Rhode in Leinster - 2014

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Lone Shark
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Re: Rhode in Leinster - 2014

Post by Lone Shark »

In my opinion it's entirely fair to say that Rhode had a good Leinster championship and that they put in some good performances while at the same time saying that they underperformed spectacularly last Sunday. Beating St Vincents was always going to be a huge ask and even if Rhode were ten points better in Navan, then I'd have no doubt that Vinnies might have found another gear. Not for the first time in this Leinster campaign, Rhode's goal lived a charmed life and on another day Vincents could have had a hatful of goals. Pauric Sullivan's first yellow card was disappointing but his second was unbelievably harsh certainly, however I thought that the referee tried to "compensate" immediately afterwards and Rhode got a string of soft decisions. It didn't matter, the game was over as a contest, but that game on Sunday was a hammering on the field, regardless of how the scoreboard looked.

That doesn't take away from what they did in their previous three games, particularly the Moorefield performance which I felt was simply superb. It's just a pity that they
went from one extreme to another. Calling a spade a spade when it comes to Sunday's game doesn't equate to running them down in my book.


I would like to pick up on another point that's been made in this thread a few times however, with comments like this:
Chris wrote:....and despite the positive talk coming out of Rhode jin the lead up to the game, I think it was obvious from the tactical set up that they were in awe of Vincents.....
timber wrote: The fact that they had withdrawn 4 of the forwards deep meant that they had to work the ball out of defence to around the middle of the field and be accurate in kicking long. The kick passing was terrible. And midfield was controlled by Vincents which meant Rhode could not have a platform for the likes of Darby, Heavey and Byrne to play to their strenghts. I hate seeing Anton so far out the field. Of course he burnt a few vincents players with pace out there but where was he going to realistically go. Beat one and two players and slip and have 5 on top of him in a flash. Hes a player who should be close to goal winning frees and being dangerous.
first_touch wrote: And, as Bracknaghboy so rightly pointed out, very negative tactics which totally backfired.
(In fairness, I agree with most of this post)
bracknaghboy wrote: Dingle quite rightly pointed out the obvious during the week, that being that scoring 1-6 this time around wouldn't be enough to secure the Leinster title.
Then why on Sunday afternoon the team is set up in such a way that they managed to reach a mere 66% of that figure?
The tactic of withdrawing Anton & Pauric Sullivan, Glenn O'Connell and at times Niall Darby in the first half beggars belief. It left just McPadden (who in these conditions will struggle to win his own ball) and Niall McNamee who was not only marked by his own man but had another 3 Vincents defenders in front of him. Any ball Niall got to he was then surrounded and any ball that was broken from him was mopped up by the 3 spare defenders. Most long balls kicked in were into the waiting arms of the loose defenders. Oddly, despite having men pulled back into defense Rhode were opened up to the point that Vincents were walking straight through at times.

The bottom line is that pound for pound Vincents were always going to the better team. Therefore, allowing their defense to have a 5 on 2 numerical advantage is going to ensure that Rhode scores will be scarce. Its a surprise they managed a score at all in the opening 25 minutes.
Garrycastle had a cut at Vincents and exposed them defensively so Rhode had to try the same and that meant keeping Anton closeish to goal and maintaining shape on the half forward line.

Now I'm not saying that Rhode were right or wrong to play the way that they did, however in Offaly people tend to have a deep seated dislike of anything other than old fashioned man on man long ball football, and woe-betide any team that loses a match playing defensively. I remember when Paschal Kelleghan's under-21s lost to Louth in Navan a few years ago I was accosted after the game by two prominent football coaches, both of whom were essentially saying "I told you so" to me, after I praised Kelleghan's approach in my columns up to that point. One man even talked about how Kerry never played defensively, and that they were the best footballing county in Ireland so every team should be modeled on how they play.

That's all very well when you're Kerry, but not everyone has the best players in the country and you have to cut your cloth to suit your measure. Against Pats, Navan and Moorefield, Rhode had the better players and so they could play their normal game. Against Vincents, they didn't, and so they had to try something. It didn't work, possibly due to lack of preparation, but I wouldn't castigate them for that. The inability to execute basic passes however, or the tendency to crowd around Connolly so he had a myriad of options to pick out with passes was different, that was a skill and discipline failure.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

first_touch
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Re: Rhode in Leinster - 2014

Post by first_touch »

LS, did it cross your mind that it was precisely because Rhode changed their gameplan that they were so poor last Sunday? They were all over the place defensively and when they did have possession they had no attacking potency. Surely if they played their normal game they would have been more comfortable and sure-footed in what they were doing.

I don't think anyone on here is advocating an all-out attacking gameplan at the expense of being strong in defending. Rather, to paraphrase Johnny Giles from a different code: when you have the ball make the most of it, when you don't have do everything you can to get it back" I can't see how any team can achieve that if they have lads pulled back into their own half of the field not having a clue what they are meant to be doing, and having their best forward isolated and surrounded by three or four defenders. Your post appears to commend Rhode's management for trying out a gameplan that had this outcome. If this is where Offaly football is going we might as well throw in the towel altogether.

Changing the whole approach to a game when you come up against 'superior' opposition betrays an inferiority complex. In effect, you are beaten even before you take the field! I am not saying that Rhode would have won if they played their normal game but it would definately have been a harder-fought game and they would at least have gone down fighting. Instead we got the shambles we all witnessed on Sunday.

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Re: Rhode in Leinster - 2014

Post by Lone Shark »

first_touch wrote:LS, did it cross your mind that it was precisely because Rhode changed their gameplan that they were so poor last Sunday? They were all over the place defensively and when they did have possession they had no attacking potency. Surely if they played their normal game they would have been more comfortable and sure-footed in what they were doing.
I don't know that it was all that different from what they did in previous games - in fairness, when Pats, Navan or Edenderry got the ball, Rhode were quick to get twelve men behind the ball as well - the difference was that they broke out at pace and hit the target with their foot passes. This time around, possibly due to nerves or possibly due to Vincents exerting a lot more pressure, they weren't as sure footed and that meant that they looked inept.

Perhaps there were subtle changes in the approach, however even if that was the case, to my mind that doesn't mean that they were wrong to do so. It just means that they didn't prepare and practice well enough. The team with the better players always wants an honest, open game of ball with man on man battles all over the field - they;ll usually win on those terms. And up until last Sunday, Rhode were better than every other team they played so far. This time they had a gap to bridge and so needed to change things up. If you do what you always did, you'll get the same results you always did and past form suggested that Rhode weren't going to be good enough against an All Ireland standard team unless they tried something new.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

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Re: Rhode in Leinster - 2014

Post by Square Cab »

This might come as a surprise to many but Rhode didn't change their game plan for this match. As Ls rightly pointed out, they simply weren't allowed execute their normal style of play against a far better side than anything they have faced all year. The truth is, that vincents side would beat the pick of offaly never mind the pick of a small village like rhode. I think great credit has to be given to them for flying the faithful flag so proudly over the last few weeks. Dublin clubs are getting stronger and the sad fact is that it's getting harder and harder for clubs like rhode to compete with them. And if vinnys did that to rhode, imagine what they would do to any other club in offaly. Sadly, dublin super clubs are set to dominate Leinster for the foreseeable future.

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