Bad day for offaly hurling

[Plain of the Herbs]

Drumcullen were impressive. Had 1-8 on the clock before Davis scored, led 1-12 to 0-2 at half time and when Donal Guinan forced the ball over the Davis goal line early in the second half for a 2-12 to 0-3 lead it was all over as a contest. Eventually won 2-18 to 1-6, the Davis goal coming a minute from the end.

Harry Ryan started at full-forward and scored the first goal. Conor Gath also benefitted from his presence too. Yet again Nicky Lalor was fierce impressive at centre-back, well able to catch a ball in a forest of hurls, he might be worth a look for the County in the Walsh Cup to see how he’d get on in a more pressured environment.

Thomas Davis were utterly useless though. Most of them couldn’t hit the ball and they wouldn’t have beaten a Junior B team in Offaly. The full-back was hopelessly overweight. I must say I expected more from the 25th ranked team in a progressive county taking on the 13th ranked team in a county making themselves comfortable in the abyss. There was only one bus there from Dublin, the rest mustn’t have made it over the Kinnitty mountains!

Drumcullen now travel to take on Westmeath IHC champions Delvin in a fortnight. John Lockes travel to take on the Wexford Junior champions in the other semi-final, while the Drumcullen/Delvin winners would be at home in the final.

Elsewhere, Cloghan were beaten in the football, 1-13 to 1-6 or thereabouts.

How did Rynaghs and Drumcullen fair out? Hopefully a bit more positive than what happened in Mullingar.

[bottler]

the question ye have got to ask yerselves lads is brian cowen capable of running the country at a time of economic gloom..

[townman]

Who's Brian Cowen

[Plain of the Herbs]

Continuing the ‘bad day for Offaly hurling’ theme it’s a pity to note Offaly hurling’s race to the bottom continues unabated. Here’s why. Some 30 years ago, coach Dermot Healy asked that Offaly play their home NHL matches in Tullamore. The reasons were two-fold – at the time Offaly were capable of beating anyone in Birr but couldn’t perform away from the venue and ealy wanted to meet this difficulty head-on; and the sod in Tullamore was more conducive to playing the quick brand of hurling that Healy was promoting.

This week the Offaly management have asked to bring NHL matches back to Birr again. See the attached link which is on the Offaly Express site.
http://www.offalyexpress.ie/offaly/Seni ... 6623537.jp

I think this is defeatist. Despite the large sum of money spent on the Birr pitch its playability still cannot be guaranteed. For instance, in all likelihood Birr wouldn’t be playable tomorrow (Sunday) whereas Tullamore probably would. Now perhaps the management feel they can drag a superior opposition into a dogfight on a wet surface (though God knows why – everyone knows Offaly’s record in dogfights this last decade).

That’s why I feel Offaly hurling is gone full circle – remember when Offaly used to look forward to taking on Munster opposition on a quick, dry pitch? Those days seem to be gone. They were great days though – we’ll never see their like again.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Continuing the ‘Bad days’ theme, the Minor hurling manager has been reappointed for next year. This is a horrendous decision as there were some glaring errors made before and during the Minor match against Kilkenny this year.
http://www.offalyexpress.ie/offaly/Offa ... 6623535.jp

Basically the manager showed his lack of understanding of a number of key positions. I’m not going into specific because it’s not fair to the hurlers themselves – it was a selection and coaching issue and there WERE suitable alternatives. Anyone who was there will know what I mean and most of the county was talking about it at the time anyway. Indeed a Kilkenny friend remarked to me how a middling hurler was made to look good. It is interesting that new selectors are to be appointed though.

[townman]

Continuing the ‘Bad days’ theme, the Minor hurling manager has been reappointed for next year. This is a horrendous decision as there were some glaring errors made before and during the Minor match against Kilkenny this year.
http://www.offalyexpress.ie/offaly/Offa ... 6623535.jp

Basically the manager showed his lack of understanding of a number of key positions. I’m not going into specific because it’s not fair to the hurlers themselves – it was a selection and coaching issue and there WERE suitable alternatives. Anyone who was there will know what I mean and most of the county was talking about it at the time anyway. Indeed a Kilkenny friend remarked to me how a middling hurler was made to look good. It is interesting that new selectors are to be appointed though.

its easy to blame the men over them offaly don't have the talent or player's to complete at minor or under 21 level.

[backofthenet]

I think Raharney proved they are a decent team by coming within 3 points of Oulart (favourites to win the all ireland by the way) today, I think it proves my point and hopefully the knee jerk reaction against Coolderry's performance by some contributors on here wont be repeated. Every team has to be taken on their merit and no team has a divine right to win any game whether they be Coolderry, Birr or any other team in the county.

[black and red exile]

backofthenet don't be getting carried away, it was only a couple of late goals that took the bad look of the scoreline today, like it or not Coolderry proved they were gutless when the heat was turned on 2 weeks ago, some players wearing green that day just didn't fancy going in for the dirty ball for the fear of getting hurt, anybody with two eyes in their head who was at that match could see it so don't come on here trying to bullshit everyone

[joe bloggs]

Continuing the ‘bad day for Offaly hurling’ theme it’s a pity to note Offaly hurling’s race to the bottom continues unabated. Here’s why. Some 30 years ago, coach Dermot Healy asked that Offaly play their home NHL matches in Tullamore. The reasons were two-fold – at the time Offaly were capable of beating anyone in Birr but couldn’t perform away from the venue and ealy wanted to meet this difficulty head-on; and the sod in Tullamore was more conducive to playing the quick brand of hurling that Healy was promoting.

This week the Offaly management have asked to bring NHL matches back to Birr again. See the attached link which is on the Offaly Express site.
http://www.offalyexpress.ie/offaly/Seni ... 6623537.jp

I think this is defeatist. Despite the large sum of money spent on the Birr pitch its playability still cannot be guaranteed. For instance, in all likelihood Birr wouldn’t be playable tomorrow (Sunday) whereas Tullamore probably would. Now perhaps the management feel they can drag a superior opposition into a dogfight on a wet surface (though God knows why – everyone knows Offaly’s record in dogfights this last decade).

That’s why I feel Offaly hurling is gone full circle – remember when Offaly used to look forward to taking on Munster opposition on a quick, dry pitch? Those days seem to be gone. They were great days though – we’ll never see their like again.

I don't recall going to tullamore often in the 90's to watch NHL fixtures.
Maybe on that logic we should get the footballers to play their games in Birr, now that the pitch is ready

[Plain of the Herbs]

Quoted in the Tribune’s supplement to commemorate the silver jubilee of the 1981 All-Ireland title win, Diarmuid Healy said “The other thing we did, and it wasn’t too popular at the time, we did the physical training over the winter in Birr but we moved any hurling training out of Birr into Tullamore. The Birr pitch is a boggy pitch, it was dead and the bounce of the ball wasn’t there. We played all our league matches in Tullamore as well the following year (1981-82). It got the Birr mentality out of us. Offaly had a name that they would beat anyone in Birr but in any other pitch they wouldn’t so we got that mentality out. We were criticised for moving things away from Birr at the time but it had to be done and in fairness to the County Board if I said something had to be done, and I wasn’t demanding the impossible, but anything for the good of Offaly hurling and the County Board gave full support. It was excellent.”

The stats are as follows: -
1979-80 – played 1 out of 3 home NHL matches in Tullamore
1980-81 – had to play all matches away from home after the ‘Battle of Tulla’
1981-82 – played 2 out of 3 home matches in Tullamore
1982-83 – played 1 out of 3 home matches in Tullamore.

Remember the Birr pitch was ready 18 months ago too and then it rained . . .

I don't recall going to tullamore often in the 90's to watch NHL fixtures.
Maybe on that logic we should get the footballers to play their games in Birr, now that the pitch is ready

The same Healy interview also contained another nugget which may surprise some who think Offaly never handled the ball in those days: -
“We spent ten minutes, a quarter of an hour every night hand passing that ball. We got the winning goal with two minutes to go in that (1981) All-Ireland, a hand pass from Johnny Flaherty. That summer, that was probably the thousandth Johnny Flaherty hand passed into the net that summer. If we hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have been able to do that in the heat of battle.”

[Bord na Mona man]

Similarly Johnny Evans, the Kerryman who lead Tipperary footballers from Div 4 to Div 2 did something similar, by ambitiously moving Tipp's home matches from Ardfinnan to Semple Stadium in Thurles.

The official reasoning for playing games in Ardfinnan was supposedly logistics, because of its location near the football area of the county.
The real reason was that the Ardfinnan pitch is tight, the surroundings uncomfortable and it allowed Tipperary teams keep the margin of defeat down.

It looks like Offaly are retreating back to the Birr comfort blanket.
However, I presume championship home games will still have to be played in Tullamore?

[Bord na Mona man]

The same Healy interview also contained another nugget which may surprise some who think Offaly never handled the ball in those days: -
“We spent ten minutes, a quarter of an hour every night hand passing that ball. We got the winning goal with two minutes to go in that (1981) All-Ireland, a hand pass from Johnny Flaherty. That summer, that was probably the thousandth Johnny Flaherty hand passed into the net that summer. If we hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have been able to do that in the heat of battle.”

I remember that comment all right. Also looking back on that move, it was Pat Delaney who carried the ball forward, drew in 3 Galway backs, dished it off to Brendan Bermingham. Bermingham then picked out Flaherty with a clever short pass, when Flaherty moved into space in front of goal. Freeze frame that move when the ball is 30 metres out and most of the hurling ayatollahs in Offaly would probably demand that Bermingham blaze a shot towards goal.

Just a few weeks ago we were bemoaning the lack of movement and interplay of Offaly forwards, and it probably gets overlooked that Offaly were playing a quite evolved and intelligent style of hurling 30 years ago.

Which reminds me of Frank Murphy moaning about the state of the Croke Park pitch after the 2006 All Ireland. He claimed the long grass and the bad surface disrupted Cork's "ground hurling" ! Perhaps some people have greater abilities to see things that us mortals can't.

[townman]

bring the hurling back to the home of hurling Birr.

[turk]

The stats are as follows: -
1979-80 – played 1 out of 3 home NHL matches in Tullamore
1980-81 – had to play all matches away from home after the ‘Battle of Tulla’
1981-82 – played 2 out of 3 home matches in Tullamore
1982-83 – played 1 out of 3 home matches in Tullamore.

POTH,

what was, or rather, what went on at the "Battle of Tulla"!?

[Plain of the Herbs]

Turk,

Clare played their home NHL matches in Tulla during the late ‘70s while Ennis was closed for building a stand or something. Seemingly it was a very intimidating venue (think Aughrim, Co. Wicklow) and Clare had a very good record there.

Offaly went there in late 1979. Seemingly Pat Carroll was hit on the head and all hell broke loose. The locals were none-too-impressed and Offaly had to fight their way to their dressing room, while the mob waited outside and they had to fight their way to the bus as well.

Both Offaly and Clare were banned from having any NHL matches at home the following season. Clare were relegated to Division 1B so the question of where they would play Offaly didn’t arise. The spirit showed by Offaly in the face of such adversity was a seismic step in the bonding of the team. Offaly hadn’t been known for standing up for hurlers from other clubs prior to this. Remember this was only a couple of months following Dermot Healy’s arrival.

Justin McCarthy (who managed Clare at that time) noted in his book that he got particular satisfaction from beating Offaly in the Centenary All-Ireland as Offaly’s leader in Tulla (believed to be Padraig Horan) lined out in that All-Ireland.

POTH,

what was, or rather, what went on at the "Battle of Tulla"!?