Offaly GAA is in Some State

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
Daleamar
County player
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2011 1:09 am

Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Daleamar »

Ahlethimoutwithit wrote:The whole area of volunteerism is something that needs to be addressed around the county.

But in order for people to give up their time there needs to be a structure in place. I would like to make people aware that there is currently ongoing, an u13 academy giving 8 weeks training, in hurling and football. As far as I know the football is in Mucklagh each week at 4.30.
Also this Saturday there is an u12 academy starting for 6 weeks (football in Clara at 11am), with this being run by county players, past and present, and set up by Liam O'Reilly who will coordinate the sessions.
So for any of ye interested, ye could do worse than go along and have a look.

And if you took this a step further, these programs should be rolled out in the clubs, by the clubs, (likes of many of you guys could get involved??), thus ensuring that the development squad type training is being completed in clubs.
Does this cost any money? No , dont think so, maybe some equipment, but shag all.

Does it take time and effort, yep, and there is the problem for the clubs! (Some clubs are doing good work, at some age groups, but we need a consistent approach across the board in order to start producing the type of players that we need).
Again, Ahlethimoutwithit, make it happen. Put in the work?

Ahlethimoutwithit
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Ahlethimoutwithit »

You must have never read any of me posts Delamar :? :? , I am involved and putting in the work!!
And it aint perfect but its work in progress.

And I agree with all you say!

Pitches and gyms are smokescreens, yes a central point would be great but that's in the nice to have rather than essential at this stage.

Offalys Future
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Offalys Future »

Ahlethimoutwithit wrote:
Pitches and gyms are smokescreens, yes a central point would be great but that's in the nice to have rather than essential at this stage.
Hang on a second here. Sportsgear, Equipment, Gym and Laundry was 123,575 Euro in 2013 according to the annual report. Its not known how this breakdown is between all four but If senior/u-21 players you are talking 100-120 gym memberships at 300 euro for the year. this equates to 36,000 euro.

I have provided you with a solution. Invest 30,000 and you no longer have to pay the 36,000 a year. You in fact have a strength and conditioning facility for adult teams.
Over five years this would amount to 180,000 savings in gym membership. There obviously would be maintenance costs involved and others costs. But I would guess an overall savings of 100,000 would be realistic over the 5 year period.

You now have a possible 100,000 to invest in underage coaches and correct structures and also the long awaited strategic plan.

Rather than look at the solution I'm sure most of you will pick holes and talk about how unrealistic it is. Everything is possible you just need to think outside the box a little!
" In The Presence Of Confidence Doubt Cannot Exist "

Hogie
Junior C
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Hogie »

Re : Townman comments
your joking here Bord na mona man, could be alot worse, we won no games in fooball senior championship or league, a O'Bryne cup win over UCD, thats about it, under 21's after a shock win over kildare were well beaten by Meath, minor result tonight, hurling draw again Limerick one win over Antrims under 21's in tullamore, lost the play off in Ballycastle, had to sit in thurles and watch kerry race into a 7 point lead and play a sweeper again them this is kerry we are talking about and its hurling not football.

then roll on skysports in Nowlan park i though i never see a display like in croker in 2005 again this was worse, minors beating for the 3rd year in a row by laois, under 21's look like they got together in apub the evening of the match in fairness our joke of a county board only got someone over them 3 weeks before the game just to save money :oops: . so if you think it can get a lot worse on the field of play Bord na mona man and we are not rock bottom, fucking hell i don't want to be around to see it get any worse but it will with the county board we have, with the crowds of 50 or 60 if we are lucky that will be watching next year. but sure like everything says i am talking bull and everything is rosie in offaly Gaa just look at how good O'Connor park is looking its a credit to the county board never mind about our teams look at the job that is been done. :( isn't it.

Townman dead right - sick of saying this.
If it keeps going like this and only answer is pull out of inter-county.
Senior hurlers playing sweeper against Kerry. What a joke. All you have to do is play ball down wings and sweeper is redundant. Persisting with this all year.
3 things you look for in team in either code.
Skill level / First touch
Pattern of play
Fitness levels
You might get away with having two of these and be competitive but to have none of these in place by time we exit all championships
O'Connor Park is all very fine but should it be in Nama - another ghost estate.
Hurling back to Birr:
(1) No visiting side ever got out of there soft.
(2) It is where players are used to playing - why hand over advantage.
(3) At level we are playing what father from south of county is going to put his son in car and drive to Tullamore to see us playing Antrim.
Back to basics = forget about championship and try and concentrate on improving through National League.

jimbob17
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by jimbob17 »

Hard to get away from what has happened this year..... worse still is the impact it will have on teams and potential teams going forward....

Looking at the football, there were zero positives from the seniors, 21's showed a glimmer but then well beaten and minors too with a horrendous annihilation by the dubs..... Looking at the hurling, it was certainly a year from hell on every front with what looked to be very ill prepared teams on every level.

What message does it send out to young lads around the county only why bother play for Offaly when you will get beaten the whole time...... The structures in place are obviously not good enough but what is going to happen? I do believe the underage football is a lot better than the hurling and signs on with the U16 footballers having reached the Fr Manning cup final for the second year in a row...... Other than that though, the rest leaves a lot to be desired.....

I cant stand this rubbish of bringing the hurling to Birr....that is not an excuse.....its the same pitch for both teams and while playing in Birr may garner more support it isnt a reason for such abject performances...

I dont know, is it the coaching or lack thereof?
Is it the fitness levels?
Is it the lack of talent or the inability to hold on to talent?
Is it a general mental thing of couldnt be bothered?
Is it an expectation of losing because we know nothing else now?
Its hard to put the finger on and probably a part of all of the above?

So here is my main question.....We know who to blame!!! that is very clear....the CB are a disgrace........so lets be positive and proactive here

Who are the people in the county in hurling and football that would have something positive to offer and where should we be going to to fix the problem?
jimbob

Ahlethimoutwithit
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Ahlethimoutwithit »

My point re gyms and pitches are that they are being used by our senior players and some memebers of this forum as an excuse as to why we are behind other teams.
Of course we should have our own gym, interesting article in Longford where they built a gym (think it is on site for Pearse Park), and they do all S&C work there.

old yellar
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by old yellar »

What are realistic goals for county teams? Provincial semi finalists? Like for us in carlow, thrse are the extent of our ambition based on realism. Its good to have long term plans but realistic goals need to be set. So what would ye see as your goals in the next five years for each grade?
I just got this 2 articles off the net in relation to participation. One is an.old one but points to offaly as being an area of poorer participation. The other points to the tail off in our sports in general.
I just feel we, the gaa, is loosing complete focus on whats important and where we should be concentrating our efforts. Its hard compete as a smaller county, a dual county, but then jave poor participation rates heaped on top of it. Increase the playing numbers and then increase your chances of unearthing talent. Weare totally turning people off our games, young and old. The level now required to play intercounty is crazy. And then theres the lack sometimes of meaningful competition at ones own level. I ll use my own county as an example for figures. We ve 65000 or so in the county. 30000 in the town itself. Now i m involved with the u15 hurling squad. We ve asked clubs to look at their u16s and identify u15 players - not intercounty but all u15. They came up with 32. We invited all in, and 25 are on the squad. So we 32 14-15 year olds playing hurling in the county. Pretty depressing! 2 of the squad come from the town on the squad. At minor fball, the town provide 1 team. So half of the population provides 1 team. Poor fare. Then take the other extreme. I play over 35 soccer and i play in.a proper league here. There are 14 teams in 2 divisions. Thats over 200 players playing it. We ve 25 regged. Only 4 still playing gaa - and they are all relatively young 35s! A lot have a gaa background but feel they cant commit to the level of training that gaa now requires. Now the big thing here is apart from.loosing these from teams, youloose a lot from the clubs too. A bigger loss. I d say you could count on one hand how many 35 plus men will play senior in the county here this year. My whole point being i feel smaller counties like us need to first maximise our playing numbers and then maximise our strengths. We seem to loose focus on the sport aand focus on the minority of our elite players and plough serious money into this.



http://www.esri.ie/news_events/latest_p ... /index.xml - mention offaly about half way down
http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/ ... 53139.html - drop off rates

dubbiff
Intermediate
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by dubbiff »

Good point Old Yellar. Get as many as possible playing and success should follow. A couple of years ago the Nationwide TV programme featured Martin Dunne, a hurley maker in Drumcondra with a Kilkenny background. Around that time there was a clamour for Dublin to start winning at senior level given the amount of work/effort/money that had been put into hurling in the capital. The general feeling was that it was all a failure if senior success didn't follow. He couldn't understand this attitude and made the point that there had never been as many youngsters hurling and that it was now commonplace to see kids walking around with sticks in the most unlikely areas. That was success in his opinion.
Your point about realistic targets is also well made. The birth rate in Offaly in 2011 was approx 1200. Allowing that about half will be male and that Offaly is a dual county that gives roughly 300 potential male players each year for football and 300 for hurling. Assuming an uptake of 30% (unrealistic I know) you have 100 5 year old players for each code each year. How many are still playing at 8, 10, 12? And how many will achieve inter county standard if they are still involved at minor level? It's unrealistic for us to be thinking of consistently challenging for underage honours in Leinster given the (playing) population advantages that Dublin, Meath and Kildare enjoy in football and Dublin and Kilkenny in hurling. All we can do is get as many as possible playing, prepare them as well as possible and hopefully be competitive. In that regard we can look to our neighbours with similar bases and try and emulate them.

Daleamar
County player
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2011 1:09 am

Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Daleamar »

Offalys Future wrote:
Ahlethimoutwithit wrote:
Pitches and gyms are smokescreens, yes a central point would be great but that's in the nice to have rather than essential at this stage.
Hang on a second here. Sportsgear, Equipment, Gym and Laundry was 123,575 Euro in 2013 according to the annual report. Its not known how this breakdown is between all four but If senior/u-21 players you are talking 100-120 gym memberships at 300 euro for the year. this equates to 36,000 euro.

I have provided you with a solution. Invest 30,000 and you no longer have to pay the 36,000 a year. You in fact have a strength and conditioning facility for adult teams.
Over five years this would amount to 180,000 savings in gym membership. There obviously would be maintenance costs involved and others costs. But I would guess an overall savings of 100,000 would be realistic over the 5 year period.

You now have a possible 100,000 to invest in underage coaches and correct structures and also the long awaited strategic plan.

Rather than look at the solution I'm sure most of you will pick holes and talk about how unrealistic it is. Everything is possible you just need to think outside the box a little!
How is the proposal for the €45k coming along? Do you need any help? I can't offer much time but I could do a bit of typing/admin work.

hopper82
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by hopper82 »

It must be frustrating for regular board users to have a newcomer to the site come on to get his tuppence worth in about the state of Offaly GAA, but I just think there is a fundamental issue that needs to be addressed before we can recover from this increasing decline.

“Offaly over achieved for years for its population” I don’t accept that for a minute however I do agree we have a small population and the lack of dual clubs in the county will hinder us from progress .

I read a very interesting piece on here not so long ago “Dublin Blue print” and on it stated for Dublin to be successful all clubs had to support a hurling culture.

I firmly believe for Offaly to be successful as a dual county we need all clubs to support a dual culture. If you look at the clubs that rolled in behind plan in particular Ballyboden St .Endas look how Dublin’s fortunes have changed over the past decade.


In this day and age it’s a disgrace that some clubs still take the stoneage stance that they haven’t the resources / interest in the area to put out a hurling /football team.

In my opinion the Edenderry club model is what all clubs should try and achieve in terms that they are hurling away in north Offaly (a barron place for a hurler) but the fact they have direction on where they want to go, the strategic plan is there for all to see on there website (something that we as a county are lacking at the moment).
The fact that Edenderry hurlers have players coming from surrounding towns and villages in north Offaly would suggest there is interest out there.

The county board are taking a lot of slack here the last while, I would argue a lot of it is merited but for jasus sake I wish some of the lads throwing the stones would mind there own glass house first .

If I was padraig boland in the morning I would be using the limited resources we have to try and develop the other sport in (schools / clubs), and maybe try and make it appealing for clubs to enter a team in a competition (no fees ETC), saying that the onus should be on the clubs to achieve this not the county board .

I think before we see successes again we will need to see the likes of Ballybryan vs ballinagar competing with crinkle in the cumann na mBunscol, if we had 3 or 4 players north of Tullamore on the Offaly Hurling team in 15 years time it would e a step in the right direction going forward.

Ahlethimoutwithit
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Ahlethimoutwithit »

Fcuk providing me or anyone here with a proposal, why not forward it in an open letter to the CB, the local newspapers, your club chairman and ask them to review it!

Jayz Delamar, thought you might offer more than a typing pool!! :?

Round Inside
Junior C
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Round Inside »

Daleamar wrote:We are not effing Dublin and never will be. Why don't we compare ourselves to something realistic and attainable.

It's all but professional but in name? Then why are we bothering our holes talking about it? If we don't have the money and never will have the money (or population) to run things the same way as them then why do you idiots keep trying to compare us to them?

Ye things can be done better by those at the top. But in the same vein. Things can be done a whole lot better by the supporters/clubs and players.

It's always somebody else's fault.
It's about having the right attitude and right structures put in place. Look at the hurling championship now, several teams competing and we look like we could be going back to the 90s in terms of competitiveness. People in the likes of Clare or Wexford could have said 'oh we're not Kilkenny or look at the size of Cork' but instead got stuck in, did things right and are reaping the benefits now at all age levels.

Round Inside
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Round Inside »

old yellar wrote:Dale, you re telling it like it is! Theres the haves and have nots now in the gaa more than ever. The days of the smaller county competing for titles in a realistic sense is over. People talk about the 5 million debt on o connor park. Clare spent over 1 million last year on intercounty teams.
I don't agree, Dublin look to have opened up a gap but its not insurmountable with the right structures and coaches in place. Its only 10 years since Westmeath won Leinster, and 2010 was a very close championship. We should have beaten Down in 2010 and they got to the final. Not sure whats happened since then, when the top and bottom sides seemed closer than ever, but I suspect emigration has played a part, along with the top sides stepping it up with the pack remaining stagnant.

old yellar
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Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by old yellar »

I m just talking about hurling is all..

Daleamar
County player
Posts: 100
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2011 1:09 am

Re: Offaly GAA is in Some State

Post by Daleamar »

Ahlethimoutwithit wrote:Fcuk providing me or anyone here with a proposal, why not forward it in an open letter to the CB, the local newspapers, your club chairman and ask them to review it!

Jayz Delamar, thought you might offer more than a typing pool!! :?
I was just looking for a reaction from him, no reply as of yet. Id gladly help out but nobody here is going to do anything. Just like bashing....

Can anybody spell my username... I mean its right there! :shock:

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