O'Byrne Cup 2011

[Bord na Mona man]

Well the scoreline could have been worse as Dublin could have been in for more goals. It was 3-6 to 0-2 at half time and although Offaly did improve in the 2nd half, Dublin also eased off.

The biggest difference between the sides was fitness in sharpness, and you'd wonder about the variation in Winter preparations between the counties. Offaly started with the sluggishness of a team that had just played 70 minutes.

Over the course of the game Offaly probably had more possession, but were generally flat footed and ponderous with the ball. Dublin's attacks were quick and direct. Even before half time some of the Offaly players were clearly struggling with the pace of the game.

Most of the Dublin's first half scores came from very basic Offaly mistakes. And there were some real howlers.
Things did improve in the second half. Offaly tightened up at the back, competed better in midfield and started to put in more sensible ball into the forwards.

Any team wanting to put in a tilt for promotion should be looking more prepared than this. The opening round is only two weeks away after all.

[black and red exile]

That was shocking to say the least, the difference in fitness levels were poles apart, the pace, support play and physical strenght of this Dublin team made our lads look like a bad junior team. What in the name of Jaysus are the Offaly lads doing during the winter months that they are so far behind in preparation in compared to other counties that we have to have this same discussion every year, Offalys ball handling today was atrocious, nobody in support of the man in possession in a tri-colour jersey, guys way too ponderous with ball in hand, it took forever to get the shagging ball from the full back line up to the the full forward line whereas the Dubs got from defence to attack with a combination of good direct ball into the forwards or by a blue jersey right on the shoulder of a teamate in possession travelling at 80 miles an hour with his Offaly marker puffing and panting miles behind, truely awful stuff. 2 weeks before the Cavan game in Tullamore, if we lose that one we can forget about promotion, AGAIN

[pedro]

I'll tell you why they are so far behind.

1) Because they are wasting there time with all this bloody gym training thinking it will make them. All those Dublin players have been out on a pitch doing their own running and getting in plenty of ball work. The Offaly lads are told to go to the gym and make themselves stronger. The result, cant run, cant kick, not conditioned to playing football, total waste of time the work done in the gym. Its completely different when you hit the field. So lets forget this myth about gym work being the difference. The work has to be done in the environment that you'll be playing in.

2) Some utterly useless footballers on that panel at the moment. Cribben has been the best man Ive ever seen to give poor footballers in the county who have not even proved themselves at club level, the opportunity to pull on county jersey.

[hard2watch]

I'll tell you why they are so far behind.

1) Because they are wasting there time with all this bloody gym training thinking it will make them. All those Dublin players have been out on a pitch doing their own running and getting in plenty of ball work. The Offaly lads are told to go to the gym and make themselves stronger. The result, cant run, cant kick, not conditioned to playing football, total waste of time the work done in the gym. Its completely different when you hit the field. So lets forget this myth about gym work being the difference. The work has to be done in the environment that you'll be playing in.

2) Some utterly useless footballers on that panel at the moment. Cribben has been the best man Ive ever seen to give poor footballers in the county who have not even proved themselves at club level, the opportunity to pull on county jersey.

Fair play to you whoever you are.you are after hitting the nail on the head there and its the first bit of sense ive read on this subject.

[kingscounty]

have to agree with pedro,there has to be better footballers in the county.some of the lads playing against dublin wouldnt make a junior team.i dont like been negative about offaly but surely cribben doesnt believe he has a hope in leinster with this carry on.

[Fargo Boyle]

jaysus lads go handy. nothing ever won in January and no rhode players either. no point in been fit now and not able to move by july. the hard work is ahead in the next few weeks. Lets hold off to the league before we start writing off the year and remember that the standard in leinster is terrible so there is always a chance. Whats the point about giving out about trying new lads cos we have to try every option - ye would be giving out if they weren't trying new lads.

[Lone Shark]

Agree with Fargo - nobody in Offaly is naive enough to think that we have 50 county standard footballers playing ball in the county, and when you take away around ten players between Rhode and the college teams, then you really are struggling for quality. It's also the truth that a lot of players don't stand out for their clubs, but can do a specific job for the county, if given the chance.

As for the gym stuff, we've often remarked in the height of summer how easily our players are brushed aside when attempting to tackle, or how easily our guys get dispossessed. That has to be addressed now, and anyone who thinks that Dublin players aren't hitting the gym just as hard is way off the mark. They might have more ball work done at this time of year, but that's because they're training twice a day - I wouldn't agree with that at this time of year and that would take it's toll in the long run too.

[Truth as i see it]

just like to jump in here real quick lads, have to agree with lone shark, i would rather see the O' Byrne cup sacraficed to try out new lads and different combinations than to try and win the thing which (and let's be honest here) won't mean a whole lot come the end of the season in terms of progressing in the league or the championships.

Remember its about finding options for the team rather than results at the end of the day.

Have to say its rediculas to be calling for Cribbens head at this early stage of the season, The knee jerk reactions on here are comical to say the least, with out wishing to get into a drawn out argument with anyone (honestly thats not my aim here) i think people need to step back and try to see the bigger picture.

Yes it was a bad result ( and Rhode losing the Leinster final won't help either) BUT, if Cribben manages to find a few extra players to add to the team however few they might be it will have been worth it.

[black and red exile]

The league is just 2 weeks away and can anybody seriously see Offaly getting anything out of the Gaelic grounds, Mullingar or Drogheda, in my opinion no, we might and it's only a might sneak a win in Dungarvan if we are lucky but I wouldn't be too optimistic about that either, the 3 home games are winnable of course because the teams Offaly are playing are every bit as bad, another struggle to avoid relegation, surely I'm not alone in thinking here we go again with the same oul drivel.

[faithfullad]

My main problem with Cribben is that he just looks at the game cluelessly and doesn't do anything. Ross Brady at wing back, where he has never played? Ya might as well be putting a Junior player in at wing back. He also gave a glowing summary of Scott Brady after the game, even though a blind man could know he wasn't up to it, 20 yards behind his man. Too many players in their comfort zone, too many players getting by on reputation.

[black and red exile]

The obvious problem lads is we just don't have the players full stop, there are 2 top class footballers in the county, Niall Mac and Thomas Deehan and thats it and word on the grapevine is that Deehan just doesn't want to know, maybe some of the Clara guys can clear this up, I actually feel sorry for Tom Cribben trying to find players when we don't have them, our club scene is pathetic and it was shown yesterday how far Rhode are still behind the likes of Kilmacud, Nemo and Cross, yeah sure they might come out of Offaly again next year but so what, they are as far away from winning a Leinster as ever.
Alot of people in the county got a bit excited coming into this year because we ran a flaky Down team to 2 points in the qualifers but the same problems are there and it kills me to say it because as a supporter I would travel to Australia to watch Offaly in all codes but look it we can analyse this that and the other until the cows come home but the players are not there.

[jimbob17]

wasnt at the game but by all accounts it was very poor with the dubs playing only half their first team and were without the kilmacud lads too. the group are miles off the pace despite reports that they are training very hard, just begs the question what the hell they are doing in training. it was very disappointing to hear cribben on the radio making excuses. it was reported too in the paper that it was an understrength offaly minus 9 rhode lads and 9 injuries.

what the hell is going on if 9 lads are injured at this time of the year i have to ask?? as for half an offaly team. the full back line is close to what will start in championship if full strength. 2/3 half backs started in last years championship in half back line. 1 midfielder and 5 of the starting forwards have started championship matches for offaly in the last 2 years so they were not that understrength given that N graham was the standout minor last year and graham guilfoyle and sean ryan came on as subs, two who would hope to play championship this year.

this sounds like someone who cant understand what is happening and trying to figure out what is going wrong and buy himself time. Not that i blame cribben too much. he doesnt know the offaly scene too well and is trying lads out in fairness. what are the selectors looking at and who are they. unfortunately we are now going to struggle in div 3 i feel and are probably only a div 4 standard outfit at the moment. it appears to me that Roe and Cribben have had a much higher opinion of offaly football before they took over when they wanted the gig than what they found when they took over.

as for all these lads to come back in, who are they. Niall mac aside, the rest are not going to improve the thing drastically. from the rhode team the last day, only shane sullivan, alan macnamee, paschal and niall looked like county senior footballers. of that bunch only niall is guaranteed to start. darbys are good footballers but not guaranteed starters at county level, far from it. both would be lucky to start in my opinion. anton in my opinion is still too young despite being a fantastic prospect and it was shown the last day where he struggled in the physical stakes against a serious club team. maybe the harder ground would suit him as he is still very light, as he is a better option than ken casey i suspect. all in all though, the next month will tell a lot and though an optimist at heart, i wouldnt be anyway confident of being in contention for promotion and id be shocked if we werent in a dogfight at the bottom of the table. the rhode lads will now probably get a few weeks break so we will be without them for the first game or too i suspect which won help our cause.

[Lone Shark]

as for all these lads to come back in, who are they. Niall mac aside, the rest are not going to improve the thing drastically. from the rhode team the last day, only shane sullivan, alan macnamee, paschal and niall looked like county senior footballers. of that bunch only niall is guaranteed to start.

Can't say I'd agree with your selction of Rhode players. Shane Sullivan looked to be hobbling all day so I wouldn't be too hard on him, but having said that he didn't have a good day. Paschal floated around playing a free role which you can't afford in county football, while as for Alan McNamee....

The simple fact is that Niall McNamee is worth 5/6 points to Offaly, just as he is to Rhode. He's that much better than everyone else. Anton will be a threat on the harder ground and when he's given a little bit more guidance regarding when to run at the opposition and when not to. Brian Darby was the best of the Rhode backs for me and I'll be amazed if he doesn't start in the summer, barring injury of course. Niall Darby needs to get his freetaking percentage up higher, but if he does he'll probably start as well.

As for who the nine lads were who were away with college teams, that's another matter. I can barely think of half that number.

[Bord na Mona man]

The main problem on Saturday was that in the first half, Offaly had no real way to get the ball from about their 45 into the forward line. Mainly because a lot of players weren't sharp enough. There were too many square passes to static players, intercepted passes and hospital passes.

There was not enough speed and power in the side to carry the ball out of defence. The body language of a player in possession was of someone not feeling there was enough fuel in the tank to actually go on a burst and ship a tackle. So the first instinct was to get rid of it.

When Offaly did deliver it long to the forwards, there wasn't great ball winning ability up front either. Offaly's inside forwards were initially Ken Casey, Nigel Dunne and John Coughlan. When Coughlan came out the field early on, it meant the other two were invariably beaten as Dublin left the spare defender back.

In the second half the introduction of Sean Ryan and Graham Guilfoyle made a difference, because they brought pace and ball carrying ability which had been severely lacking. Also Ciaran McManus swept back a lot to collect the ball from and drove forward with it a lot more.

If Offaly were playing Dublin again in the morning with a better shape to the team, it certainly wouldn't be as one-sided. I'm not sure at what stages of the preparation programmes the respective sides were at.

If Offaly have been doing heavy conditioning sessions lately with little ball work, it would explain it somewhat. However there are only 2 weeks to the league start. Taking it at face value, the team looks to be behind where it should be. They were knocked out of the championship last July, so there was no need for Winter rest and a later start to preparations. The plan should be to cash in on positives from the 2 point loss from Down last year. Try and get some early momentum and push for promotion.

We'll get a clearer picture in a couple of weeks in the league. But beware that Cavan were openly breaching the Winter training ban.

[faithfullad]

The main problem on Saturday was that in the first half, Offaly had no real way to get the ball from about their 45 into the forward line. Mainly because a lot of players weren't sharp enough. There were too many square passes to static players, intercepted passes and hospital passes.

There was not enough speed and power in the side to carry the ball out of defence. The body language of a player in possession was of someone not feeling there was enough fuel in the tank to actually go on a burst and ship a tackle. So the first instinct was to get rid of it.

When Offaly did deliver it long to the forwards, there wasn't great ball winning ability up front either. Offaly's inside forwards were initially Ken Casey, Nigel Dunne and John Coughlan. When Coughlan came out the field early on, it meant the other two were invariably beaten as Dublin left the spare defender back.

In the second half the introduction of Sean Ryan and Graham Guilfoyle made a difference, because they brought pace and ball carrying ability which had been severely lacking. Also Ciaran McManus swept back a lot to collect the ball from and drove forward with it a lot more.

If Offaly were playing Dublin again in the morning with a better shape to the team, it certainly wouldn't be as one-sided. I'm not sure at what stages of the preparation programmes the respective sides were at.

If Offaly have been doing heavy conditioning sessions lately with little ball work, it would explain it somewhat. However there are only 2 weeks to the league start. Taking it at face value, the team looks to be behind where it should be. They were knocked out of the championship last July, so there was no need for Winter rest and a later start to preparations. The plan should be to cash in on positives from the 2 point loss from Down last year. Try and get some early momentum and push for promotion.

We'll get a clearer picture in a couple of weeks in the league. But beware that Cavan were openly breaching the Winter training ban.

As were Offaly, to be fair. @jimbob how the hell did Alan McNamee look like a county player?