OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
ah lethimoutwithit
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OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

Post by ah lethimoutwithit »

Well done on a positive display to the team and management against Dublin last week.
Nearly pulled off a big shock and would like to think that they will take heart from this performance and it will help them as they prepare for the next round.

Often a team that loses in the first round gets a chance to put their team together and build a bit of momentum.

Best of luck in the next round!

Truth as i see it
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by Truth as i see it »

Yeah totally agree with that, great heart shown by the players and i can see them beating Westmeath and Kildare to set up a rematch with Dublin in the quarter finals but lets not count chickens yet, but still great to see the effort put by the players that have shown up for the team this year, interestingly enough the majority of this team is made up of players outside the big four clubs ie.. Rhode, Tullamore, Edenderry, Clara ect which is great to see and shows the work that is being put in by other smaller clubs around the county which can only benefit the county side in the coming years.

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townman
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by townman »

Offaly 2-13 westmeath 1-10 kildare next in tellamore.

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townman
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by townman »

Truth as i see it wrote:Yeah totally agree with that, great heart shown by the players and i can see them beating Westmeath and Kildare to set up a rematch with Dublin in the quarter finals but lets not count chickens yet, but still great to see the effort put by the players that have shown up for the team this year, interestingly enough the majority of this team is made up of players outside the big four clubs ie.. Rhode, Tullamore, Edenderry, Clara ect which is great to see and shows the work that is being put in by other smaller clubs around the county which can only benefit the county side in the coming years.
agree great to see the smaller clubs doing well, but you would wonder how towns like tullamore, Edenderry, Clara, even Rhode who are knowing for good underage teams can't get 1 lad good enough to play minor football for offaly in 2015.

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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by Truth as i see it »

townman wrote:
Truth as i see it wrote:Yeah totally agree with that, great heart shown by the players and i can see them beating Westmeath and Kildare to set up a rematch with Dublin in the quarter finals but lets not count chickens yet, but still great to see the effort put by the players that have shown up for the team this year, interestingly enough the majority of this team is made up of players outside the big four clubs ie.. Rhode, Tullamore, Edenderry, Clara ect which is great to see and shows the work that is being put in by other smaller clubs around the county which can only benefit the county side in the coming years.
agree great to see the smaller clubs doing well, but you would wonder how towns like tullamore, Edenderry, Clara, even Rhode who are knowing for good underage teams can't get 1 lad good enough to play minor football for offaly in 2015.
Probably haven't been putting the same amount of work in as the other teams, bit like Birr at the moment

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townman
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by townman »

Truth as i see it wrote:
townman wrote:
Truth as i see it wrote:Yeah totally agree with that, great heart shown by the players and i can see them beating Westmeath and Kildare to set up a rematch with Dublin in the quarter finals but lets not count chickens yet, but still great to see the effort put by the players that have shown up for the team this year, interestingly enough the majority of this team is made up of players outside the big four clubs ie.. Rhode, Tullamore, Edenderry, Clara ect which is great to see and shows the work that is being put in by other smaller clubs around the county which can only benefit the county side in the coming years.
agree great to see the smaller clubs doing well, but you would wonder how towns like tullamore, Edenderry, Clara, even Rhode who are knowing for good underage teams can't get 1 lad good enough to play minor football for offaly in 2015.
Probably haven't been putting the same amount of work in as the other teams, bit like Birr at the moment[/quote

in case you didn't know Eoghan Cahill is the captain of the offaly minor hurlers and theres 2 more in the panel.

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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by kingscounty »

Great win for the " baby biffos " tonight , well done to all involved .

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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by greenairfield »

Truth as I see it....that is a terrible statement towards Birr.The work wasn't been done but it sure is now - it will just take a few years but we are still getting one player uo to senior ranks every year which is great. No need for the sly dig.

Well done to team!! Would they have a good chance against kildare?

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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

Post by jimbob17 »

went over to Mullingar last night fairly hopeful and came away satisfied - but just about. Offaly were probably favourites and this tag never suits us as we were slow to start against a well motivated Westmeath. Maybe Offaly took them for granted but we could have conceded two goals in the first few mins with Westmeath hitting crossbar and scoring a fisted point. Only for frees in first half we were in bother. The game was in the melting pot til about 7 or 8 mins left when Offaly scored a goal through Jack Walsh. Thought we were better against a strong wind in the second half than with it in first half, though Westmeath were set up with 12 or 13 behind the ball against the wind. Few subs made a bit of difference when it was needed near the end and Dylan Hyland was good in second half for a few points. Good tempo to the game throughout but Offaly will need to improve a lot if the are to beat Kildare in the next game as Westmeath would be seen to be one of the lesser lights in Leinster from what I was told last night with some of their better players committing to county hurling this year. Well done to all though on the win........ and bring on the lillies......
jimbob

Truth as i see it
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS

Post by Truth as i see it »

greenairfield wrote:Truth as I see it....that is a terrible statement towards Birr.The work wasn't been done but it sure is now - it will just take a few years but we are still getting one player uo to senior ranks every year which is great. No need for the sly dig
Well done to team!! Would they have a good chance against kildare?
Ok fair point and i realize i am opening up a can of worms on the wrong thread here but it just seems like with all the complaining Birr do about not having intercounty hurling at St Brendans park and using that as an excuse as to why they haven't had success at underage level over the past few years is really masking the lack of effort in my view to update their coaching Knowledge and work harder at recruiting players from a local level, after all Birr rugby club don't have Leinster coming to town to play matches for supporters but they have produced a number of underage internationals over the past number of years while bringing more numbers from Minis up to youths so whats Birr from Rolling their sleeves up and getting on with it.
Anyhow like i said this is the wrong thread for that so apologies for the "sly dig"

Well done to the Minors Delighted with the win but they will have to up their game again for the Kildare game on Wednesday

Well done to the players from all the clubs involved even the big four :D

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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

Post by substandard »

It was a patchy kind of a game, and had the potential to be a real bananaskin. Offaly were more comfortable playing into the breeze. Kildare will be a big jump in standard from Westmeath- last night's performance was below par, but I'd expect the lads to raise their game proportionally.
Regarding the club representation, when you look at the amalgamation teams they played with, i.e. as Na Fianna, St Vincent's, Ferbane-Belmont, then it narrows the number of names on the teamsheet. Clara and Edenderry would have had a lot of younger players on their minor teams recently, and will probably have a much greater representation next year.

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Lone Shark
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

Post by Lone Shark »

The representation issue is not worth talking about in my view. If we were talking about sustained periods of underachievement that would be fair enough, but Tullamore won the minor three years ago and lost the U21 final by a point this year. Clara won last year's under-16 A football, Edenderry had five lads on a school team that were very unlucky not to win Leinster A colleges (at least) and Rhode, well, are Rhode. They'll be fine. This is a one season snapshot, and nothing to draw any conclusions from.


As regards the game last night, I have to say I was very impressed with the character and the fitness shown in the latter stages. There's no point putting lipstick on a pig - this was a bad Westmeath team with no confidence, and a string of bad errors from Offaly opened the door for them to nearly knock us over. The amount of handling errors in the first half was atrocious and the second half wasn't great either, while there were a couple of players having a very bad night, and they just couldn't get anything going. I'd also say that management have to stand a little bit indicted in that regard - these are teenage footballers, who aren't, as a demographic, well known for playing their way into games when things go badly. That trait generally only comes with experience. Taking a player off doesn't mean you don't rate him, it means that he's not having a good game and one of the subs deserve their chance to try and impact the game in a more positive way. Shane O'Brien and Jordan Hayes both proved when they came on that the bench had something to offer.

That said, the way Offaly weathered the storm from minutes 40-50 really impressed me. Westmeath were a point up with a strong wind behind them and I thought both PJ Daly and Ronan Hynes were immense at the back in securing turnovers, while up the field, Ryan Heavin and in particular Jack Walsh worked like demons to get us back into it. Walsh embodied everything that a captain should be for me last night - he was everywhere, and while he got his name to the second goal, the work he did to set up points for O'Brien and Hyland before that was excellent. In the last ten minutes Offaly's fitness simply overpowered Westmeath - they cut through them at ease and succeeded in turning the ball over every time Westmeath got possession - it was very impressive, and that more than anything gave me hope for next Wednesday.

So overall, a poor performance that wouldn't be good enough against Kildare, but the attitude shown would suggest that there is more in them.



I will add one footnote, on the basis that I presume that the player in question may read this and hopefully will know who I'm referring to. Late in the game, when Offaly had finally got back on top, one of the Westmeath players skewed a kick out over the sideline and an Offaly player made a point of coming over and applauding him, in that horrible sarcastic fashion that has crept into the game in recent years. If it was a senior or under-21 player I'd have no problem naming and shaming, but on the basis that he's a minor, I'll leave it at that and just say that it was horrible to look at and it adds nothing to your game, instead bringing shame to yourself and the team. To that player I say cop the f*** on, and act like a sportsman. You're young, you played well, and you shouldn't be leaving people with that impression of you. Cut that stuff out, and you'll be both a better player and a better person for it. It's okay to make a mistake once, but that should never happen again.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

ah lethimoutwithit
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

Post by ah lethimoutwithit »

Wasn't at the game but think I know who you may be talking about LS. No place in the game for it, and especially stuff that can be seen by the crowd.
Verbals will happen from time to time, but it is something that should be discouraged, and gesturing like that should warrant a yellow card, (think you can be booked for it?)

Good win, and would be a massive step for the county if we could get another win over Kildare.

As an aside, Clara, Tullamore and Edenderry have some serious players on the Offaly u16 panel, and that team look like they have some very good prospects for the senior team in the coming years.

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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

Post by Truth as i see it »

ah lethimoutwithit wrote:Wasn't at the game but think I know who you may be talking about LS. No place in the game for it, and especially stuff that can be seen by the crowd.
Verbals will happen from time to time, but it is something that should be discouraged, and gesturing like that should warrant a yellow card, (think you can be booked for it?)

Good win, and would be a massive step for the county if we could get another win over Kildare.

As an aside, Clara, Tullamore and Edenderry have some serious players on the Offaly u16 panel, and that team look like they have some very good prospects for the senior team in the coming years.
I happily Stand Corrected, that's good to hear, we need the big clubs producing good players as well as the small ones but i think its excellent that the smaller clubs are also producing quality players as it will improve the quality of Football at Junior and intermediate level making the county that much stronger with more strength in Depth

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: OFFALY MINOR FOOTBALLERS 2015

Post by Bord na Mona man »

Lone Shark wrote:I will add one footnote, on the basis that I presume that the player in question may read this and hopefully will know who I'm referring to. Late in the game, when Offaly had finally got back on top, one of the Westmeath players skewed a kick out over the sideline and an Offaly player made a point of coming over and applauding him, in that horrible sarcastic fashion that has crept into the game in recent years.
It is unpleasant, but perhaps there were mitigating circumstances. If you were receiving off the ball verbals. or got 'Rory O'Connelled' you might feel the urge to taunt such a mistake like that. However to do it such a public manner never looks good.

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