Offaly GAA - in Crisis

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Bord na Mona man »

Offaly GAA at an 'all time low', says Gavin
15 July 2017

All-Ireland hurling final referee Brian Gavin reckons Offaly GAA has hit rock bottom.

The Faithful County has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently. First Pat Flanagan was sacked as football manager. This was followed by resignation of the hurling implementation committee en bloc and a walkout by Birr GAA chairman Willie Rigney and secretary Dave Bolger in frustration at the lack of big hurling games being fixed for St. Brendan’s Park at the July county board meeting.

At the same meeting, Gavin – in his capacity as Clara GAA chairman – said something drastic needed to be done to turn the county’s fortunes around.

“We need help and we need it fairly quick. We can’t keep going the way we are going,” he said.

Gavin is part of a five-man committee charged with overseeing the appointments of Offaly’s senior, U20 and U17 hurling managements for 2018.

sam88885a
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by sam88885a »

Fair play to Brian Gavin , he is a straight talker .He really care about hurling

kingscounty
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by kingscounty »

Kevin Ryan steps aside as Offaly Hurling manager!!! Keeps getting better

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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by substandard »

http://offaly.gaa.ie/2017/07/17/kevin-r ... pointment/
Honest appraisal from the man himself, but I'm wondering about his use of the word 'traditionalist'...

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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Bord na Mona man »

substandard wrote:but I'm wondering about his use of the word 'traditionalist'...
Unfortunately we know what it implies.
Though at this rate we should probably just put a 'get rid of it' merchant in charge.
If players are going to play modern style of hurling, they need to be learning it well before they hit senior.

shamlads
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by shamlads »

Oh please CB will ye stand aside.if ye have any bit of decency in ye at all,just walk.Surely ye can see what a shambles ye have made of this once proud county.Well Bab's was a man before his time when he stated about sheep in a heap.trouble is all the sheep are at the top table.ABSOLUTE DISGRACE.

NewEra
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by NewEra »

Can we go any lower?

What does it take for people of Offaly to stand up to this and pressurise the CB properly to stand aside? I am sick listening to people here talk about the democratic process. If something is so rotten to the core people need to stand up against it.

Next CB meeting in September....lovely....allows the lads stick the heads in the sand and everything blow over. No management will be appointed till November IMO. No plan. No future. No hope.

I don't care if it is amateur and the CB invest their personal time. If you are incapable at your job you are let go. If there is scandal after scandal and failure after failure you should resign or be forced out.

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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Bord na Mona man »

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2017/0718/891096-duignan/

'It's one disaster after another in Offaly', says Michael Duignan

Former Offaly hurler and RTÉ hurling analyst Michael Duignan said he was "shocked" to learn of Kevin Ryan's resignation as Offaly hurling manager this morning.

And Duignan says that his successor will have a very difficult job as the county is still not producing the quality of player capable of competing with the elite counties.

Ryan, who hurled for Waterford throughout the 1980s, resigns as Offaly manager after only one season in charge.

In 2017, Offaly won one game from six in their National League campaign and beat Leinster qualifying group winners Westmeath in dramatic fashion in the Leinster hurling quarter-final in Mullingar.

However, they were hammered by both Galway and Waterford and exited the championship limply on 1 July.

Ryan said he was leaving as his "reappointment would be divisive and make progress for Offaly hurling extremely difficult."

Duignan said he was surprised by the decision as Ryan had indicated he wished to remain for a three-year term.

"I'm a bit shocked. Because the noises Kevin had been making was that he wanted to stay on for a three-year term.

"Obviously he has gauged the mood among the players and some other people since the Waterford game and he has decided to go.

"I hadn't heard an awful lot about it locally.

"But there was a level of discontent after he made the comments before the Waterford match where he said that avoiding a slaughtering was the best we could hope for against Waterford.

"A lot of people felt that was going into a game with the wrong attitude."

Ryan is second successive Offaly manager to leave after just one year with Éamonn Kelly having departed following the conclusion of a tumultuous 2016 season.


Duignan says whoever fills the role will have a difficult job and expressed his frustration at the slow pace of the reform of Offaly's underage hurling structures.

"Whoever is managing Offaly in the morning is going to have a very, very tough task until we improve our schools, until we improve our underage.

"We're just not producing the player that's good enough for a top coach to work with at senior level.

"The football manager (Pat Flanagan) is gone as well. It just seems to have been one disaster after another and there's the two managers gone again.

"So, it's back to the drawing board."

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Bord na Mona man »

NewEra wrote:Can we go any lower?
Yes.

Truth as i see it
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Truth as i see it »

For me the simple fact is until the county board (and the players judging by Sean Ryan's comments) Change their outlook on modern hurling, we will continue to struggle in the modern game, they can either carry on regardless though even the carry on crew are starting to look more competent right now, (sorry CB but recent events back up my statement) or they learn from the successes of other counties and try to implement a proper modern hurling programme, i wouldn't hold my breath on that one though judging on the last fiasco

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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Towerus »

If the modern game means employing two or more sweepers and simultaneously killing off forwards' chances of scoring, then hurling is on its last legs, as the game will become almost unwatchable. Yep it's a shame that we've let yet another manager go, but honestly in this case I think it would have been a bigger wrong to try and persist with the "plan" we witnessed in the last few months. Apart from being dreadful for spectators, it does the current players a great injustice. They are better than that. Nobody in their right mind could deny that too little work was put in at underage for too long, but too many are buying in to the notion that the current generation are a lost cause, which is grossly unfair. We mightn't be about to win a string of All Irelands, but we damn well could be a lot more competitive than we've shown recently. The likes of Shane Dooley shouldn't need to be watching other matches and tweeting wistfully about long diagonal ball in to the forwards, it should be a natural part of the game.

Blame the CB to high heaven, but this is one decision I find myself in agreement with!

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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by sam88885a »

There is no surprise here Kevin Ryan was wrong for the job day 1,
After the first meeting guys knew that he was a journeyman .
This time we need A managment team that cares and understands offaly hurling.Then we can stop the rot

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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by jimbob17 »

Ah lads, what is going on at all. Offaly hurling needs a root and branch revolution to address the pot. Sure who would even want the job given what has gone on recently with the stepping down of hurling development committee.
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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Truth as i see it »

Towerus wrote:If the modern game means employing two or more sweepers and simultaneously killing off forwards' chances of scoring, then hurling is on its last legs, as the game will become almost unwatchable. Yep it's a shame that we've let yet another manager go, but honestly in this case I think it would have been a bigger wrong to try and persist with the "plan" we witnessed in the last few months. Apart from being dreadful for spectators, it does the current players a great injustice. They are better than that. Nobody in their right mind could deny that too little work was put in at underage for too long, but too many are buying in to the notion that the current generation are a lost cause, which is grossly unfair. We mightn't be about to win a string of All Irelands, but we damn well could be a lot more competitive than we've shown recently. The likes of Shane Dooley shouldn't need to be watching other matches and tweeting wistfully about long diagonal ball in to the forwards, it should be a natural part of the game.

Blame the CB to high heaven, but this is one decision I find myself in agreement with!
I'm not going to disagree with the fact that the players are not capable of more, iv'e always been of the belief that if they were looked after properly then they would be in a better place to compete instead of having one arm tied behind their back, at least then they would have no excuses if they were beaten by the better team, i just think that the lack of resources that's given to both hurlers and footballers is down to the county board no understanding what it takes to compete in the modern game whether that's through sheer ignorance or a delusional belief that it worked in the 80s it'll work now. listen i'm not here to give the county board flack for the sake of it, i desperately want them to come up with a better vision and a way forward for the county and i thought we had that with the hurling plan at least but given recent events i can't but give them flack, this is a results business that they are in and whether they like it or not their decisions directly effect the direction that this county are going in both a positive and negative way, when they do something right i will be only too happy to praise them for it. As for playing a defensive style game i agree that its not pretty to watch and i would rather see us playing hurling the way it should be played but we have to get real and say that playing the traditional way will not make us competitive in the modern game, maybe once we have started to get a bit of consistency we can start to introduce the Offaly flair to our game but until that time if we want to get back to the top table we will have to start employing a more tactical defensive approach i'm afraid

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Re: Offaly GAA - in Crisis?

Post by Truth as i see it »

Well that didn't take long did it, just after checking out the video of the Faithful fields and i must say i'm very impressed, i'm a man of my word so to all involved including the county board well done on an excellent job, now can we please see the same kind of vision repeated at underage level please, well done again

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