Laois v Offaly – Leinster Hurling Quarter Final 7th June

[Kevin]

I see Ger Lough has to pile on right away.

From Hoganstand:


Offaly need 'special help', says Loughnane
08 June 2015

The Offaly team line up for the national anthem before the Leinster SHC quarter-final against Laois at O'Moore Park, Portlaoise.
©INPHO/Ken Sutton.

Ger Loughnane fears Offaly hurling will “fade away” if the GAA doesn’t intervene.

The outspoken pundit, who irked the Faithful last year when he claimed they were "the only team in the modern era where you still see players with fat legs, bellies and arses", is calling on the GAA to step in and help out after yesterday’s Leinster SHC defeat to Laois.

“I do feel sorry for Offaly boss Brian Whelahan,” the former Clare manager writes in the Irish Daily Star.

“He addressed the lack of fitness and conditioning issue with his squad and they trained very hard over the winter. But it’s clear that Offaly simply don’t have the players.

“The GAA have to prioritise Offaly for special help. A county that won an All-Ireland as recently as 1998 can’t be allowed to fade away.”

[substandard]

Yesterday was a knockout punch in many ways, but it has been in the post for many years. Players confidence will be on the floor, and I've no doubt but the management will be hurting also. Come out with the wrong draw in the qualifiers, and it could be a very painful end to the season.
The important thing is to look at solutions, or potential solutions- some of the problems already alluded to include talent, desire, management, administration and development, long-term plan/ strategy.
Take this year as Ground Zero, and begin to rebuild; that's not to discredit the work on going at underage, but build a coordinated, strategic approach.
It has been suggested about a marquee manager- but rightfully pointed out also that it would be a massive cost, and would only focus on senior/u21 in short term. An ambitious younger manager with club/underage track record from within or without the county (ok, maybe not within the county, but someone surely could be mentored in that role) would be more financially viable. Let's be realistic, it's not an overly- attractive position, but someone might see it as a challenge or a stepping-stone. Filling the vacancy (and that's being presumptuous about a vacancy coming up) for the sake of filling it, without someone who has a vision and tactical nous will just deepen the stagnation.
Paudie Butler, or some other evangelical figure, should be engaged with to help develop a charter or plan: a coordinated, targeted and strategic approach to underage development. A couple of posters here have long been beating this particular drum, and (and I'm very much open to correction here), can someone specify the outcomes of the hurling review meetings from earlier this year?
Caught for time here to finish this for now, but referring to the point about interest in young lads wanting to play, it's been a long-term bugbear of those involved in both football and hurling development squads. The old argument that giving lads gear won't make them better hurlers or footballers doesn't wash for me- if lads feel they are being well- treated and well-looked after, then they will commit and buy into a sense of belonging to something important- this is where investment should be directed, and not at a Liam Sheedy, or any other high-profile name.
A dedicated director and provide quality coaching- it mightn't sound palatable, but it's Laois and Westmeath Offaly needs to be emulating, and not the Kilkenny's and Tipperary's...

[allstar2010]

If an outside manager or whoever is brought in. Please please please let it be done before the club q/finals and let the management sort out their panel then after seeing some club games. I refute the claim that the hurlers are not there, bullshite! If they management had everyone to call on and singing off the one hymn sheet we could have a very decent.

Only two years ago we were heading to OCP on sat night confident we could rattle Waterford. Look at them now. It's amazing what a management can do with a group of players when he has them all believing in they system. We have no system.

It's heartbreaking for the players, I can only imagine. They have tolled for months and this is where they're at. Tough draw in qualifiers and end the misery.

[Turenne]

I see Ger Lough has to pile on right away.

From Hoganstand:


Offaly need 'special help', says Loughnane
08 June 2015

The Offaly team line up for the national anthem before the Leinster SHC quarter-final against Laois at O'Moore Park, Portlaoise.
©INPHO/Ken Sutton.

Ger Loughnane fears Offaly hurling will “fade away” if the GAA doesn’t intervene.

The outspoken pundit, who irked the Faithful last year when he claimed they were "the only team in the modern era where you still see players with fat legs, bellies and arses", is calling on the GAA to step in and help out after yesterday’s Leinster SHC defeat to Laois.

“I do feel sorry for Offaly boss Brian Whelahan,” the former Clare manager writes in the Irish Daily Star.

“He addressed the lack of fitness and conditioning issue with his squad and they trained very hard over the winter. But it’s clear that Offaly simply don’t have the players.

“The GAA have to prioritise Offaly for special help. A county that won an All-Ireland as recently as 1998 can’t be allowed to fade away.”

Some nonsense. Lots of counties are in trouble in both codes. What's next, stimulus package for Kilkenny football? Leitrim hurling?

[fifitrixiebelle]

deres only one answer for it...give paudie butler a shout...quickly!

[Toxicity234]

Lads, will ye please stop now, we went through it all over the last 5 years after exiting the championship,

1) "Sack the board", Jayz, you would think it was of gravy train of Sepp Blatter/John Delaney types, its hardship of the highest order and there are not people willing to take it on.

The county Board have done some great work this year. Getting the debt sorted, Getting in a Flanagan in as football manager. Getting the Training facility started.
I nail the county board in the past but this year they done lot's of good work.

2) "We have 14 All stars in the making not playing for the team!", There may be some better hurlers out there who did not commit, but many of them do not want to hurl for Offaly,

just make up your own all star and give one to Rory hanniffy in ever postion from 1-15. but all joking aside many players have committed in the past and been treated very poorly. Treating player like crap and then complaining that they won't commit is like beating your dog and then complaining that be keep running away for you.

3) Someone made the point that Joe Bergin and Dam Currams are "brilliant full forwards". I rest my case.

Well there not poor full forwards but playing them in the half forward ahead of natural half forward trying to develop there game is just genus.

4) Anthony Daly or Liam Sheedy?????? Are you nuts, 75k a year minimum.

75 grand your joking. Daly would be double that and this is the whole point of developing our own manager. Home grown manager have a tendency to put back into the local area knowledge, tactics and skills. that is something that Offaly hurling has never developed. Of all the leader of Offaly hurling on the field over the last 30 years how many have take any county or club to success. This is from a county that was unstoppable for 20 years.
We can't be paying outside manager but we can set up a manager programme and have Sheedy, Have Daly, Have manger come and share there knowledge.

And to crown it all.....and think about it..... after 4 million posts about the hurlers and footballers having to train outside the county durin " the big rain" , "sur Jaysus why would the county board spend money on a training facility????"

That shit annoy me.. your dammed if you don't. Spending money on training facility is money never wasted But haveing a great facility is pointless is you don't have top class coaches and managers to get the best out of the players.
Everything together is the way forward. you can't just look a one issue.

Please have a think about the reality of the situation. We have been here before. There is a malaise around Offaly GAA, and there is a real reluctance for people to get involved in administration around the county board, to commit to county teams, and to cough up big sponsorship to fund these professional set ups. Even, punters willing to go to matches!!

There isn't a malaise in Offaly. Our Football are starting to build a team that i think will bring back offaly to the competitive level.
We are in the process of building a state of the art training facility.
yesterday was a mess but it a mess that has been coming. We're at a crossroad. One way leads Offaly hurling back to the top table the other lead to playing Christy Ring or worst.
The problem is. we have been at this crossroad a number of time over the last 14 years and we have always picked the road that has lead us to yesterday.
We're at a crossroad last year after a year where we beat Kerry and Antrim, and got hammered by everyone else. the whole county knew that the board had make a mistake in the appointment of Whelehan but instead of see it and making the change. They didn't make the change.
The stories coming out of Offaly hurling camp haven't been good. the treatment of the players by an inexperience manager has been less worst than poor and that just the stories that have come.

The other thing Last September Stage one of the reviving of Offaly Hurling was Developed. A great idea. Diarmuid Healy told me "A plan for the development of underage hurling was drafted which was to be implemented by a three-person committee established by the Co Board." that was done by December 2014

1. I don't know but has this Committee been set up??

2. Has anyone seen this Development Plan??

3. WTF is stage two??

4. On the night of the training classes in mount blous over 100 people turned up. Its was a massive chance for the Gaa to add to it list of volunteers. Over 100 people wanting to help Offaly gaa . i love to know where that list is now??

[Bord na Mona man]

From Sunday's Indo.

Small steps are important when morale is so low

Offaly optimists will point to subtle gains - but a win over Laois would be huge
Dermot Crowe

07/06/2015

The hurling people of Offaly may have been excused if they felt like covering their eyes when the championship got under way with an unsympathetic introduction to the Sky television era at Nowlan Park last year. Viewers seeing hurling for the first time wouldn't have appreciated the slight on Offaly's honour, but even those who remember when they could compete - their last championship win over Kilkenny now 17 years old - probably felt indifference. This is what we had come to expect.

Offaly ended the league's second-tier campaign fighting a relegation play-off, having lost the opening round in Tullamore to Laois. They employed a sweeper to keep the score down, but he was hopelessly outmuscled and by half-time, that plot was ditched, the game was lost and a massacre was in full swing. Offaly lost by 26 points; they went down to Kilkenny by 31 in 2005; this was now old news. And that was the depressing thing; it no longer caused any wonder or outrage, just pity.

Optimists look to improvements under the surface. Offaly haven't beaten any county outside Meath and Carlow in the Leinster minor championship since 2010, but their development teams at 14-16 are said to be promising and setting a new standard more in keeping with the county's prouder traditions.

In Kilcormac, there will be a training centre for county teams coming on stream, which will end the dispiriting struggle for venues that led the county to travel outside Offaly at times last year. These are small steps, but important ones. In the meantime, the show goes on. Today sees them in Portlaoise facing a neighbour that has been accustomed over the last 30 years to looking across the border with some envy. Now Laois look farther afield for counties to aspire to and at underage, they have surpassed Offaly's admittedly diminishing achievements. Laois have beaten Offaly in the minor championship in each of the last four years. The senior team's win at the start of last year's league also led to a testing spring for Offaly and a tough baptism in management for Brian Whelahan.

This year, they reversed that result in Tullamore and Offaly have looked the better side in recent months, defeating Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds and being competitive against Wexford and Waterford.

Laois have seen their form drop a few degrees and they took a hammering in both the Wexford and Waterford games. The brief departure of Cheddar Plunkett in response to some players, including his captain Matthew Whelan, opting to take part in a club challenge match isn't the kind of internal dynamic that suggests a team enjoying an entirely stable environment. Some of that can be coloured by results, and Laois have not been a happy camper in the preliminary round robin. But Plunkett has returned and so has his captain and the episode is behind them.

A win here will see them escape the round robin, where this year they lost the opening match to Antrim and left themselves with a hill to climb, later managing to win the remaining matches against Carlow and Westmeath without hitting high gear.

Offaly's recent outings have included a private challenge match with Tipperary, in which they chalked up 1-25, although they conceded six goals. They have an inexperienced backline, with relatively new players and improvised forwards. From here up, they are at their strongest and in attack they have noted marksmen in Brian Carroll and Shane Dooley.

Laois are striving to take a scalp and make tangible strides, to build on the near misses against Galway in the last two years and for all of Offaly's troubles, a Laois win over them would be noteworthy in that it remains rare. Their progress under Plunkett isn't a figment of the imagination, however, even if the progress is painstaking at times. It is only four years since they took a 10-20 to 1-13 drubbing from Cork in the qualifiers. In the next round, Cork had only a point to spare over Offaly.

The gap between Offaly and Laois has closed remarkably since then. Offaly haven't beaten one of the higher-ranked counties since they overcame Limerick in 2010 in the qualifiers. Beating Laois won't transform them, but the importance at a time when their hurling morale is at such a low ebb can't be over- emphasised.

Damien Martin, the former Offaly All-Ireland winner, is part of a group hoping to have a blueprint to help revive the county's hurling fortunes accepted by the county board. This is the result of a Leinster Council initiative, which saw former Offaly manager, Diarmuid Healy, drafted in to explore ways of improving structures and coaching standards. Tommy Byrne, the Offaly board secretary, said a report carrying recommendations was with the management committee. "We will be looking at it in the next few weeks. We have to go through it first before putting it to the county board."

Martin, one of a number of ex-Offaly players involved in the initiative, said he was hopeful the plan would gain board approval. "We are trying to improve everything from the bottom up along," he said.


http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic- ... 83083.html

[Bord na Mona man]

This all sounds positive:

Damien Martin, the former Offaly All-Ireland winner, is part of a group hoping to have a blueprint to help revive the county's hurling fortunes accepted by the county board. This is the result of a Leinster Council initiative, which saw former Offaly manager, Diarmuid Healy, drafted in to explore ways of improving structures and coaching standards. Tommy Byrne, the Offaly board secretary, said a report carrying recommendations was with the management committee. "We will be looking at it in the next few weeks. We have to go through it first before putting it to the county board."

But then again. Exactly 10 years ago Johnny Flaherty said this:

"But things are changing in Offaly. We have a new chairman, one that’s willing to invest in hurling, and now the structures are in place. I’ve been put in charge of the underage, approached the members of the 80/81 team, and I got full co-operation. We have lovely young hurlers in Offaly, and lots of them. We had 45 U13 and 45 U15 at a training camp lately; I was watching them training one night, I just couldn’t believe what they were doing. I’m telling you, a year or two, we’ll be there with Kilkenny, we’ll have our underage organised."

[Bord na Mona man]

Also this is what Brian Whelahan said 10 years ago.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=272

Including

"There's an outcry now, but the writing was on the wall five years ago."

[Toxicity234]

We have lovely young hurlers in Offaly, and lots of them. We had 45 U13 and 45 U15 at a training camp lately; I was watching them training one night, I just couldn’t believe what they were doing. I’m telling you, a year or two, we’ll be there with Kilkenny, we’ll have our underage organised.

good man Bnm i spend ages last night trying to find this.
If ever a line summed up Offaly Problems. We have a group of Lovely hurlers. yeah it always good to have lovely hurlers but what we lack is mean competitive lads to enforce our game plan. Our minor are bully by teams cause were putting out 15 lovely hurlers. There was a time in Offaly when we had 4 of the hardest back in the county. kevin kinahan, Martin Hanney, Hugh Rigney and Kevin Martin. you messed with anyone on the offaly Team these lads would kill you.
In 1994 we had Brendan Kelly at full forward for his lovely hurling skill and Padraig Horan would dance around a full back to put the ball in the back of the net.
If we want to be competitive then you need competitive lads.

The biggest insult i ever hear given to an Offaly team was by Dónal O'Grady after Offaly beat Limerick in Aug 2008. O'Grady said on the Sunday game that when you stand back for Offaly there good hurler but if you stand into them they're easy enough to beat.

[Skip182]

For anyone still wondering why Laois has overtaken Offaly on the hurling field, have a read of the piece below from the Leinster Express on their Setanta Hurling Programme. It has been running for a number of years for 8 or 10 sessions over the summer. This is before the players get near their development squads which been competing well with the best in all tournaments. Offaly could do worse than copy the blueprint.

Laois Setanta Hurling Programme continues with the next session taking place on Saturday, June 20 in Heywood.
Over 140 players attended Day 3 and the standard was encouraging but still needs to improve significantly.
Clubs are kindly asked to please encourage their stronger players to attend as it will both benefit the club and Laois GAA.
The Setanta Programme is essentially aimed at higher level players who have the potential to be a member of a development squads in the future.
Setanta U11/12 Groups will take place from 9:30am to 11am. (Boys born in 2003 & 2004)
Setanta U-13 will take place from 11:30am to 1pm. (Boys born in 2002)

[Bord na Mona man]

John Mullane said this yesterday:

"Not too far away, as the crow flies, Laois were making waves of their own, storming past Offaly in Portlaoise.

This result didn't come as a surprise to me. It's the first time they've beaten Offaly in senior championship hurling since 1972 but when they met in the league earlier in the year, Laois would have won only for Shane Dooley.

Laois have made huge strides and getting Cheddar Plunkett back was massive in the build-up. For Offaly, it's a damaging setback and a huge reality check.

The way to improve is by working on underage structures - and Waterford should be their template."

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic- ... 84735.html

[townman]

look lads fair play to laois they were the better team on sunday by miles, now don't get me wrong Mullane and the sunday game were at it on sunday night laois have made great strides at underage
what have they won, they have beaten offaly minors the last few years so what, offaly hurling is at its lowest, they said laois underage is to be look at, Carlow beat them last week in the under 21, its the same carlow teams that offaly have hammer the last few years since 2013 at minor, nothing again laois best of luck to them but they aren't winning leinsters or anything, we beat them two years ago at under 21, Kilcormac/ Killoughey have beaten Camross and rathdowney/Errill in the last two leinster club meetings.

Sid was on the paper sunday saying we reach a new low again kilkenny in 2014, and we have made the changes to make it better, with Cillian Farrell, Damien Fox, and Des Shaw with there fitness, sorry Sid but getting hurl out the gate again Laois is worse than last years defeat to kilkenny.

the body languge was all wrong from the teams and Sid and John Troy before the game alot like last year they just walked around looking down at the ground, when their was a break in play laois got into groups and were getting one another going, offaly players were looking up into the stand.

i don't belive offaly hurling is that poor, we have the likes of Conor Doughan, Con Mahon, Conor Mahon, Damien Kilmartin, the two Gerarthys, Paul Cleary, sunday Cillian Kiely Tommy Carroll, Sean Cleary, left on the bench on till we were beaten and we were at half time. i'd go as far to say K/K would have gave laois a better game.

sundays team they done their best won't go knocking players who put in the efford over the winter months and their time , but sundays team it was no shock we were beaten, our two half back and centre back are forwards, Niall Wynne came in as a forward for Rynaghs in the championship, David Kings first championship start we had no settle team around him, midfield how long are they trying Sean Ryan there its not working never did, the forwards sorry but they might look good in training again that back line but not at the races when they meet a team in championship hurling, lord knows what Galway would have scored if we had to get through.

i am sure most will disagree with me but sure thats what has us in the hole we are in and we are only getting deeper.

[Bord na Mona man]

look lads fair play to laois they were the better team on sunday by miles, now don't get me wrong Mullane and the sunday game were at it on sunday night laois have made great strides at underage
what have they won,

Sweet jaysus, you're still at this!
3 or 4 years you were spouting the same about Dublin. Sure they'd win nothing back then, so their underage work was a waste of time.
Sure it's all wrong until it suddenly becomes right!
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5502&start=45#p32045

[Plain of the Herbs]

Great that he was able to put his local knowledge of hurling in Gracefield to good use.

look lads fair play to laois they were the better team on sunday by miles, now don't get me wrong Mullane and the sunday game were at it on sunday night laois have made great strides at underage
what have they won,

Sweet jaysus, you're still at this!
3 or 4 years you were spouting the same about Dublin. Sure they'd win nothing back then, so their underage work was a waste of time.
Sure it's all wrong until it suddenly becomes right!
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5502&start=45#p32045