www.uibhfhaili.com

so basically Sunday is all or nothing game for us..

Stephen Wallace and his Management Team have announced their panel to face Sligo on Sunday in the 6th Round of the Allianz National Football League at 3pm in Bord na Mona O'Connor Park.

1. Paddy Dunican (Shamrocks)
2. Declan Hogan (Tullamore)
3. Paul McConway (Tullamore)
4. Sean Pender (Edenderry)
5. David Dempsey (Ballycommon)
6. James Lalor (Raheen)
7. Niall Darby (Rhode)
8. Peter Cunningham (Bracknagh)
9. Michael Brazil (Tullamore)
10. Conor McNamee (Rhode)
11. Anton Sullivan (Rhode)
12. Cian Donohue (St. Brigid's)
13. Bernard Allen (Tubber)
14. Conor Carroll (Raheen)
15. Nigel Dunne (Shamrocks)
16. Alan Mulhall (Walsh Island)
17. Shane Tierney (Daingean)
18. Cian Johnson (Ferbane)
19. Craig Dunne (Gracefield)
20. David Brady (Edenderry)
21. Jordan Hayes (Edenderry)
22. Shane Nally (Ferbane)
23. Sean Doyle (Edenderry)
24. Aaron Hensey (Tullamore)
25. Jack Egan (Ferbane)
26. Bobby O'Dea (Durrow)

kaiserchief wrote:so basically Sunday is all or nothing game for us..

And the following Sunday.

Following pitch inspection this morning, both games going ahead today.
Hurling 1:30
Football 3:15

So now:

We have to beat Westmeath and also hope that Derry and Slugo don't end up w a draw.

Is that what it comes down to for this weekend?

If we beat westmeath by more than 5 points then we would have a better scoring difference than Sligo.

Looking at it division 3 will be easier next year with Louth, Carlow and Laois in it. When we couldn't beat wh with a much stronger team than current the last few years division 4 comes. Westmeath have nothing to play for unless Longford and Fermanagh draw and they beat us by about 20 points.

I'm struggling to remember worse muck than that witnessed today, I really am.
We were promised open, attacking sexy football but what is being offered up is clueless defensive rubbish. Our hurlers have proved that manning up and playing 6 forwards and having a cut at teams can yield far better results than than having everybody behind the ball.
I'll sum it up. When Offaly don't have the ball everybody bar 1 forward retreats into their own half. They run around not really sure what to do or who to pick up. Sometimes this even confuses the opposition as it did with Sligo today and they turn over the ball a few times. Instead of Offaly then breaking with pace they patiently hand pass the ball back and over around the full back line keeper giving the opposition time to bring their 14 men behind the ball before slowly hand passing to the middle of the field. Then it's a case and handpassing it all the way back to the keeper or on the odd occasion Brazil or Cunningham will make a burst for it into crowded areas with no support and it gets turned over or if they are lucky handpassed all the way back to the keeper and so forth for 70 odd minutes. Lads on the pitch can't be enjoying this at all. Westmeath will win by whatever amount they want to next Sunday. Wallace should play 6 forwards next week....take the shackles off and let them play like he promised he would, if they are bet they are bet but at least try to win the game. The wind today was very strong yet we made no effort at all to push on with it.....in fact we allowed Sligo possession from every kickout uncontested. Can't see Wallace being around next year.

That was hard to look at, two teams equally bad as each other! Sligo, let's be honest, left it behind them. Camped in our half in second half and hit crossbar twice.

I don't want to be too hard on players as good shape of them are young and in early stages of inter county career but you have to question the way we are playing. All sideways and backwards and shocking support play. Sligo were even worse and even played a sweeper when playing with strong wind which was ludicrous. We deserved our lead at half time and might have been further ahead but second half was as bad as I've ever seen. We were afraid to attack and when we did it was toothless and devoid of any creative spark. These players are better than that in my opinion and by the looks of things, it will be a short year.

Have to win next day now or we are down which is something I can't see happening unfortunately.

On the plus side, well done to hurlers on good performance. Just shows that when we get our best players in and training properly with proper organisation, we can mix it with the best in the country. It should be the case in football too but unfortunately at the moment, we are way off where we should be!

Unfortunately, wasn’t around to attend the game today.
Was the performance worse than the Longford match?

Inconveniently, we don’t either (A) have the same level of buy in as the hurlers do, or (B) have an almost exclusively outside management team with a very shallow knowledge of our varying grades of football.

We’d have a very good team if every player playing in the county committed. Unfortunately, not the case. Not sure why.

Hard to beat the Longford game but in certain respects, this was as bad. This was a game against a team about our own level. We know now Longford are a step ahead of us.

It was a must win game. We played with fear and little or no attacking threat. We scored three points in second half I think with a gale, with probably 1point scored in the last thirty minutes. Sligo down to 14 and we don't even contest their kick outs. It was shambolic!

There was no flair, we never went at them and tested them and showed absolutely zero sense of purpose -in a game we had to win. I just don't get it.

They totally outplayed us in second half and hit crossbar twice! And they are a poor enough outfit!

It was as bad a game of football I've ever seen with two teams equally as bad as each other with no team showing any idea of how they might create a score.

pure muck, manager talks muck aswell

Yes, this was bad.
Probably better not to elaborate.

Question. Would Offaly have beaten Sligo yesterday if Pat Flanagan was still manager? Please discuss.

SearingDrive wrote:Question. Would Offaly have beaten Sligo yesterday if Pat Flanagan was still manager? Please discuss.

Yes.

Haven't been to any games, but follow here, reports, social media, etc. The squad, for a number of reasons, seems a lot lighter and more inexperienced than last year, but one thing stands out for me, and that's the amount of chopping and changing that has gone on game by game. Maybe those that attended games could confirm whether usually teams lined out as selected or if there was a number of positional changes, but unless I'm very much mistaken, there doesn't seem to be a settled formation- after two rounds, most teams are taking shape and personnel are adapting to particular systems or patterns. It's very hard to develop a game plan if there's a lot of changes week on week. The selections look to be reactionary, and this can hardly inspire confidence in the players.