Laois v Offaly – Leinster Hurling Quarter Final 7th June

[Bord na Mona man]

the senior footballers were away at a training camp last week thats their reward for been beaten by longford .

You're some begrudger! Maybe a training camp might yield the extra bit of improvement needed to beat teams like Longford. Or would you rather kick them harder when they're down.

[suckindiesel]

in about 3 weeks time the likelihood is that offaly and laois will be in the pots for the qualifier games and if drawn against munster teams we may be out of the championship at the same time, that could be cold comfort.

laois had shown nothing all year to recommend a performance like today hence my pessimistic forecast, though I will add the omens in the last seven days were favouring laois, and I could not believe my eyes when I saw the offaly team, it must be the first time in 30 years that offaly lined up with 3 ordinary players manning the half back line. as an outsider looking in, I am flummoxed as to how anyone can pick parlon on an inter county team as a defender, the healions may be no usain bolts but they can defend!.

I have no idea what the long term consequences of this win will have for laois, it is nice to beat a neighbour after many years of misery, the boyos in clonaslee will be living off it for some time to come. winning today shifts us up to number 10 in the ranking.

arresting the slide for OY is not going to be any easy task. to have a chance in modern hurling, you require 3 elements: the raw material, a gameplan and a professional set up. the latter can be the simplest to establish with financial input, gameplan, although considered alien to many OY fans can also be handily mastered(reference K/K your county champs), the biggest problem is raw material, I don't think it is there...you may beg to differ, if you do, apart from Dempsey who is a fine goalkeeper, how many of the team today numbered 2-9, would have got on any previous offaly all Ireland winning panel?, I would say none, you may locate 2 or 3 replacements for those 8 in offaly, but you don't have 8.

for offalys sake the one draw I hope you avoid is away to clare, laois had that two years ago and it was a cruel exposure.

well done POTH on his calculated prediction.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Will you enjoy your win, for tonight at least, and not be picking holes in it! You can do that in a few days time.

in about 3 weeks time the likelihood is that offaly and laois will be in the pots for the qualifier games and if drawn against munster teams we may be out of the championship at the same time, that could be cold comfort.

laois had shown nothing all year to recommend a performance like today hence my pessimistic forecast, though I will add the omens in the last seven days were favouring laois, and I could not believe my eyes when I saw the offaly team, it must be the first time in 30 years that offaly lined up with 3 ordinary players manning the half back line. as an outsider looking in, I am flummoxed as to how anyone can pick parlon on an inter county team as a defender, the healions may be no usain bolts but they can defend!.

I have no idea what the long term consequences of this win will have for laois, it is nice to beat a neighbour after many years of misery, the boyos in clonaslee will be living off it for some time to come. winning today shifts us up to number 10 in the ranking.

arresting the slide for OY is not going to be any easy task. to have a chance in modern hurling, you require 3 elements: the raw material, a gameplan and a professional set up. the latter can be the simplest to establish with financial input, gameplan, although considered alien to many OY fans can also be handily mastered(reference K/K your county champs), the biggest problem is raw material, I don't think it is there...you may beg to differ, if you do, apart from Dempsey who is a fine goalkeeper, how many of the team today numbered 2-9, would have got on any previous offaly all Ireland winning panel?, I would say none, you may locate 2 or 3 replacements for those 8 in offaly, but you don't have 8.

for offalys sake the one draw I hope you avoid is away to clare, laois had that two years ago and it was a cruel exposure.

well done POTH on his calculated prediction.

[sam88885a]

Well done to laois and chedder , laois has many bad days and today the deserve their win . they were by far the best team .

Offaly on the other hand have been in free fall since B Whelahan first league game in tullamore against laois last year .
His record as a club manager was terrible so it should be no surprise that he is an even bigger failure at intrecounty level.

If B Whelahan cares about offaly hurling he should resign tommorow .

imagine if O baker or Danny Owens were in charge today we have Dathie Michael Duignan Johnny PILkington and probably Sid himself lambasting the mismanagment ofoffaly hurling .

Today is a new low for offaly hurling but its not surprising , apart from d shortt none of that defence would make the current kilcormac killoughey team and d shortt would not make full back for kk .
Put it another way does anyone think that the offaly defence would curtail the ballyhale forward line like kk did.

Some of the guys that started today can train till the cows come home and the will never make good club hurlers .

BRIAN WHELAHAN should never have been considered for the offaly job and he should have been sacked after last year league , hopefully some of his friends will tell his to do the right thing for offaly hurling now and go now before he does even more harm .
Offaly hurling has problems at ever level but B Whelahan is making things worse .

[gutless08]

Well done Laois on a fully deserved victory today showing a gameplan,a system,hunger,desire,physicality, a bullying mentality and a high level of skill ,stickwork and accurate shooting.

In contrast Offaly were soft,no appetite, mentally weak, no gameplan, no ability to change , play the corners ,avoid the sweeper,catch/win ball, i could go on all day.

How a manager who was one of the finest wing backs ever to play the game could look at our wing back ball watch,follow the ball not his man,be bullied and at times be Twenty yards of his man for the first 35 minutes shocked me.This alone cost us 4-5 points and two more after the break when switched.

I dont want to be critical of players who train in awful weather,lose money,family time, pick up injurys that will remain long after the jersey is passed on etc , but walking out of O"Moore park i was devastated at the performance, the lack of drive,fight to win the ball.Maybe i am alone but it felt like the longest walk back to the car in the world.I passed former greats Padraig Horan,Johny Flaherty and 1994 goal hero Pat o" Connor and i wondered what they thought.

Sorry for the moan just feels like a Death in the family.

[Sharp Eye]

Laois took control of the game in the 10 minutes at the end of the first half. Offaly management failed to address many of the issues that were clear to all at half time. No changes were made to the half back line which had failed badly. It is difficult to believe that no substitute was introduced in the 10 minutes before half time and only one substitute was introduced at half time. I think the only change that was made in the half back line was enforced due to an injury. The Offaly Co Board must ensure that an suitably qualified senior hurling management team is in place before the Quarter Finals of this years Offaly Club championship. Yesterday showed us to be a "round robin" team. We have to "qualify" from the round robin in order to play in the Leinster Hurling Championship in 2016. Any further drop in standards, will mean "The Christy Ring" in 2017.

[Bord na Mona man]

Each year retirements and departures diminish the panel further. When a Rory Hanniffy retires, we don’t have the equivalent entering the conveyor belt at the other end.

Yesterday we were short on tight marking backs as Hyland, Dwyer and Keenan had a day of shooting practice. A couple of years ago, someone like James Rigney would have been welded to one of them and making them scrap for every ball. The same goes for catchers. A couple of years back our half forward line could have had Conor Mahon, Derek Molloy, Ger Healion and Colin Egan in it who are all blue chip fielders.

There aren’t any quick fixes, but we have a great example over in Leix at how things can be turned around. It isn’t so long ago they were shipping 10 goal trashings in the championship.
Maybe we just need to clear the decks in terms of thinking and personnel when it comes to hurling development. Maybe forget we ever won All Irelands and start from the absolute bottom instead of trying to draw from the well we think we already have. At the moment, every year and every new low has people announcing that Offaly have hit ‘rock bottom’. Trust me, there are more rock bottoms we are on course to hit over the next 10 years at the current rate.

[Toxicity234]

I feel sorry for Brian Whelehan he had the potential to be an excellent manager, if he had learn the trade of management through a club and was willing to build up his ability.Now his Management will always be mark by his time in charge of Offaly.

Today was coming for the last 10 years at inter county level.
Appointing Managers at all level that haven't manage or been interested in managing clubs. Appointing Managers that have showing NO ability to improve teams they have managed. Appointing Managers because they have Won all ireland medals ahead of lads doing the ground work in Offaly gaa and ahead of lad that have improved team.

Bad manager(I mean Bad Managers in terms of inexperienced or manager that just are not ready to manage a club team let alone an inter county team) playing players in position they just can't play. Bad Managers unwilling to make big call we blessed to have two great full forwards in Joe Bergin and Dan Currims but only one can play. Putting these lads anywhere but full forward is madness. Bad manager playing inside forwards in half forwards line in position they never have the ability to to play. Bad manager playing Forward in the defence we have enough defender in the county so why not play defenders in the defence. 10 years of bullshit at all level has drags us down to a level that Offaly hurling should not be at.

Today was a prime example of bad management, bad team selection and bad coaching.
Offaly Picked a team with 6 inside forward in it. Carroll Bergin, Dooley , Parlon, Currams and Mulrooney. 3 Half forwards Egan, Nolan and Murphy but only one in the half forward line. Our Defence had only 4 defender in it and honestly when King moved out the field today look like the best offaly midfielder on the park.
Offaly Today beat themselves. Our so called backs turnover to much ball. We ran ourselves into Laois tackles all day and broke almost none. only Kiely made any headway. The real Shame here is that Keily has more bottle and fight that some lads that have been offaly superstars who have zero able to fight for a ball.(and yes i still think he too young to be playing inter county hurling)
The 1st thing Laois did was to flatten an Offaly forward and send out the message that Offaly were going to get nothing easy. If an Offaly player did that the Offaly manager would take a player off for do that in case he get sent off.
Our 1st touch today was poor today.

Terrible day for Offaly Hurling but a great day for Laois. Laois Development Squad are full of lads that would kill you to win a ball. Offaly Development Squad are full of lads that have lovely skill and little or no fight.
Laois are developing there players. Offaly are destroying there,
Yesterday it dawn on me something that shock me to the core. The damage done to the players within Offaly gaa by our inter-county managers over the last 10 years and particularly over the last 18 months means that i may never see an Offaly team in a lenister final again. The damage to the players within the county has been that bad. That real sad.

for the last 10 years we heard the stupid excuse. That some players don't have the pace for inter county hurling and can be picked. Most of these lads are the one that have natural fight, natural power and natural leadership but because our manager are just poor they can only seen these lads weakness not what great thing they bring to the team.

Whelehan interview after the match was a throw back to last year. He took no responsible. the player had no fight but he has no management ability at the moment.
One other thing that fucking pissed me off some yesterday. Offaly played laois in the league and Murphy and kinsella were outstanding. Kinsella scored 3 points and stop the whole laois back line by putting his body on the line. yesterday he sat on the bench for the whole match and we played James Mulrooney who doesn't have half the fight of Kinsella. A manager is meant to learn for game Whelehan has the memory of a goldfish.

Whelehan and his team have to go. Respect the hurler he was but skill and all ireland medal don't make him a manager. That something The Offaly County board has to learn.
If Whelehan doesn't walk then the county board should push him today or tomorrow before he implode and we get a 60 point hammering off someone.

[azoffaly]

the senior footballers were away at a training camp last week thats their reward for been beaten by longford .

You're some begrudger! Maybe a training camp might yield the extra bit of improvement needed to beat teams like Longford. Or would you rather kick them harder when they're down.

It's an odd thing to criticise the county board for being money hungry and not caring about the underage and senior teams

anyway i am sure our county board will be happy with the laois and Galway game in tullamore its all about the money in offaly fcuk the underage and senior teams.

And then bemoan the fact that the Senior team have been away on a training camp.

[kaiserchief]

I feel sorry for Brian Whelehan he had the potential to be an excellent manager, if he had learn the trade of management through a club and was willing to build up his ability.Now his Management will always be mark by his time in charge of Offaly.

Today was coming for the last 10 years at inter county level.
Appointing Managers at all level that haven't manage or been interested in managing clubs. Appointing Managers that have showing NO ability to improve teams they have managed. Appointing Managers because they have Won all ireland medals ahead of lads doing the ground work in Offaly gaa and ahead of lad that have improved team.

Bad manager(I mean Bad Managers in terms of inexperienced or manager that just are not ready to manage a club team let alone an inter county team) playing players in position they just can't play. Bad Managers unwilling to make big call we blessed to have two great full forwards in Joe Bergin and Dan Currims but only one can play. Putting these lads anywhere but full forward is madness. Bad manager playing inside forwards in half forwards line in position they never have the ability to to play. Bad manager playing Forward in the defence we have enough defender in the county so why not play defenders in the defence. 10 years of bullshit at all level has drags us down to a level that Offaly hurling should not be at.

Today was a prime example of bad management, bad team selection and bad coaching.
Offaly Picked a team with 6 inside forward in it. Carroll Bergin, Dooley , Parlon, Currams and Mulrooney. 3 Half forwards Egan, Nolan and Murphy but only one in the half forward line. Our Defence had only 4 defender in it and honestly when King moved out the field today look like the best offaly midfielder on the park.
Offaly Today beat themselves. Our so called backs turnover to much ball. We ran ourselves into Laois tackles all day and broke almost none. only Kiely made any headway. The real Shame here is that Keily has more bottle and fight that some lads that have been offaly superstars who have zero able to fight for a ball.(and yes i still think he too young to be playing inter county hurling)
The 1st thing Laois did was to flatten an Offaly forward and send out the message that Offaly were going to get nothing easy. If an Offaly player did that the Offaly manager would take a player off for do that in case he get sent off.
Our 1st touch today was poor today.

Terrible day for Offaly Hurling but a great day for Laois. Laois Development Squad are full of lads that would kill you to win a ball. Offaly Development Squad are full of lads that have lovely skill and little or no fight.
Laois are developing there players. Offaly are destroying there,
Yesterday it dawn on me something that shock me to the core. The damage done to the players within Offaly gaa by our inter-county managers over the last 10 years and particularly over the last 18 months means that i may never see an Offaly team in a lenister final again. The damage to the players within the county has been that bad. That real sad.

for the last 10 years we heard the stupid excuse. That some players don't have the pace for inter county hurling and can be picked. Most of these lads are the one that have natural fight, natural power and natural leadership but because our manager are just poor they can only seen these lads weakness not what great thing they bring to the team.

Whelehan interview after the match was a throw back to last year. He took no responsible. the player had no fight but he has no management ability at the moment.
One other thing that fucking pissed me off some yesterday. Offaly played laois in the league and Murphy and kinsella were outstanding. Kinsella scored 3 points and stop the whole laois back line by putting his body on the line. yesterday he sat on the bench for the whole match and we played James Mulrooney who doesn't have half the fight of Kinsella. A manager is meant to learn for game Whelehan has the memory of a goldfish.

Whelehan and his team have to go. Respect the hurler he was but skill and all ireland medal don't make him a manager. That something The Offaly County board has to learn.
If Whelehan doesn't walk then the county board should push him today or tomorrow before he implode and we get a 60 point hammering off someone.

I agree with everything said here and i think this would be the opinion of most hurling people around the county.

We can say about the lack of structure in our underage, I and 99% of people would agree with this but we also have to look @ the now.
Maybe the loss yesterday will help EVERYONE to eventually wake up and smell the coffee. I don't think building a new center of excellence is going to change anything over night, it will be great to have the facilities the should be in place at least 5 years already but we first have to first try develop some excellence to go their.

For me the county board has to go.. The same faces in their for years and appear not to have a clue between them. All in their patting each other on the back getting, talking poo and getting their perks and freebies!! We need young minds that can turn and steer the ship for he future.. There are people in this county doing great work with clubs and have excellent ideas and these should be the people sought after.

I do feel sorry for Whelan. He just hasn't got the personality or management skills to get the best out of what we have and never wanted the job in the first place. He has burned too many bridges with players over the last two years and his team selections have been crazy to say the least. I think for himself and his self respect he should walk and the search for a new manager be put in place.

We now need to spend money to get a charismatic manager who has influence and has a proven track record with a tenure of 4 to 5 years put in place. Pat Flanagan is the man for the football because he proved himself with other counties but we have no such man for the hurling. i would prefer a home grown manager but i dont think their is anyone for the job.. Anthony Daly or Liam Sheedy would be the perfect candidates but with the county board in place at the moment.

CHANGE HAS TO COME... WE CANT KEEP DOING THINGS THE SAME WAY AND EXPECT HUGE IMPROVEMENTS!!

[azoffaly]

Lads, how much would Liam Sheedy or Anthony Daly cost? We have to be realistic here. If we want to spend a shit load of money on that sort of outside expertise, we have to understand that that money is not available for other things. Remember, a high profile manager will want to invest heavily in the head of the dragon, the senior team. He will not necessarily be worried about a resultant shortage in development squads etc. I'd love a big name manager, and the instant bounce you'd get from that, but can we afford it? And if we could afford it, is that something we should really be spending money on?

[ah lethimoutwithit]

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.
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,
3) Someone made the point that Joe Bergin and Dam Currams are "brilliant full forwards". I rest my case.
4) Anthony Daly or Liam Sheedy?????? Are you nuts, 75k a year minimum.

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????"

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!!

[Bord na Mona man]

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.
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,
3) Someone made the point that Joe Bergin and Dam Currams are "brilliant full forwards". I rest my case.
4) Anthony Daly or Liam Sheedy?????? Are you nuts, 75k a year minimum.

5) Move hurling to Birr!

[onthefence]

Fair play to Laois for the win and for sticking with a gameplan/system that for a 15 min spell went wrong but had trust in what they were doing despite their supporters shouting to go man on man.

As for Offaly most of the points have been covered on how bad Offaly were. What beggars belief is the BW hurled half back most of his career but looked at a half back line concede at least 13 points from play (I think Keenan scored 2 from play from midfield) and not make a change. I might be wrong don't have programme to hand but did we only have 2 backs as subs E Murphy and D Mooney?

I said it before a managers job is to get the 6 inches between a players head right, that the player believes in the system they are trying to play and believes in his management and his team mates and unfortunately BW is not capable of this. Offaly players are not as bad as they have been shown up the last couple of years, they have been let down buy a selection committee who puts management in place and the management.
There has been plenty of examples in the near past of management changing the fortune of teams ie McGunness in Donegal, Davy in Clare, McGrath in Waterford, heck even Owens with KK ok these guys would have had better raw material to work with and im not saying with the right manger we will win an AI but we should be a lot more competitive.

IMO there is decent talent and numbers and effort being put in by most clubs at U6 up to U14 level, from this age on development squads in Offaly kick in but its alarming how many young lads are not interested in hurling for there county and wont commit for one reason or another but I think one reason is they have no heros to look up to they see a senior team losing time and time again! Thats why a competitive senior team is so important, that's why we have to invest in a senior team.

BTW both Laois and Offaly's goalie and subgoalie's where from the same clubs Abbyleix and Kinnity I think this must be a first.

[Plain of the Herbs]

The continued decline of Offaly hurling will not be halted by bringing in an outside manager at huge expense. Reason: Offaly hurling has been left way behind and is now so far behind other Division 1B teams that the situation is dire. Only a lack of inter-club bitterness (thankfully) keeps offaly threading water.

Every year we have this debate here. Every year the words ‘rock’ and ‘bottom’ get wheeled out. Every year sacking the county board becomes a mantra. Great summertime debate. How many contested those positions at convention? It’s on another thread here.

I attended Limerick v Clare in Thurles a few weeks ago, with a visitor from abroad who never saw hurling before. Some who watched it on television said it was disappointing. I thought it was brilliant. The pace, the hitting, the physicality, the refereeing (light touch regulation), the skill. Point is, it was a totally different game to the one Offaly are playing. Completely different stratosphere.

Offaly hurlers can’t do the basics, because it just isn’t coached at a young age. I’m not talking about striking, hooking, and fetching (though it grated yesterday to see a man who was chronically one-sided get repeatedly turned over). Offaly hurlers can’t use overlaps, they botch them by running at the opposing player at the wrong angle. They can’t handpass anyway – the pass never goes straight to hand, it has to hop on the ground twice before being fumbled. In short, Offaly can’t paly as a team. And yesterday we had fifteen individuals facing a team. The individual thing isn’t rooted in a selfishness, far from it, rather they are taught from a young age to bate the ball when they get it, to let the next man fight for it himself.

And puckouts. Clued in teams do short puckouts for a reason, whether to create overlaps, or draw out the opposition out of position and change the angle of the attack. Look at Leix yesterday, who scored so many points from about 50 metres by playing a delivery low to Hyland or Dwyer who were expecting that ball to come the way it did, because they played a s a team. Offaly’s short game was a mess – no method (other than they saw it on television some time), the ball had to hop twice before being handled anyway. By the way, James Dempsey doesn’t play in goal for his club.

The Leix hurling supporters club put up advertising posters along the road side reading ‘This is Laois hurling country’. In Offaly we have commemorations for Séamus Darby and Johnny Flaherty. Remember Offalys Future here telling lads “quit living in the past”?

How many of Offaly’s All-Ireland winning hurlers have gone on to make successful coaches? None at inter-county level anyway. Padraig Horan won a Club All-Ireland with Birr and an NHL with Offaly, Joachim was involved with Portumna when they made their breakthrough, Paddy Kirwan with Castletown, Danny Owens now with Kilcormac, though his role seems to be more management than coaching. As time goes on, Joe Dooley’s four year tenure with Offaly becomes relatively successful. And that’s about it. At the other end of the spectrum we have had a ludramauns, culminating with a bus hijacking episode on the way home from a defeat in Mullingar.

Underage structures would be one thing, but who would do the strategic planning, direct them, manage them, organise them, set targets, review performance? Various underage development squads have taken place in the last decade, but they just haven’t worked.

Serious coaching is left to the clubs, and so club hurlers are developed, and the best chance of Offaly hurling success in recent years has been in November.

I found the following recently. It is from the 1998 Offaly yearbook, published in association with the now departed Offaly Express and Offaly GAA. Summing up the disastrous U21 team that year, Alan Walsh began his article “Offaly hurling was issued with a stark warning on Wednesday, June 24 in Portlaoise when the under 21’s received a twenty points drubbing – 3-24 to 1-10 – from Kilkenny after an embarrassing and humiliating Leinster semi-final”.

He continues “This exceptionally poor performance gave credence to the theory that when Offaly’s more established senior stars call it a day, the county will be in dire straits and facing a fall from grace.”

And the piece concluded “The bottom line was that Kilkenny were in an altogether different class, skill wise and heart wise, and it was a galling performance that brought home to many @Faithful’ fans the problems that could lie ahead for Offaly hurling.”

At the time, Alan probably got the same treatment that fella who first told us the earth was round got. That was written 17 years ago this year. And Offaly hurling still thinks the earth is flat.