by Lone Shark » Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:08 am
I wouldn't say that yesterday was all negative by any stretch of the imagination, but you can't say that Offaly were even remotely close to being competitive either. Yes Kiely's sending off was as critical as it was daft, but we were four points down having played with a strong wind at half time, so it wasn't all about playing with fourteen men. We got two points from play in the last 55 minutes, allowed Wexford to shoot seventeen wides and to draw a couple of great saves from James Dempsey, and lost by nine points at home to a team who are probably just one place ahead of us in the overall rankings. Two places at most.
For me there were guys who played well and guys who played poorly, and not much in between. Joe Bergin and Shane Dooley were again very sharp up front but you couldn't say that anyone else at that end of the field had a good game. I felt for Stephen Quirke getting withdrawn when he did, but it had to be done as the 2 on 2 situations in our full back line were completely unfair to Shortt and Egan. As it was, failing to cop on to what Wexford did after they withdrew Paul Morris cost us 1-2 in the space of five minutes. Otherwise Kinsella had a few moments, but Paddy Murphy had a poor day and Dan Currams never really made an impact. That's three starts without scoring for the captain now, which is worrying. I don't have his stats under the puckout to hand or anything, but it's beginning to look like either the captaincy or the move out to wing forward isn't suiting him.
Midfield was a bit of a mixed bag, Seán Ryan for me did a lot of his best hurling when we were really up against it and that type of character is always good to see, while Pat Camon kept a decent eye on his defensive responsibilities even if he didn't do a lot on the ball, and didn't let the side down when moved back to the half back line either. Still, the dominant influence in that sector was David Redmond and that needs investigating too.
I will say this - if you'd told me on New Year's day that we'd have two league points from our first two league games and that we'd have two players who were showing some promise in the key positions at 3 and 6, I'd have been happy out. It's far too early to say that Colin Egan and Dermot Shortt are nailed on to start along the spine of the defence in summer, but I would agree with BW after the game when he said that he was going to give the two lads the time they needed to grow into the positions and to develop as they needed to. Colin is a very strong hurler who'll show up well wherever you put him as far as I can see, but Shortt's performance against a very good hurler in Jack Guiney was the best outcome from yesterday's game for me. He was physical, possibly a touch over the edge of legality, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt there for showing a little intelligence since it was clear from the start that Fergal Horgan was refereeing this by "summer" rules, i.e. none at all. He'd have to pull the reins in if it were a different style of a refereeing in force, but I'm sure he'd pick up on that if he needed to. He took a yellow card and still kept hurling with real intensity, and only really looked exposed when he and Stephen Egan were left in acres of space up against Guiney and McGovern - and that should never happen, that's a management failure, not a defensive one.
I like Emmett Nolan as a hurler, but not necessarily as a back - he's a bit too "flicky" for my liking in that role. He was much better after he went to midfield and I could see him going well there, with Cathal Parlon likely to come back into the back line very soon too. Either that, or he needs to learn to get the ball into his hand first, and then use his more instinctive style from then on. There's a role for him though.
Antrim's two strong performances means that Offaly are still likely to need at least one more good performance and a result to get into the top four, and even though they went well in their first two outings, Waterford shouldn't be seen as unbeatable in the next game. Still lots of improvement needed though.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.