neil Mc Namee even if i did think Tullamore would give Mickey Brazil the job,just goes to show what i know.I was worried about Paul Mc Paddan and Neil Darby and feared for the Tullamore corner backs but Dean Carroll played his best game all year and the two lads been taken off.Tullamore got the goals the needed to stay that little bit ahead of Rhode. lads are talking about different players for Tullamore, Mc Conway, Keane, Brazil, Williamson and Dooley and rightly so but the main reason Tullamore are county champions is John Rouse and his brother Paul.They were two good footballers and have a great football brain. They had a plan for Tullamore to win a similar one the used against Clara to play to their strengths, they believed in that plan and got there players to believe in it to.Having said that and sorry Pat but i think Pat Daly panicked in the second half, a lot of subs one after the other and none seemed to improve things and taking off three county players not sure about that.Now back to the celebrations, just a few quite ones tonight i think, it has been two tough days but worth it.

[The Magpie]

The League Final Replay is yet to be played.

(1) On the one hand, it's hard to condemn Dingle Daly too much for a season in which they won the league

[Lone Shark]

Sorry, my mistake, meant to say topped the league......