Offaly vs Westmeath NFL 10/04/2011

[townman]

i don't think they will come up next year not with who's over them anyway, Roscommon and longford are up next year
Roscommon are not a bad side and history shows we struggle again them, as for wexford and tipp two teams offaly
footballers can't beat are still in that division and we could be playing them away next year.

this offaly side have missed the boat to division 2 this year which would have brought on offaly football
look at laois they are in Division 1 next year but theres a good man over leix, westmeath pat flangan has got
them playing good football and know how to win games as they showed offaly on sunday and in the under 21 match.

so to tell you the truth theres more of a chance that offaly football will fall to division 4 next year than coming up a level
the day's of Kevin Kilmurray are long gone, and to think that Richie Connor never got a chance with that offaly panel because
of some know all's who have since left the panel with a few still there didn't want him, the last few year's have proved they were
wrong i'd say richie is having a little chuckle to himself and he is right to.

[Bord na Mona man]

so to tell you the truth theres more of a chance that offaly football will fall to division 4 next year than coming up a level
the day's of Kevin Kilmurray are long gone, and to think that Richie Connor never got a chance with that offaly panel because
of some know all's who have since left the panel with a few still there didn't want him, the last few year's have proved they were
wrong i'd say richie is having a little chuckle to himself and he is right to.

Under Kilmurray, Offaly were generally close to the bottom of Division 1A or was it 1B, when the top tier was split across 16 teams.
So basically they were hovering somewhere around the 13th to 16th best team in the country in league terms.
Had they won yesterday they would have been 17th placed team in Ireland, instead they finished 20th in the league. It isn't a massive difference.

I suspect you would be in a very small minority, if you are implying that Richie Connor would have brought something extra to the mix and steered Offaly into Division 2.

Your earlier comparison to Joe Dooley managing to keep Offaly in Division 1 (by needing to win just one league game each year) are irreverent. It would take some absolutely catastrophic mis-management to drop Offaly out of the top 11 or 12 counties in hurling's pecking order. Even I could manage the Offaly team (for free as well) to stay ahead of Down, Kerry and Westmeath in hurling's pecking order. And apparently I'd have immunity from criticism by playing the "look at what division the footballers are in" card!

[townman]

so to tell you the truth theres more of a chance that offaly football will fall to division 4 next year than coming up a level
the day's of Kevin Kilmurray are long gone, and to think that Richie Connor never got a chance with that offaly panel because
of some know all's who have since left the panel with a few still there didn't want him, the last few year's have proved they were
wrong i'd say richie is having a little chuckle to himself and he is right to.

Under Kilmurray, Offaly were generally close to the bottom of Division 1A or was it 1B, when the top tier was split across 16 teams.
So basically they were hovering somewhere around the 13th to 16th best team in the country in league terms.
Had they won yesterday they would have been 17th placed team in Ireland, instead they finished 20th in the league. It isn't a massive difference.

I suspect you would be in a very small minority, if you are implying that Richie Connor would have brought something extra to the mix and steered Offaly into Division 2.

Your earlier comparison to Joe Dooley managing to keep Offaly in Division 1 (by needing to win just one league game each year) are irreverent. It would take some absolutely catastrophic mis-management to drop Offaly out of the top 11 or 12 counties in hurling's pecking order. Even I could manage the Offaly team (for free as well) to stay ahead of Down, Kerry and Westmeath in hurling's pecking order. And apparently I'd have immunity from criticism by playing the "look at what division the footballers are in" card!

offaly played a lovely brand of football under Kilmurray, and got to a leinster final beating westmeath,Kildare, along the way we are years behind now
so you think its alright to stay in division 3 because we don't pay the manger and thats right a sure he does it not nothing great man tom.

as for your point of the hurlers winning one game to keep them in division 1 last year it took two wins and were unlucky with a last minute tipp goal
this year one game hopefully will do it unlucky again waterford.

but there one thing playing tipp,waterford,westmeath,louth,in football who never or never will win any all ireland in my lifetime
as the hurler's have to play the all ireland champs tipp a kilkenny side who were one of the best to pull on the black&Amber jersey waterford munster champions,
Cork well corks cork always at the top,

so your point about offaly hurlers staying ahead of Down,westmeath,kerry, doesn't stand who have the footballers to stay ahead of Kilkenny,wicklow,carlow,waterford
i could train a team to stay ahead of them. as for the Dub's, kerry,cork's of the football world we won't have to worry about rubbing shoulder's with them any time soon.

as for Richie i don't think he got a fair go at it because of certain players who wanted him out and when they did get him out the they just floped again kildare and meath in championship the last two year's.

and here we are still in division 3 but sure as you said it doesn't matter sure good old tom is doing it not nothing, we should have through poor pat from clara a few bob
he would have us in division 2 now instead of westmeath, same sh.t different year comes to mind

[clubman]

dont get to carried away with the league, offaly had a very bad league run and probably lucky to be so close for promotion,could have been at the other end of table .but i think championship can be better for offaly.tom cribbin and co must sort out there best 15,not an easy job but thats why he is manager.niall smith has to be mid field,anton will be back half forward,niall mac has to be in the corner,slattery number 5 or7,scott brady at 6 joe quinn at 3 .dont know about conor or dalton in middle with smith and would like to see padraig bracken again,good strong lad think he could get better with games,we need big physical players on team.

[Truth as i see it]

I certainly wouldn't be as pessimistic as some peaple on this site, i think the manager is still trying to find his best 15 and if you take into account that there are a number of players coming back from injury and that this team is still a work in progress then there is scope for optimisim.

I think Cribben did want promotion but he was also hoping that options would present themselves to solve some troubling areas of the team.

For one thing Cribben has partially sovled the problem at the back by bringing back in Joe Quinn, perhaps in a year or two young John Maloney will be mature enough to bed in but in the meantime Quinn will bring a steadying influence at the back untill more options are found.

In midfield if Sunday's performance proved anything its that Niall Smith should be the first name put down on the team sheet while one bad performance does not make Connor a bad player.

Up front, wheater he has stumbled onto it by chance or by design Cribben has found a Chemistry up front with Allan, Sullivan, and Guilfoyle.

I see Sullivan being the key to making the forward line tick, he brings the others into player more than the likes of Casey and Mcnamee for me <- (sacrelege though it is to say )

He has mentioned in his interviews as well that he intends to bring along some of the younger players over the next year or two as well.

There are a number of players that could come in over a period of time like, Maloney, Spain, NAG, ect...

People are looking at this team as the finished artical where as i would say that you need to see it as more of a team that is developing.

Don't forget it was only last year that we were staring in the face of relegation to division four so progress has been made and mabye at the end of the day, another season in division 3 may be good for the team.

If you look at Antrim and Sligo, they are currently struggling at the tail end of division 2 at the moment so it could be a blessing in disguise.

I think a bit of perspective is required by people at times.

I'm not one to look back often but if you look at the last time we won Sam, way back in '82 it took Eugene Magee six years to get it right and even then he had an ageing team that had the experience of winning an All ireland in '70 and '71 at his disposel to build on.

Having said that i do have my doubts about Cribben.

His tactical nous is questionable so for me the big test will come in the championship.

It will all depend on if he has learned from the lessons gained in the league or not.

[Abercrombie Fitch]

I dont think yesterday was quite the disaster everyone makes it out to be. The league is not known to be a happy hunting ground for Offaly in either codes and should be taken with a pinch of salt. The emergence of Panda and Guiller, plus the comeback of Joe Quinn are satisfactory and welcome outcomes of this league campaign. We are a bit quick to be pessimistic in Offaly. Yes, our backs were poor yesterday and that is worrying with Championship so close. If Smith had started the game we would have broken even at the very least in the first half, instead of being routed, and therefore the ball wouldnt have been constantly going in on top of our full back line. Our forwards looked dangerous throughout, albeit they didnt get enough quality ball. Guiller had an off day but he is young and that will happen, his pace is needed. Reynolds worked extremely hard and did a lot of thankless work around the middle, and also cleared a certain goal off the line. Mac scored a few nice frees but was too loose and this left James Keane in awful trouble with 2 men running at him constantly. Panda took his two goals excellently and has to start v Wexford. Tomo was quiet for his standards but i wouldnt be too keen on Cribben taking off a proven scoring forward in such a tight match when a draw was sufficient. Niall Mac also had a mixed match but the refusal of the half backs,centre field and half forwards to kick it in long to him was puzzling. Dalton, Reynolds, Bracken and Guiller all got caught in possesion when all had chances to kick it long. We all know Niall wins more ball than he loses when its kicked in to him and once he has the ball he's normally deadly. We can go into the Wexford match with a championship like match under our belts after yesterday knowing that we have the firepower to beat them, but we have to use it correctly. We have something to build on and lots to work on but are on the nice side of the draw. With a bit of luck and if things go right we could be looking at a Leinster final. Heres hoping.

[Lone Shark]

I'd be somewhere in between the posters above. I don't think it's a disaster not to go up to division two, particularly when our form is that of a marginally above average division three county. This is our level until we prove otherwise and while the lads did really well to win four games this year, we won three of those games by a combined total of four points. That to me suggests that we are getting a little better at the art of winning close games, but it does not indicate that we are a cut above this standard.

Secondly, we are getting closer to the mark personnel wise. People forget that by the end of the last championship, Ross Brady had begun to settle in at centre back and while he was a bit raw at times, he had the attributes to play the role well and settle into it. This year he's been out injured and we've had to move Karol Slattery in there - now I'd be quite happy to go into championship with Karol at 6 myself but he is better at wing back and we're not getting the best of him and we're losing our best attacking wing back by playing him in the centre. Equally, Stephen Lonergan was playing some very good football until his injury, and we've had to work without him, while Anton was also out for significant amounts of time. My guess is that it'll be a question of Anton or Graham Guilfoyle for one of the wing forward slots and while I respect Guilfoyle's pace, I can't see him winning that battle.

Last year we were bemoaning the absence of some of the best club players in the county - this year Niall Smith, Joe Quinn and Thomas Deehan are all available for selection and every one of them clearly needed the time to get up to intercounty match fitness. For all those who would argue that Niall Smith clearly should have been on from the start, he's not long back playing and I'd say it's far from certain that he had more than half the match in the tank. That was an incredible display once he came on and my guess is that he and Richie are now the likely championship starters, but I wouldn't blame anyone for only seeing him for a third of the match last Sunday. Deehan is a good finisher but he doesn't get involved as much as he needs to and that too has to change before the summer. His ability to look comfortable taking a free means that other forwards have to be 30% better than him to get a look in, but you get the impression that we can't afford anyone to be as out of the game for long stretches as he tends to be.

Another key thing here is that I've actually been quite impressed with Reynolds, not just his work rate, but the way he has generally made a reasonable fist of the centre forward job, which on paper should not be his best position by a long chalk. It's like 2004 and Gerry Fahy all over again - four inside forwards that are all making a decent case for selection and one of them has to be moved out to the half forward line and that player will invariably look like he's not playing as well. In 2004 Niall Mac took that bullet to leave Neville Coughlan, John Reynolds and James Coughlan closer to goal and it didn't suit him at all. This year Reynolds is making a decent job of it.

All of these things add up to a situation where I'd be moderately optimistic about our chances of making some waves in the summer.

However I did say at the start that I'd be in between the positivity and negativity of some of the posts above, and that hasn't changed. There were serious negatives in Dunnes Stores Park on Sunday too - Westmeath won a lot of positions on the field simply due to greater levels of fitness and work rate. There were a few Offaly players who tried their guts out and weren't able to outpace their opponents, there were a couple more that to be honest, looked to me as if they weren't even trying that hard to get up to that pace. I thought the full back line in particular was badly exposed by this gulf out the field and I would have a lot of sympathy for Shane Sullivan in particular, who can be a good man marker but who spent Sunday standing beside Dessie Dolan with thirty yards of space all around him. No back in Ireland would beat Dessie Dolan in that situation and it was shocking naivety on our part to repeatedly spill ball out around midfield and drop it short into the keeper's hands, two errors that usually lead to fast breaks and full forwards with acres of space. Kick the ball long and cough it up, or indeed kick it wide, and you negate this problem.

Above all, and this isn't just the border thing, but I hate losing to counties like Westmeath in big games like this, simply because they used to fear us and respect us and that's eroded with every game that we lose against them. We had a chance to strike a serious psychological blow in advance of the summer where hopefully we will be meeting them in Mullingar again, and we failed to take it. Martin Sludden's decision not to award that free at the end was ridiculous but on the other side of things Seán Ryan and Bernard Allen both kicked good chances wide while Padraig Bracken's decision not to just fist the ball over the bar with three defenders hanging around the area was an atrocious bit of thinking. If we had drawn level in that game they may have come back and won anyway, but we would have asked real questions of them and it's hugely disappointing that we didn't force them to dig deeper. My own gut feeling is that they might have come up short.

I don't think it's the worst way to lose a game like that where we'll hope to meet again in the summer because Tom Cribbin has a much easier job isolating and addressing areas where improvement is possible than Pat Flanagan will have. That said losing is never good and it will take a lot to bounce back from that.

[The Magpie]

Well, I'm probably a lot closer to being on the negative side than the positive.

The reason for this - the Management Team. I'm usually very quick to look towards the players, but this is not the first time Tom Cribben and Co. have baffled me - remember the performance against Clare in the qualifiers last year? On Sunday, we looked at pretty much the same 15 players being moved from position to position for far too long. I think Alan Mulhall was the only player that remained in his starting position. Oh, least I forget, we didn't address the middle of the field either, despite the fact that we probably won 30% of the ball there - and that could be a glass half-full estimate.

I'm a really big fan of Brian Connor, but Sunday wasn't his day. Not only was he not fielding the ball well, but his marker did much of the conducting - along with David Glennon and Westmeaths right-half forward, who looked very impressive. In fact, these were the three players that saw more of the ball than any other in a first-half that saw Westmeath kicking 12 points, being denied a goal (for a fouled hand-pass), having a goal cleared off the line and missing some very easy point-scoring chances. It's not unfair to say that Westmeath could've earned 2-14 or so by half-time on Sunday - yes, that's half-time.

With the endless attacks, the Offaly full-back line didn't fair well. Scott Brady did win some ball, but was chasing Dessie Dolan for much of the time. I agree strongly with Long John's assessment here. It's a hot day with hard-ground and we're expecting Scott to keep-up with Dessie Dolan or Denis Glennon or any lively full-forward. That's a selection that's just badly exposing somebody that has so much to offer in other areas of the pitch - where we're struggling. Where a physical presence and drive is needed.

Anyway, Sean Pender literally didn't touch the ball in the first-half (but improved in the second), while Brian Darby won a little more ball. Although I do feel that all could've been closer to their markers, it's hard to be critical when everything in front of them was breaking-down. Strangely enough, Shane Sullivan certainly looked more assured and even more comfortable in the second-half when he was isolated with Dessie Dolan (he probably just about broke even) but had a torrid first-half with David Glennon on the 40. His only contribution was to over-hit a pass to Niall McNamee after about 20 minutes.

Throughout the first-half, the ball in to the forward line was rare and generally quite poor - the only real highlight was Allens excellent finish for a goal, slipped in by Guilfoyle, who had a very quiet game. John Reynolds and Ciaran McManus were working hard, while Niall McNamee was way too far from the goals. Thomas Deehan kicked a good point but doesn't look nearly match-fit yet, so it seems a very strange decision to play him (was he picked to kick frees?).

Anyway, despite all of this, Tom Cribben looked and looked and then moved and moved again - but not in the middle of the field (parallels with the Clare game). I don't buy this experimentation rubbish. All of those players went out to win that game - not lose it. And if Cribben didn't do the same, it's enormously disrespectful to the players and supporters - I don't believe he didn't want to win it either. If he did want to win the game, I cannot explain his management decisions.

Eventually we saw Joe Quinn and Niall Smith - both of whom made a big contribution. Smith was outstanding and is unquestionably the finest fielder of the ball in the County. Richie Dalton could learn much from Smith's timing, which can make a big man imperious. His timing is impeccable, reminding me a lot of Jimmy Grennons some years ago.

When Offaly started to win-ball in the middle, everything changed. Of course, it helped at this stage that both of the Glennons had left the field and the ball into the Westmeath forwards was generally kicked long (rather than carried).

The players responded brilliantly to the momentum that Smith brought. My only criticism of them would be that when Offaly eventually dragged themselves back into the game (with the coolest of finishes from Allen), we made bad personal decisions - to a man. Westmeath were well and truly on the ropes, but we kept making bad decisions in the forward line and hand-passing the ball as quickly as possible for fear of the responsibility. But much as I look towards the players here, I look back towards the management team. They couldn't quite believe we were back in the game and didn't seem to have any guidance to offer the players - I was seated near the Offaly bench and watched closely. Thinking back to the Clare game, I thought Cribben was about to passively use up another of his nine-lives if Offaly were to dig-out a win here.

So overall, were Offaly good enough to qualify from this division? The answer is simple. Forget about the games they shaded or how they played - all of those things clearly apply to all of the other teams in this division. Why? Because beating Westmeath on Sunday would've been enough. If the other Division 3 teams were that much better or worthy of Division 2 football, they'd have been out of sight.

Should we have beaten Westmeath? No.

Could we have beaten Westmeath? If you were in Mullingar on Sunday, you already know the answer to that.

The players must be down. They're there to be guided and managed.

[High School Musical]

i think Offly is brilliant

[True Red]

your avatar says it all

[Truth as i see it]

yeah i'd actually agree with you magpie i would be worried that Cribben is stumbling his way around a little bit in terms of finding the right team, his tactical dicisions have been baffleing at times.

You get the feeling listening to his interviews on midlands that he doesn't know what the next step is beyond getting the lads commited to the cause.

i hope i'm wrong and i cartainly am not saying we should get rid of him but i wouldn't be at all confident in his ability to out think the opposition.

[DAF]

Offaly, he admits, are going to find it tough now getting themselves right for Championship. "There's no point in codding ourselves and thinking otherwise," he (Tom Cribben) said.


Taken from Mondays Irish Independent.

If the manager is that negative about things I dont see too much hope.Is he not going to take some of the responsibility for the performances.The players dont look fit (compared to Westmeath anyway) and his selction of Scott Brady at full back on a hard picth was baffling anybody that knows anything about Offaly football could see what was going to happen and did if they were going top play Scott Brady anywhere oin Sunday it should have been midfield where his strength would have been a big bonus and Brian Connor doesnt look at all fit sio he defintely shouldnt have started.Also there seems to be an unwillingness to let the ball in long to McNamee who is excellent in the air and always causes trouble when the ball is kicked in direct to him.

The best year Offaly football has had in the last few was 2006 where we got to the Leinster Final playing simple direct football we need to go back to that style of play.There is a big oppurtunity in Leinster this year with our side of the draw being wide open and I hope we dont mess things up with poor selections and tactics like I have seen all year so far.

[Abercrombie Fitch]

[quote="Truth as i see it"]yeah i'd actually agree with you magpie i would be worried that Cribben is stumbling his way around a little bit in terms of finding the right team, his tactical dicisions have been baffleing at times.

Well if he's stumbling around Div 3 to find his best 15 then so be it, but we can only wait til the championship to find that out. We are on the good side of the draw and have Wexford in Tullamore up first. I can think of harder first assignments and we need to get out in numbers to support the team and make the terrace 'Our Terrace'!