The bigger picture (Hurling and football)

[jimbob17]

in relation to development of players etc as related to by other posters, i think that there are a lot of issues involved. Some have remarked that we will only get 3/4 per minor team anyway to graduate from senior level and that we are doing ok in this regard given the size of the county. I think this idea masks an awful lot.

1 As a county, underage football has been getting some degree of success in the past few years. This has been down to a lot of good combined work done within schools and clubs and county. However, we must really ask what the term "development" means and only then can we guage if we are making progress like other counties in Hurling (Westmeath, Dublin and Carlow who have all passed us out at underage development level).
To me "development" means making a player better skilled, physically and mentally stronger, faster, more agile and tactically more aware. Are our young players in these underage squads getting a type of training that is developing all of these areas. If they are not, then there is no development, just extra training with a higher calibre of player than they have at club level.

Other counties have been developing these areas in the past few years and sadly, we are not up to speed.
To really develop these players, high quality coaches with the requisite skills to develop these areas need to be put in place. here are a few questions.... As part of being in the county squad, Do these players have access to 1 Highly skilled coaches to develop skills and tactical awareness?? 2 strength and conditioning expertise to develop strength 3 fitness coaches to develop speed, running technique, agility and reaction times 4 and sport psychologists to develop mental strength. If the answer is no, then are we really developing players or just training the better footballers in the various age groups??

It was blatantly obvious in the minor football match with kildare and hurling game with westmeath, that we are behind in all of these areas, especially strength and speed. Other counties have addressed these issues and have programmes in place with the best coaches and paid experts (sport science and psychology) in their counties in with these teams. My opinion is that this is not the case in offaly and most especially on the hurling front.

Another major issue is that there is a lot of nepotism that exists throughout the GAA in offaly be it from clubs sending in their own sons from u 14 level to a serious bias against North Offaly in the hurling areas for selection of county teams. also the selection of minor and u 21 management is an absolute farce, especially in hurling. People are pulled out of the woodwork to work with these teams with no coaching experience just because the might have been a great hurler one time. either that or they are a known as mad passionate Offaly GAA man who will get them psyched up no end having done no degree of quality training and coaching. Where is the development under this type of structure. The day of the dinosaur on the coaching front running hills and laps and not pucking a ball in training is long gone i am afraid but offaly have not realised this at the top table. Those on the committees who are making key decisions are clueless with regard to what is actually required to improve the whole structure. this even transfers to key decisions regarding choice of senior management and their support structures. This is why we are where we are.

In relation to North Offaly hurling, St Davids win u 21 and four lads get called to county 21 level, 3 of whom cant make a minor panel the previous year because they are from the wrong club or dont go to school in the right place. It is rife all over and a lot of hurlers are lost because of this. Clara have at least 3 hurlers good enough for co minor hurling between last year and this year but none were in there. Did Finbarr Cullen hurl in an all ireland minor final??? and would an edenderry young lad be even considered for an offaly hurling panel now. those in charge need to be neutral and pick the best players at 14. when this doesnt happen, lads get browned off and wont go in when they are older. Steven Egan is a case in point and would not be hurling with offaly now only that Joe Dooley knew how good he was and kept bringing him, ditto derek molloy.

On the football front, the major fall down area appears to be the transition from minor to 21. Good work has seen offaly more than competitive up to minor level reaching 3/4 leinster finals in 6 years. in this time though, i dont think we have won 1 u 21 match. is there development of players in relation to the areas mentioned for players at this time, I Think not.

there are plenty of examples of proper development structures, ie kildare football, Armagh hurling, dublin, westmeath and carlow underage hurling. another example of real development has been the cork footballers in the past few years. Offaly drew with them twice in the league in 05 and 06. look where they have gone since compared with Offaly. they did this with a strategic programme in place addressing all of the areas mentioned above. The politics was taken out of Cork GAA by Billy Morgan and he picked the best players whether they were from junior, inter or senior clubs. Half of that cork senior football panel come from junior or intermediate clubs. this was continued by counihan where no political bulls#@t was tolerated. the same goes for cody in KK and we all see what happened there. In Offaly, St Vincents underage have been a driving force in the past ten years and they play with Cappincur, Daingean, Kilclonfert and Ballycommon at junior and inter level. they are at the very centre of the football area in offaly. When was the last time that anybody from any of these clubs played senior league or championship with offaly. Ditto Na Fianna underage.

So going forward, we can look and talk about development all we like but we are only paying lip service and no development is really happening if players are not improving thro a coherent strategised programme to improve these key areas like all the other counties have introduced. We need to open our eyes big time or we will be a laughing stock for many many years ahead and we will be looking back at the glory years wondering and still be asking where it all went wrong...

[57118]

who was the last player from the parish of daingean to play championship?, and who was the last in the league? and when?, i dunno the answer just wondering..

[Plain of the Herbs]

An excellent post Jimbob with plenty of food for thought. Well done. Just to pick up on one single paragraph . . .

The answer to all 4 is no. As long as there is an attitude that:
1. Former players will do the coaching because they can hit the ball on the ground;
2. strength and conditioning is for Munster hurlers because they can't hit the ball on the ground;
3. fitness is for Dublin because they can't hit the ball on the ground either; and
4. psychology is for Americans, because they're looper;
Then the county will continue to slide.

I get the impression that many think that once it hits the bottom that thinks will start to recover. People need to realise there is NO bottom, and that the slide will continue. Things can always get worse. The serious issue about the minor hurlers' defeat isn't that they lost to Westmeath (and well done to them and I hope they reach the Final), it's that the defeat was expected and went entirely with the formbook.

Other counties have been developing these areas in the past few years and sadly, we are not up to speed.
To really develop these players, high quality coaches with the requisite skills to develop these areas need to be put in place. here are a few questions.... As part of being in the county squad, Do these players have access to 1 Highly skilled coaches to develop skills and tactical awareness?? 2 strength and conditioning expertise to develop strength 3 fitness coaches to develop speed, running technique, agility and reaction times 4 and sport psychologists to develop mental strength. If the answer is no, then are we really developing players or just training the better footballers in the various age groups??

[Plain of the Herbs]

John Kenny would be my guess but I stand to be corrected.

who was the last player from the parish of daingean to play championship?, and who was the last in the league? and when?, i dunno the answer just wondering..

[Bord na Mona man]

The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive.
The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually.


Sound familiar?

[DAF]

John Kenny would be my guess but I stand to be corrected.

who was the last player from the parish of daingean to play championship?, and who was the last in the league? and when?, i dunno the answer just wondering..

I would say John Kenny was playing for Tullamore when he last played for Offaly

John Greene came on as a sub against Meath in 2000 I think.

Declan Kelly from Kilclonfert probably played in goals a couple of times in the league aswell in the 2000's

[theman]

The last Daingean man to play Senior league or championship was John Kenny, but he was with Tullamore at the time, so technically the last ''Daingean'' man to play was John Greene.

Your other point about St.Vincents etc. To be honest i dont think there is one player from the parish good enough to play senior - at the moment. There are though plenty of players from Junior and Intermediate that are good enough for the Offaly team but from my experience the reason players dont bother going in are:
1. The think its a waste of time as Offaly football is at a low at the moment
2. They Dont think they would make it
3. If there not from a club that normally produces county players, they would be looked down on. And before any one ates the head off me, i can recall a few year ago at a challenge game for Offaly and a few players from Intermediate and Junior Clubs were been tried. During the match a player from an Intermediate club kicked a wide, just after he kicked it a player on the sideline from a senior club laughed and said ''what do ya expect from someone who plays junior''.

Offaly football and hurling needs someone to come in an wipeout all the Bullshit and Politics and Downgrading of lower clubs. The best 30 should be picked for both panels, wether there Playing senior or Junior B, Weather they played underage county or not, weather there 18 or 38. Its not relevant!! Look at Kerry, Kilkenny, Meath, Cork. They all won All-Irelands with Players from junior clubs on there team. I recall a Meath team back in the late 80's winning an All-Ireland with 15 players from 15 clubs starting in the final.

COUNTY BOARD - GET YOUR F**KING FINGER OUT!!

[DAF]

Has Jimmy Foy from Clonmore ever been called up for any county panels , he is a top player in my opinon and deserving of a chance

[theman]

Jimmy played County minor and im nearly 100% he got called up a few year back. Im sure if he was with rhode he would of been on the county team ages ago - typical county setup.

On another note, it think its great news that his brother Phillip captained Offaly Minors this year. Gives alot of belief to smaller clubs in the county

[Truth as i see it]

Have to agree with most of what you say JB but i think there is hope in terms of the minor footballers coming through.

Now people will say hang on we got trounced by Kildare and yes that was a dissapointing performance but i think in the long run this bunch of players will start to take Offaly in the direction it needs to go.

I believe this for a number of reasons

First off from what i have read about these players (from coach and player interviews through out the past two years) these guys have been brought up to respect the jersey and were taught by the coaches at various levels to take pride in playing for the county.

This was not always the case as its been well documented that in the past a lot of minor, u-21 and senior players looked at playing to the county as an annoyence more than an honour and were only interested in getting free gear and drinking buddies out of the deal. (at least that's what i have heard)

These guys seem generally interested in putting their heart and soul into this especially with the Ferbane lads who played what i consider to be some of the best football i have seen for a long time in the Vocational schools final for Gallen

Another aspect to bear in mind about the Kildare game is that they are obviously on a seriously intensive gym programme, we on the otherhand are not, so that was always going to be a factor.

I do think that not having a gym programme at minor level could work to our advantage because if the players have been tought the right skills it will mean they will rely more on their footballing ability more than their physicality when they get into their early twenties to which point they will start to naturally fill out anyway

If you take the example of Bernard Allan, he would not have been the stand out player in the minors but he has come into his own this year as a physically mature player, another one would be shane Dooley with the hurlers, its only in the past two years that he has bulked up yet he has always had the ability to score goals and points.

Another aspect would be the lack of competition at club level.

For the past number of years there have only been two teams competing for the county championship (we all know who they are so i won't bother nameing them) and this has led to a lack of competition from other clubswhich is a lot like the scotish league with Rangers and Celtic

In the next few years i would expect Ferbane to become more competitive with the Gallen and Offaly minors emerging there.

Obviously this will depend on whether the club can keep these guys together through college and work ect but if they can i expect them to be up there challenging for the title in the next few years.

I would also say keep an eye on Gracefield as they have quiet a few young lads in the Offaly set up at the moment and given time under the right managment may become a good side.

Again the same with Shamrocks who have a seriously good U-16s side at the moment

Again there is a lot of Ifs, buts, ands and maybe's here but if they can them around they wont be far behind the front runners in the near future

Edenderry are another who if they deliver on their promise from their minor sides a few years ago then they will be challenge for top spot

Same with Tullamore.

There is the potential there for the county footballers to move forward, my worry would be the management in charge at the moment.

Tactically Cribben an Co have been suspect at times and i just hope they learn from their mistakes from the league gone by.

I will back Tom Cribben to the hilt while he is leading the team but should he leave this year my preference would by St Brigids manager Noel O' Brian who has worked miracles for the south Roscommon club

I may be a little bit one sided in my opinion here but every time i have met the man the sheer determination and positive attitude to the way he trains and motivates his side is nothing short of inspiring

In many ways he reminds me of Brian Cody in the way he can mentally push the buttons of his players, for him when they take to the pitch they don't hope to win they expect to win and he makes sure that they fear no-one

To him its all about standards and he is not afraid to drop someone in order to maintain those standards

I have seen him once or twice on the sideline during a match and even when they are up 20 points (like they were against Sligo champs Eastern harps in the early rounds of the club championship) he was still shouting and cojoling his players to keep the standards high.

Look i'm not his publicist or agent or anything i'm just saying what my opinion is

Like i said i will back Tom Cribben as long as he is managing the team but should he go, O' Brian would be my choice

I think there is cause for optimisim but its going to take time before we see the results.

[Lone Shark]

My take on it is that the only footballers and hurlers in Offaly developing in any meaningful sense is those in with county panels, and the problem is that there isn't enough room in county panels for all those who want to improve, particularly when so many places are set aside for players that either have reached their peak, or lads that have no interest in getting any better.

The standard of coaching in the clubs isn't high at adult level, meaning that once lads come out of minor, there is little "management" beyond screaming lads out of it and talking about pride, heart and all that other stuff that is fine on championship day but ultimately is the last 5%, not the 95%.

There are undoubtedly exceptions to this rule but managers in club GAA don't generally look to identify deficits in player skill sets and improve them, and that's not to say that county managers do either, but at least deficits will be exposed more and players will work on them. However in most cases players will be cast back to the club scene from county panels if they do get called up to play intercounty in the winter.

The problem is that if you get to play against Rhode, Clara and the rest of the teams in the SFC, you do have to keep improving yourself to a certain degree. Maybe not as much as you should do, but if you are a reasonably talented 18 year old, you still have to work hard to make an impact at senior football. You can, but it's not easy. On the other hand, at intermediate or junior, you're often good enough to be the main man already. I'd be amazed if Peter Cunningham wasn't Bracknagh's main threat even now as a minor, likewise the lads from Capincur, or Philip Foy at Clonmore. These lads all have real potential to be outstanding footballers, but they need to push themselves to be as good as they can be - it's easy to be a big fish in a small pond.

And before anyone says that this is an argument for a senior club team in Daingean parish, it's not. It's an argument for young Offaly footballers to make sure they play ball at college, and possibly for divisional sides. If we had a Daingean senior team, well then it might be Rynaghs who would be relegated - so Eoin Carroll, Jason Gethings, Gareth Mann and Brian Norris would play senior, but now Conor Clancy, Joey O'Connor and Niall Wynne wouldn't. Either you keep the system as it is, or you create one where everyone can play senior - but I cannot imagine that working in a dual county. The tradeoff would be that you'd have to essentially schedule football and hurling at the same time and force guys to choose, and I don't think Offaly is ready for that yet.

I've gone off the point a bit, but the key thing here is that we are actually being hamstrung by our past success in a different era. We enjoyed success at hurling with a bygone style in the 1990's, and our footballers were good then too, also with a swashbuckling style that would be eaten alive by modern defensive tactics. Yet all our current managers are products of that era, and they are trying to reproduce that success in an inhospitable environment.

The catalyst for change probably needs to come from the club scene. That's why it was such a pity that K/K didn't win a title under John Leahy - he was trying to modernise hurling and could have got there with a bit more time, which he wasn't granted.

Equally, is there any club football team in Offaly who doesn't have the tactic of:

(1) We work the ball out as far as midfield
(2) The half forwards drop deep to create space
(3) Long ball into the F/F line (high or low, depending on the height of the men in there)
(4) Half forward line drives hard to come on to the breaks and layoffs.

The really sad thing is that there are clubs out there that think this is a "tactic". Of course our young lads aren't learning. We're teaching them to be robots, where there is literally only one way to play football, or hurl.

[Lone Shark]

Have to agree with most of what you say JB but i think there is hope in terms of the minor footballers coming through.

Now people will say hang on we got trounced by Kildare and yes that was a dissapointing performance but i think in the long run this bunch of players will start to take Offaly in the direction it needs to go.

I believe this for a number of reasons

First off from what i have read about these players (from coach and player interviews through out the past two years) these guys have been brought up to respect the jersey and were taught by the coaches at various levels to take pride in playing for the county.

This was not always the case as its been well documented that in the past a lot of minor, u-21 and senior players looked at playing to the county as an annoyence more than an honour and were only interested in getting free gear and drinking buddies out of the deal. (at least that's what i have heard)

These guys seem generally interested in putting their heart and soul into this especially with the Ferbane lads who played what i consider to be some of the best football i have seen for a long time in the Vocational schools final for Gallen

Another aspect to bear in mind about the Kildare game is that they are obviously on a seriously intensive gym programme, we on the otherhand are not, so that was always going to be a factor.

I do think that not having a gym programme at minor level could work to our advantage because if the players have been tought the right skills it will mean they will rely more on their footballing ability more than their physicality when they get into their early twenties to which point they will start to naturally fill out anyway

If you take the example of Bernard Allan, he would not have been the stand out player in the minors but he has come into his own this year as a physically mature player, another one would be shane Dooley with the hurlers, its only in the past two years that he has bulked up yet he has always had the ability to score goals and points.

Another aspect would be the lack of competition at club level.

For the past number of years there have only been two teams competing for the county championship (we all know who they are so i won't bother nameing them) and this has led to a lack of competition from other clubswhich is a lot like the scotish league with Rangers and Celtic

In the next few years i would expect Ferbane to become more competitive with the Gallen and Offaly minors emerging there.

Obviously this will depend on whether the club can keep these guys together through college and work ect but if they can i expect them to be up there challenging for the title in the next few years.

Good post.

Regarding the minors, I had a slight involvement with that group this year and I could not say enough good things about them in terms of their attitude and application. Firstly, they went for goals a bit early against Kildare, but that was because the lads were trying to get back in and win the game, not make the scoreline look respectable - which is exactly as it should be. If points had been taken, that would have been a four or five point defeat to a Kildare team who I consider to be a very, very good side. I think they will prove that as time goes on. I do think a gym programme would help, but only if you do like Kildare did last year - isolate the candidates in July and let them work away at it for the latter half of the year before, thus ensuring that you still have the time to work on football.

Overall though these guys were respectful, honest, hard working and genuinely eager to do justice to the jersey they wore. Lads all desperately wanted to play for their county and while the result was not what was hoped for, if they continue to apply themselves this way, they will get those results in time. To give one example, I did that interview with Philip Foy and the lad took it so seriously, captaining Offaly meant the world to him and he was so conscious all the time of doing justice to that role. He was a model player and leader in that sense and yet he was simply representative of the attitude all these guys had.

However the thing about it is that life has a way of throwing up roadblocks. Some of those lads will go to college and play Sigerson football, but others will go to college and get mired in heavy study, and that's fair enough too. Others still will get distracted by less noble things, and while we hope not too many - for their sake, the wine, women and song will always be there, football offers you a narrow window - there will be some, and more still will have to head outside of Ireland to earn a crust. That's just the sad truth right now.

That's why I don't just say this as a Ferbane man trying to talk down the team, but we had six great young lads on that panel and while every one of them could be playing senior club football very soon and county football in due course, life may not offer them the option of carrying that torch on. I hope it does, but it's not that simple. God knows there are a few clubs right in the mix for the county minor title this year, let's see if they can win that first and go from there.

It's the same for Offaly as a whole - you keep trying to produce 15 every year, in the hope that you'll keep four or five in the long run.

[jimbob17]

Maybe I am wrong, but i hope this is a watershed weekend for the county board. The footballers trounced and the hurlers were well beaten by a Dublin team pulling up and were easily more than 5 points a better team than OY. We can talk about pride in your jersey and all that but at the end of the day, how well prepared were either of them two teams at the weekend with comparison to their respective opponents???

If it was a boxing match, you would say that OY were probably as skillful as their respective opponents in both codes. However, you would have to question how a years training can result in such humiliating defeats, footballers more so. If things were done right and a boxer is prepared for a fight, he is at least competitive and might lose out eventually on skill. We werent even competitive in either game and the dub hurlers were coasting throughout that game, and the late rally masked an awful lot of ills or wants in Offalys game!!! no need to say anything about the footballers, they were an absolute shambles. It was like watching Tyrone v Carlow it was that bad and there was a vast gulf in class. The problem for me was that it was against a mediocre wexford side that will do well to go any further on the weak side of the draw.

[azoffaly]

Equally, is there any club football team in Offaly who doesn't have the tactic of:

(1) We work the ball out as far as midfield
(2) The half forwards drop deep to create space
(3) Long ball into the F/F line (high or low, depending on the height of the men in there)
(4) Half forward line drives hard to come on to the breaks and layoffs.

The really sad thing is that there are clubs out there that think this is a "tactic". Of course our young lads aren't learning. We're teaching them to be robots, where there is literally only one way to play football, or hurl.

Not sure what point you are trying to make there LS? Do you disagree with this gameplan? I'd have thought that football is a fairly simple game in essence, and once your skills are up to scratch, then 'tactics' should only be for specific scenarios, or to address specific problems,, i.e. Kickouts, playing against/with a wind, extra man/man sent off, playing against a team that does something odd. However, the approach you outline as a gameplan is fine in my opinion.

The idea behind it is that you do not want hopeful punts out of defence, because you don't want 50-50 balls, or worse, around halfway or closer to your own goals. Hence support play, off the man runs, and possession ball out of defence.

Then you come to the middle third, and this is where you launch your attacks, with early ball into a forward line that is moving. Ask any forward and he will tell you his best friend is early ball, and his biggest bugbear is lads soloing 50 or 60 yards away.

So the 4 steps you have called a 'tactic' is to my mind the basis for an eminently sensible gameplan. I think tactics are tweaking or tailoring that gameplan to suit certain circumstances, and maybe that's what you are getting at.

[Lone Shark]

I think that when every team employs the same style, it discourages players to think that there is anything else to playing football. My point is not that there is anything inherently wrong with this approach, however different teams have different strengths and it shouldn't be employed across the board.

To give an obvious example, if you have a very fast, fit group of footballers but you don't have any natural scorers close to goal, this plan will fail miserably as it will underemploy some of your key players while at the same time put a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of those who are not capable of bearing it. Equally if i have a gifted freetaker at my disposal, I want to put 50% or more of my scoring chances in his hands - so a dead ball 40 yards out might be of more value than a corner forward getting the ball 30 yards out from goal with lots of space to work with. Carrying the ball into the tackle is maybe the better percentage play. Or to look at it from another point of view, if I have a very young team where there are a good few 10 stone under-21's in there, then carrying the ball through the tackle out of defence and keeping things very tight is not necessarily the right approach either, they might need a lot of "outlet" players deployed around the middle, and then support them and move the ball from there.

The reason it bugs me is that in Offaly in particular, every club plays the same way, many of those clubs consider it a "tactic" when in actual fact they haven't come up with anything at all, and so every young forward only learns how to play this system, every young defender only learns how to play against this system, and that's fine when you are the team with the most naturally talented footballers, but if you don't have that, then clubs should be doing something to maximise the strengths they do have. I wouldn't for a minute argue that Rhode or Clara should be re-inventing the wheel, but other clubs with some strengths and other deficiencies should certainly be trying to evolve into something more than a marginally inferior replica of the big two.

Of course at underage level when you're still teaching young footballers how to play the game, then sticking to the basics is probably best, but that's a different issue I would say.