Minor Hurling Championship Offaly v Westmeath 15/5/2010

[old yellar]

dead rite i was at the carlow game. i do have a right to comment as i m a fan of offaly hurling and its proud tradition. wasnt at this game, and cant argue on that with u, but i do take umbrage with comments like come back when ye ve won something, or its a sad day when we worry about westmeath beating us. v childish. i cud name 10 lads up there and the abuse the hurl at club and school matches is unnatural and wrong. but for everyone of them, theres 50 better people doing hard work. and this is the case in every county in ireland. move on, it happens, but to reply with, come back when u ve won something, well thats just plain weak.. maybe i shud reply with, why didnt ye go onto the pitch at halftime and have a sit down protest, but it would only insult the rest of the good hurling people up there... and indeed the young group of fine men and hurlers that wear the county minor jersey for ye... ps, our day is coming..

[leinsterman]

As a Westmeath hurling supporter I agree we have our share of muppets as do Offaly,Carlow and every other county.Hurling for me is the worlds greatest sport and in Westmeath we have been huge admirers of the Faithful greats in the 80s and 90s.The Dooleys,Pat Carroll,Pat Delaney ,Johhny Flattery are greatly admired here signs on many of them managed the WH senior hurling team in our efforts to improve.I would absolutely love for us to make a breakthru in hurling and at underage we are improveing as indeed and maybe even more so Carlow.I would also love to see Offaly go on and beat KK in the semi final and indeed make serious progress in Leinster HURLING NEEDS Offaly but it also needs Westmeaths and Carlows to improve.No point in knocking hurling people because of a few muppets hence the stones and glass houses

Fair point jobber and i take your point on every county having bad fans and they are in offaly to. and if i heard offaly fans doing the same i would be the first one to say it here as well
and i am not knocking hurling people from carlow or westmeath because hurling people wouldn't be going on with the carry on that was going on saturday in mullingar.

hurling does need westmeath and carlow but the waterman with the westmeath bib on him on saturday we could do with out. tell you something if he said the things to my son that he
was shouting in to the young offaly corner back on saturday it would be a while before he would be able to go to a match again. best of luck to carlow and westmeath for the rest of the
year but i still think i was right to point out the abuse offaly players were getting from the few fans and one of the mentor of the westmeath team on saturday .

[Phoenix]

First of all I have to give respect to the Carlow minor hurling teams of a few years ago. Lads like Daniel St. Ledger and Padraig Amond could play any sport and be good at it - as they have proved before and since. (By the way isn't their returned Aussie rules midfielder an awesome footballer, he won the under 21 game against Offaly with an amazing winning goal in extra time).

Similarly Westmeath minor hurlers gave Johnny Pilkington's Offaly a right trimming last year in Mullingar with a last-minute Offaly goal from a free putting a misleading gloss on the Offaly performance. Westmeath could give Offaly lessons on catching the ball and driving out with it. They were far better on the wet pitch last year.

This time, though, I thought Offaly deserved their victory. They were always trying to combine and give it to the loose man, even though it didn't always come off. They missed two goals against the wind in the first half, once when a player doubled on a hopping ball when put clean through and then on the stroke of half time when the ball came off the upright to be spooned over the bar by an incoming forward faced with an empty net.

Westmeath missed a few great goal chances also - the strangest was in the second half when one of their players had the sliotar in hand inside the small parallelogram, ran across the goal-line and somehow threw it too far ahead before tipping it wide. If they got that one Offaly would have been in trouble.

The best moment for me was after the Westmeath No. 5 was switched onto one of Offaly's best-known forwards and ran over to give him a dunt, only to get a worse one back. I applauded the referee for booking the No.5 only - since he clearly started it even though he came off worst. I have to give the referee (from Kilkenny, I heard somebody say) great credit and I would have thought the same if the Offaly lad was the aggressor.

I agree with Leinsterman that David King had a stormer. Others to note - the backs were solid, Adrian Hynes took his points very sweetly, Aodhan Kealey worked hard, Stephen Quirke held his nerve well for the frees and Thomas Carroll has more in the tank.

[old yellar]

leinsterman, i agree 100% abuse shouldnt be allowed, and especially from the mentors involved, be it water carrier (boy or man?), but thats just a localised incident and i just felt it wasnt right to tarnish all the hurling folk there with that brush. as for the lads in the stand being on about last years game, well put it in context what it means to a county like westmeath or indeed carlow to win a game of that importance. to us in carlow it meant a huge amount to win a game v ye. but now we expect to compete as the good work is paying off. i think u ll see in the coming yrs an upturn in the fortunes of smaller counties and it can be only good for hurling if it happens.

[leinsterman]

leinsterman, i agree 100% abuse shouldnt be allowed, and especially from the mentors involved, be it water carrier (boy or man?), but thats just a localised incident and i just felt it wasnt right to tarnish all the hurling folk there with that brush. as for the lads in the stand being on about last years game, well put it in context what it means to a county like westmeath or indeed carlow to win a game of that importance. to us in carlow it meant a huge amount to win a game v ye. but now we expect to compete as the good work is paying off. i think u ll see in the coming yrs an upturn in the fortunes of smaller counties and it can be only good for hurling if it happens.

old yellar i have no problem with westmeath beating offaly last year i was at that game to, the men they weren't young lads that were on about last years match they didn't
just say o we bet ye last year, it was we hurl the f..k out ye last we hammer the s... out of ye it was all foul mouth stuff and may i say women well in their 50s were at it to
calling offaly players Na....rs . now i not going to or why should i pay 10 euro and have my kids with me to listen to them muppets shouting abuse about offaly hurling
and i don't care how small a county they are or what work they do no one should have to listen to that rubbish anyway i know if that match was in birr they would have been
shut up very quick . and i was also at the minor match that carlow beat us in and the under 21 match that offaly won in carlow three year's ago and i didn't hear any foul mouth
abuse out of the carlow crowd that evening and they had a big crowd in the stand that night.

[old yellar]

like i said before, all counties have them.. thank god we re not as bad as the soccer crowds in england.. i dont condone it, not one bit. we had some racial issues from supporters down here one time and it was reported and dealt with. i think we ve muppets in all counties and like i said, i cant name a few here that are well known in offaly for it, but it doesnt deter me from supporting ye or going to matches. so move on i reckon, we all have too.. again not knowing the panel, but were any of the following on it: sean gardiner, alan kelly, ciaran kelly -mite be overage, rory and niall wynne, rory quinlan- overage? just curious.. thought some of them were impressive for banagher college this yr.

[Biffo Army]

old yellar

would agree with all you have said about the few bad eggs within every county that can sometimes embarrass the rest of us! Have certainly witnessed as many of "our own" clowns as that of other counties. Anyway moving on to your question re panel, as far as I know Sean Gardiner got fed up of not making the match day 24 and has left panel of his accord, Ciaran Kelly got dropped when they cut panel to 30, Alan Kelly and Rory Quinlan are on the panel but neither were deemed good enough to be on the match 24 last Saturday against Westmeath. Neither Rory or Niall Wynne made the panel either to the best of my knowledge.....It does seem strange that some of these lads are not closer to making the cut, Quinlan was on the panel last year and all the others were pretty impressive as you say for Banagher College in their march to winning the All Ireland Vocational Schools Final.........

[faithfulman]

I have to say I was surprised when I heard the team and Quinlan, Gardiner, Niall Wynne, Alan Kelly werent named in the first 15 never mind the first 24!!All were very impressive for Banagher on their way to the All-Ireland(except Quinlan whos finished school). I thought that some of them would have gotten a run at the very least. Also Ciaran Kelly was dropped long before they got anywhere near the final 30.

Ciaran Kelly got dropped when they cut panel to 30,

[Plain of the Herbs]

Thanks for that analysis, Phoenix. When the Westmeath fan who was reporting for Radio3 went to ground and couldn’t be contacted for an hour after the game, I had a feeling Offaly must have won!

That was a pressure match, which would have inhibited the standard of hurling. Interesting too that Offaly were quite willing to try the combination play. The pressure is off to an extent now and they may well perform better against Kilkenny. As we all know, Offaly are better without the ball anyway.

As for Rory Quinlan, he must have displeased the management during his two minutes on the field against Wexford as he was banished to the stand in Mullingar. Ditto Alan Kelly who was a maor camán for the Wexford match yet he too sat in the stand last Saturday.

First of all I have to give respect to the Carlow minor hurling teams of a few years ago. Lads like Daniel St. Ledger and Padraig Amond could play any sport and be good at it - as they have proved before and since. (By the way isn't their returned Aussie rules midfielder an awesome footballer, he won the under 21 game against Offaly with an amazing winning goal in extra time).

Similarly Westmeath minor hurlers gave Johnny Pilkington's Offaly a right trimming last year in Mullingar with a last-minute Offaly goal from a free putting a misleading gloss on the Offaly performance. Westmeath could give Offaly lessons on catching the ball and driving out with it. They were far better on the wet pitch last year.

This time, though, I thought Offaly deserved their victory. They were always trying to combine and give it to the loose man, even though it didn't always come off. They missed two goals against the wind in the first half, once when a player doubled on a hopping ball when put clean through and then on the stroke of half time when the ball came off the upright to be spooned over the bar by an incoming forward faced with an empty net.

Westmeath missed a few great goal chances also - the strangest was in the second half when one of their players had the sliotar in hand inside the small parallelogram, ran across the goal-line and somehow threw it too far ahead before tipping it wide. If they got that one Offaly would have been in trouble.

The best moment for me was after the Westmeath No. 5 was switched onto one of Offaly's best-known forwards and ran over to give him a dunt, only to get a worse one back. I applauded the referee for booking the No.5 only - since he clearly started it even though he came off worst. I have to give the referee (from Kilkenny, I heard somebody say) great credit and I would have thought the same if the Offaly lad was the aggressor.

I agree with Leinsterman that David King had a stormer. Others to note - the backs were solid, Adrian Hynes took his points very sweetly, Aodhan Kealey worked hard, Stephen Quirke held his nerve well for the frees and Thomas Carroll has more in the tank.

[jobber]

As a Westmeath hurling supporter I agree we have our share of muppets as do Offaly,Carlow and every other county.Hurling for me is the worlds greatest sport and in Westmeath we have been huge admirers of the Faithful greats in the 80s and 90s.The Dooleys,Pat Carroll,Pat Delaney ,Johhny Flattery are greatly admired here signs on many of them managed the WH senior hurling team in our efforts to improve.I would absolutely love for us to make a breakthru in hurling and at underage we are improveing as indeed and maybe even more so Carlow.I would also love to see Offaly go on and beat KK in the semi final and indeed make serious progress in Leinster HURLING NEEDS Offaly but it also needs Westmeaths and Carlows to improve.No point in knocking hurling people because of a few muppets hence the stones and glass houses

Fair point jobber and i take your point on every county having bad fans and they are in offaly to. and if i heard offaly fans doing the same i would be the first one to say it here as well
and i am not knocking hurling people from carlow or westmeath because hurling people wouldn't be going on with the carry on that was going on saturday in mullingar.

hurling does need westmeath and carlow but the waterman with the westmeath bib on him on saturday we could do with out. tell you something if he said the things to my son that he
was shouting in to the young offaly corner back on saturday it would be a while before he would be able to go to a match again. best of luck to carlow and westmeath for the rest of the
year but i still think i was right to point out the abuse offaly players were getting from the few fans and one of the mentor of the westmeath team on saturday .

Fair play Leinsterman.I wont stand up for any official abusing a senior player not to mind a minor.Hes a disgrace to westmeath hurling if he did it.i am not doubting you just i didnt see it.Although we are dissapointed at losing and I agree with the other Offaly fan at the game it could have gone either way and we have to take great encouragment at being competitive with you guys two years in arow.It takes great dedicated men to bring a team up to this level when you havent a tradition.something you guys did from 1980 on which is why guys like me and Old Yellar loved the faithful hurlers no end.Good luck with the Cats in tullamore you will have chances





a

[leinsterman]

Thanks for that analysis, Phoenix. When the Westmeath fan who was reporting for Radio3 went to ground and couldn’t be contacted for an hour after the game, I had a feeling Offaly must have won!

That was a pressure match, which would have inhibited the standard of hurling. Interesting too that Offaly were quite willing to try the combination play. The pressure is off to an extent now and they may well perform better against Kilkenny. As we all know, Offaly are better without the ball anyway.

As for Rory Quinlan, he must have displeased the management during his two minutes on the field against Wexford as he was banished to the stand in Mullingar. Ditto Alan Kelly who was a maor camán for the Wexford match yet he too sat in the stand last Saturday.

First of all I have to give respect to the Carlow minor hurling teams of a few years ago. Lads like Daniel St. Ledger and Padraig Amond could play any sport and be good at it - as they have proved before and since. (By the way isn't their returned Aussie rules midfielder an awesome footballer, he won the under 21 game against Offaly with an amazing winning goal in extra time).

Similarly Westmeath minor hurlers gave Johnny Pilkington's Offaly a right trimming last year in Mullingar with a last-minute Offaly goal from a free putting a misleading gloss on the Offaly performance. Westmeath could give Offaly lessons on catching the ball and driving out with it. They were far better on the wet pitch last year.

This time, though, I thought Offaly deserved their victory. They were always trying to combine and give it to the loose man, even though it didn't always come off. They missed two goals against the wind in the first half, once when a player doubled on a hopping ball when put clean through and then on the stroke of half time when the ball came off the upright to be spooned over the bar by an incoming forward faced with an empty net.

Westmeath missed a few great goal chances also - the strangest was in the second half when one of their players had the sliotar in hand inside the small parallelogram, ran across the goal-line and somehow threw it too far ahead before tipping it wide. If they got that one Offaly would have been in trouble.

The best moment for me was after the Westmeath No. 5 was switched onto one of Offaly's best-known forwards and ran over to give him a dunt, only to get a worse one back. I applauded the referee for booking the No.5 only - since he clearly started it even though he came off worst. I have to give the referee (from Kilkenny, I heard somebody say) great credit and I would have thought the same if the Offaly lad was the aggressor.

I agree with Leinsterman that David King had a stormer. Others to note - the backs were solid, Adrian Hynes took his points very sweetly, Aodhan Kealey worked hard, Stephen Quirke held his nerve well for the frees and Thomas Carroll has more in the tank.

Don't know what Joe Cleary and Noel Russell and Gift Fox were at on saturday on the sideline, they Brought on joe o' connor and took him off again.
they should have brought on Donal Morkan a lot earlier in the game as we struggle in the forward line .

just wondering Plain of the Herbs do you know whats going on with Rory Quinlan and why he is not getting a game its not as if we have a great team
is there something else going on there .

[tacmot]

Glad to see dat leinsterman old yellarnd jobber have sorted out their diffrences re 'supporters behaviour' and nw we can talk bout the real task at hand i.e how offaly will perform versus the cats? I do tink dat they will struggle not because of the players but mainly due to the fact dat management havent got an idea on how to place the team. Few tings i noted , for the Wexford game 3 of the 6 backs were started in positions dat they hadnt been tried in b4 dat game. tomas carrolls best position by far is close to the goal, on few occasions he has been moved to the wing. The management switched free takers on 3 occasions which cost us the game. Not starting Morkham vs Westmeath nd playing both murphy and gerathy was a complete joke, the sub-ing on AND off of O'connor another baffling situation. And this is a management team dat was put in place last sept/oct. No wonder we are where we are at the moment.