Offaly v Carlow, Leinster round robin Saturday 7th May

[Exiled in Connacht]

Old Yellar - hard luck. I wasn't able to get to the match but I listened to CKLR coverage where the two lads while understandably looking at it from a Carlow perspective were fair I thought. They also did not know what second red card was for. First red was for pulling off a helmet which is a no no these days. I seem to remember Martin Hanamy doing this in the AI final in 1998 but things were different then !

I hope you keep posting here as you give a great perspective from outside of Offaly and it's good to see a non parochial perspective. Have we a chance against Kerry do you think ?

Sam - glad to here it wasn't James Dempsey who got a red card as we need everyone for the 22nd.

[fifitrixiebelle]

and please taxi for Eamon Kelly tonight sure to god someone in offaly could do a better job

sure maybe yerself shud take it over townman
me ole buddy kelly knows more about hurling than you would learn in a couple of lifetimes & so does conor gleeson

dese tipp lads will see ye right yet townman mark my words...

[old yellar]

Exiled, I surely do. I think ye ll have to up it a bit from todsy to do it. Kerry as ye ve seen have some fine hurlers. Tying up their centre back will have a big say in it. He sits back and screens the full back line. Hard working midfield and a couple of class forwards. They withdrew their big full forward, boyle, against us and it did create space for their inside line as our full back went with him. Their half forward line are good ball winners. I think ye might sit deep v them and dont allow them the space we afforded them. Home advantage surely a big plus for ye.
I still havent found out who has left your panel?

Ye are like us in terms of perhaps untapped potential county standard players not being able to commit to the regime that is now required. Finance, population, work etc are all big factors in things nowadays. We ve had huge struggles this year with getting a panel.together. huge player turnover, apathy etc. Like ye too, we havent had enough quality players coming through relative to what we used to have. But it happens. To give you an image of where we are, for the recent u17 celtic challenge, if we were to pick EVERY u17(born in 99) hurling in the county we d have a panel.of 30. Scary for the future. People gloss over a lot of stuff in these forums, ours too, and fail to look at the facts and where the sport is in both our counties.
On another note. Have ye really a need for that many senior clubs in the county? Would a tighter grouping improve club hurling. A lot of games are forgone conclusions and thats not just this year. Would 8 teams and play 7 games, top.2 semi, next 4 q finals, bottum 2 relegation. Might improve inter standard also. Just a thought.

[old yellar]

Pps! As an inside outsider so to speak, I thought ye played with passion today. I think sometimes people confuse errors, fitness issues, poor technique etc with lack of heart or not trying.

[Keiap]

To any idiot that makes call behind a private number. gobshit of the highest order.



I don't get this comment

[Bord na Mona man]

Vital win and well dug out under the circumstances.
Carlow eased into a lead with some decent scores that suggested they smelled blood in the water.
Offaly were clearly still reeling from last week and took a few minutes to start playing. Shane Dooley came to the fore with a series of scores to get Offaly back on terms.
The swing in Offaly's favour in the first half was the contrast in freetakers, where Carlow missed ones that Offaly didn't.

Offaly slightly had the upper hand for most of the rest of the game, but never pulled away. There was always the possibility of more Carlow goals. The two they got owed a lot to misjudgements in the Offaly full back line.
Offaly didn't lack effort, but were often let down by bad touches. With few ball winners in the forwards, Offaly are required to pick out the 30 or 40 metre ball to a colleague. Given the conditions, this was more difficult to do a sequence of these without an error.
Without the ball Offaly did keep the work rate going throughout.

The usual dopes will be itching to put the boot into Offaly after what seems like a narrow win against less heralded opposition. But this was never going to be an easy one given where Offaly are at right now. I'd expect a bit more confidence for the Kerry game and Offaly should win it.

[Attaboy]

To any idiot that makes call behind a private number. gobshit of the highest order.



I don't get this comment

http://www.midlands103.com/news-and-spo ... m-cowards/

[jimbob17]

Went in to game today and even looked forward to seeing hurlers in action - havent seen them much this year. Started slowly and looked to be in trouble early on but then hit 6 or 7 points in a row to be in good position at half time with wind to come in second half. Our worst period was at start of second half where we were totally dominated but Carlow must have hit 7 or 8 bad wides from scorable positions. But in fairness, The Offaly lads to a man, fought hard and put bodies on the line.

We shaded the rest of the game but one thing really frustrated me. Joe Bergin showed huge urgency leadership and talent when chips were down to create goal for Dooley and score himself but at moments when game was not so much in balance, he was largely anonymous. He3 is a potential all star but appears to be going through motions at times.

Others showed flashes of class including Paddy Murphy in forwards and Sean Gardiner at the back. Also thought Dermot Mooney had a fine game! Thought our midfield in stages were found wanting with the Carlow No8 dominating. I thought a few lads lacked a little but of pace around the middle including subs but overall we just shaded the game.

We are at a cross roads. The work hasn't gone in at underage and the current players are a product of our inadequate development system. We should support them, not blame them. Beat Kerry and we have Laois in a q-final (Westmeath top group irrespective of results now) so a Leinster semi final is still a very conceivable objective!

Why was Colin Egan not playing?

A side note, I thought the refereeing was absolutely atrocious. For a seasoned inter county ref, he was very hesitant and got countless decisions wrong on both sides. Players were obviously very frustrated.

[manfromdelmonte]

On a different note, I'm slightly bemused by the assertion that "hurling has become more a team game now in recent years, as opposed to a game for individuals where yo 'bate' the ball as long and as far as you can and it was up to the next fella to win his own ball". It's been quite a few years since my underage days, but this was always drummed into us, that where the corner back placed a ball was just as important as where the corner forward placed it. "Better slip the ball 10 yards to your own man, than drive it 100 to one of theirs" - hardly modern thinking? Sure, the running possession game changed things somewhat, but I don't think any decent hurler ever thought that belting it up the field and hoping for the best was the way to go, so i'm a bit surprised by this comment is all.

you'd be surprised what is coached to the average club hurler

you still here the calls of 'drop it into the square' at matches when there's 20 fellas crowded in there

[townman]

wasn't pretty but after last weekend anything will do, also fair play to westmeath went down to kerry and beat them Mick Ryan is going great work in westmeath. Kerry will be hard to beat but if we can get back Sean Ryan Egan, love to see Conor Doughan back we miss him badly in the halfback line.

funny a win in 2 weeks and its leix in tullamore another winable game after that who knows could be 1998 all over again fair play to the players it was hard to get off the floor after last weekends defeat.

[allstar2010]

We were never going to hammer Carlow. It was all about getting the win and that's what they did and Westmeath have done us a massive favour. Confidence was going to be rock bottom and they should character to pick themselves and after going 0-5 0-1 down I was thinking "oh no". But fair play to Dooley for standing up to the plate. Now players and management have two weeks to get themselves in the right frame of mind for a battle against Kerry.

[sam88885a]

what the story with c egan ?is his injury serious . will s ryan be back for the kerry game ? c kiely had bad injury to his arm and probally should not have played from what i hear. if all three were right for the kerry game it would be a big help .
Dont think we picked up any more knocks yesterday which is great because playing 3 games so close injuries are always a big risk . glad to see d short finding good form and with s gardner back and getting a game under his belt.
hopefully the tide has turned for us .

[old yellar]

Sam, I d have to disagree with some of your analysis!

[kingscounty]

Hard week , well done to all involved . Two weeks of good hard preparation and one or two players back and let's take the game to Kerry in Tullamore. Huge support needed for the next game , positive thoughts for the next two weeks from me on here .

[sam88885a]

Hard week , well done to all involved . Two weeks of good hard preparation and one or two players back and let's take the game to Kerry in Tullamore. Huge support needed for the next game , positive thoughts for the next two weeks from me on here .

agree totally lets be positive ,
we should have beaten kerry in birr ,
we have learnt from that .
kerry will be without two key players and we will have most lads back .
we are at home with all the home support behind us.
better weather so faster hurling .
the prize for winning is laois .
lets impose offalys game on kerry.