www.uibhfhaili.com

First weekends predicitons: Round 1:
Derry V Leitrim - Derry to win by 5
Cork V Offaly - Cork to win by 5
Longford V Louth - Longford to win by 3
Tipp V Down - Down to win by 2

Derry (home) should account for Leitrim, Cork (home) will probably have a scoring forward or 2 more than Offaly so I think will win by a few points, Longford I think will beat Louth, but dont rule out a draw, Down were decent in Ulster in the summer and might just have enough to get an away win here.

If anybody takes themselves seriously as a tipster, you have to be on board with this!

https://twitter.com/lonesharkoy/status/ ... 7509829632

Shameless promotion of local fundraisers aside, I'd increase the margins in most of those games.

Leitrim aren't as bad as their shocking FBD result suggested, but they are in big trouble and realistically, away to Derry should be far too much for them. If they can stay within five of Derry that would suggest to me that Derry are a lot poorer than we would have thought, which would probably be a good thing. I could see a ten point margin here.

Unfortunately, the same story could apply in Cork. A comparatively strong team has been named by Cork, they've some seriously good young players and are strong down the middle, and against an Offaly side with no Peter Cunningham, no Niall McNamee and no John Moloney, you'd have to expect they'll win well. If Offaly can get within five, that's an incredible result - Cork should be lower half of Division One at worst in terms of ability, and that has to come through eventually.

Longford are in decent shape right now but Louth might trouble them, particularly in the middle. Against Offaly, Darren Gallagher dominated and that was crucial to their cause. He won't get it as easy against some very good Louth midfielders, that's the biggest strength in their team in my opinion. If there's to be an upset, it'll be here. Whether that suits Offaly or not, given that we play Longford in round two, remains to be seen.

Finally I suspect that Tipperary, without Quinlivan and a couple of others, could struggle this year, but even so, I don't expect a big margin here. Down by two seems about right.

Paddy Dunican
Declan Hogan
Eoin Rigney
Niall Darby
Eoin Carroll
David Dempsey
Jordan Hayes
Cathal Mangan
Michael Brazil
Shane Horan
Ruairí McNamee
Conor McNamee
Anton Sullivan
Bernard Allen
Cian Johnson

Lone Shark wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 3:42 pm I'd increase the margins in most of those games.

Unfortunately, the same story could apply in Cork. A comparatively strong team has been named by Cork, they've some seriously good young players and are strong down the middle, and against an Offaly side with no Peter Cunningham, no Niall McNamee and no John Moloney, you'd have to expect they'll win well. If Offaly can get within five, that's an incredible result - Cork should be lower half of Division One at worst in terms of ability, and that has to come through eventually.

We’d be very lucky to get within 10 nearly.

ah Limerick beat them (Cork) in the McGrath cup a few weeks back, I still think they will be better in the League than the McGrath cup...not totally upto speed with the full goings on, are the lads mentioned above, Cunningham, Moloney etc out injured or what?

Shadow Cork team in the McGrath cup, probably around five first string lads.

John Moloney injured, expected back during the league. Peter Cunningham is doing his obligatory tour of duty with the army, should be back for the summer but obviously wouldn't have any football played at that stage. Niall McNamee still hasn't been right since the blow he took in the county semi-final last year, so he's still a long way from being fit to come back in.

yeah he took a right wallop that day, hard to believe that is still an issue affecting him...Its these games I thought we would really need him most, what ever about the so called perceived weaker teams in the division..

Cork v Offaly. Cork
Tipperary v Down. Down
Longford v Louth. Draw
Derry v Leitrim. Derry

Offaly v Cork: Cork
Down v Tipp: Down
Longford v Louth: Longford
Derry v Leitrim: Derry

Offaly did very well in first half but second half was a different story by all accounts (wasnt at the game)..without some key players we still had a decent team out, and 0-13 is a fairly decent return against a team we will percieve should be up in Div 2 at least...conceding 0-20 will be pointed as the other side of the argument, but likewise, a team who probably shouldnt be in Div 3 but they are...Leitrim drawing away in Derry was a surprise, Down drew down in TIpp, Longford got over Louth and will be a big test for Offaly in Tullamore next day...we will go with predictions in all Div 3 games later in the week...

Fairplayalways wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 5:57 pm yeah he took a right wallop that day, hard to believe that is still an issue affecting him...Its these games I thought we would really need him most, what ever about the so called perceived weaker teams in the division..

Makes it all the more shocking that Rhode brought him on in the County Final. Heads should roll for this - there can be no way he was signed off by a doctor to play that day

Cork away was the toughest game. we have to beat longford at home at the weekend. It is suprising that Niall Mcnamee came on in that county final and has been deemed not ready to paly over three months further on from that game. Does anyone know the panel? because the subs that are coming on dont seem to be giving us an injection. We could ideally do with three or four guys that could change the direction or flow of a game.

First half performance was as good as I’ve saw from Offaly in years. They really clicked in a 15 minute spell in the first half and kicked unbelievable points. Panda was on fire and well supported by Anton too. Their tackling, support play was brilliant and had a number of turnovers too.

Unfortunately for the second week running it was the black card/sin bin just before halftime that killed us. Notwithstanding it was panda but it left us having to defend (too deep) with 14 men for the first 8 minutes of the second half in which I think Cork got 4 points without reply and we never got back really after that. Ruairi had a good goal chance when there was 3 (4 max) in it with 10 minutes to go and would have loved to see what we were made of if it went in. That said, Ian Maguire missed an equally good chance just before that shooting straight at Paddy D. Ciaran Sheehan caused a lot of problems when he dropped deep. Michael Hurley was a huge sub for Cork in the second half and I think he got 4 from play. Anton finished with 4 as well and hadn’t seen him play as well in a long time.

One comment though was the taking off of Cian J. Ok, he wasn’t really in the game but he often isn’t in the game but will then pop up with big scores and it’s fair to say that if he got Ruairi’s chance he’d have buried it and if we want to make a top class player out of him then we need to accept that he’s not the type of player that will be in the thick of it for 70 minutes and maybe we need to suck it up for a few games to give him a good run in the team as it’s still a huge step up to inter county level for him.

Big game v Longford on Sunday. Offaly need to win the game to have a chance of promotion. Two draws at the weekend, mean this will be a competitive division, so it is vital that Offaly avoid defeat.
Offaly require a consistent free taker, who will put over placed balls, we don't have one at present.
Two important games for Offaly GAA, on Sunday, hurlers away to Kerry, and a visit from Longford footballers.

I agree with a lot of what you said Doon exile. It was a strange one taking off Johnson, no disrespect to Mark Abbott but taking off a finisher and inside forward for a working half back while trailing by 5 points was a bad decision in my opinion, our ability to pick a pass to the inside line is really poor our middle 8 players don’t get their head up quick enough countless times both Johnson and panda were making runs and the ball was not coming we definitely need to fix this.

This Longford game couldn’t really be any bigger we just need a win here regardless of the performance 2 points is the most important thing , it will be a close game as ever with Longford.