Offaly V Limerick SFCQ 09/07/2011

[blue biffo]

i may not agree with everything townman says but why is everyone picking on him all i saw was a sad face on a message some lads see what the want to see.To solve this just scroll up and check it out hopefully this is the end of it.

[black and red exile]

Lads, any chance we can cut out the civil war amongst ourselves, everybody is pissed off the way this year has turned out with our hurlers and footballers with no progress on either front, on yesterday's game, management and players have to take collective responsibility, effort wasn't a problem, the lads tried their best but those 2 early killer goals were just too much to overcome, we were playing catch up after 10 minutes and I think everyone will admit you just couldn't see Offaly getting level or going ahead bar they got a goal and to be honest it never looked likely, we have too many players on yesterday's team with no pace for inter county football and on a big pitch like the Gaelic grounds you are going to be found out big time, for next year we need to get a manager in with tactical know how and have a plan B when plan A goes down the swanny, Maurice Horan gave Tom Cribben a lesson in tactics yesterday that was embarassing but I think everyone knows that tactics are not Tom Cribben's strong point.
Tom Cribben gave his very best and thanks to him for that but now it's very important that the next man is the right choice for a very difficult job in trying to pick Offaly up off the floor.

[Bord na Mona man]

Unfortunately Offaly were stitched up like a kipper tactically.
Limerick played the 2 man full forward line to perfection and also everything else required to make a 2 man full forward line.
They cleared out a massive space in front of them and played in decent low ball into this vast open space.
When Limerick withdrew forwards, the Offaly's backs followed them into the crowded middle of the field, just as Limerick hoped.

At the other end Limerick, played the sweeper to double up on the likes of Niall Mac when they got a sniff of the ball and again Offaly's deliveries were to often high, hanging ball on top of the target, instead of teasing ball into space.

As stated Offaly continually overplayed the ball in the attack, throwing around bundles of square passes to static players before eventually shooting from difficult positions or turning it over. They really needed to switch to a 'shoot on sight' gameplan when it was clear what was happening.

The lack of any Plan B was frustrating. With Limerick got 12 or 13 behind the ball and Offaly playing themselves into dead ends, there should have been a change in tactics. Like perhaps a target man on edge of the square and deliveries being hit in over Limericks' swarm defence. Perhaps Ross Brady or John Coughlan might have caught ball, broke ball or won frees? It might at least have caused Limerick to have to adjust their defensive system. It never happened though and Offaly spent the whole match playing like moths flinging themselves against a lightbulb.

Also with Limerick dropping back a sweeper, surely Offaly should have used their own spare man to try and disrupt the ball into Ryan and Collins? How many other Limerick forwards could have taken up the scoring burden, if Offaly had gone all out to shut off their supply?

For Limerick to score 3-12 and having almost zero ability to win any primary possession is fairly damning for Offaly. Limerick practically created a scoring chance every time they managed to cross the Offaly '45.

Unfortunately, until we develop to cuteness to cope with teams who don't line up and play conventionally, then I can't see any progress being made.

[azoffaly]

I agree with most of what you say there BnM man. It's disconcerting to see how ill-prepared we were when Limerick dropped Lavin back in front of the front two. What did we think they would do when we brought Scott Brady back into our weird 'half sweeper, half spare half back' position?

Everything from the movement of the forwards to the terrible passing back and forth just seemed completely stumped at this development, and it was very frustrating.

I thought the team won a lot of ball, and the likes of Niall Smyth (Smith??) and Ritchie Dalton were fine there. But when we attacked we were rudderless, and Limerick's economy when the roles were reversed was a lesson on how to use a two man inside line. As a football man, you had to appreciate Ian Ryan's display.

Even with all the problems we had, I thought we were going to sneak it when we got back to two points, but Joe's unfortunate mistake summed up his day and it was curtains.

I think we're going to have to dispense with the square plugs and round holes approach as well. Niall Darby is not a scoring wing forward, nor is Karol Slattery. We played at least 4 or 5 half backs in the 6 positions between 5-7 and 10-12. It's hardly surprising then that we struggle to use the ball well and kick atrocious wides.

Was Sean Ryan injured? That game cried out for him to come on and run at Limerick at pace, but bringing him on with about 2 minutes left was a futile gesture. Was John Coughlan injured? Ken Casey did well, but if we are strugging to pass the ball through the sweeper, why not go orthodox for 15 minutes and play a full forward target man.

I'm afraid it all goes back to not having alternate plans to react to what the opposition does.

[Bord na Mona man]

The way the team lined out, it looked like Scott was the official centre back and was then caught between, somewhat trying to hold the centre and also providing cover in front of the full back line.
Perhaps we should have gone all out for a sweeper who was going to be able to drop in behind if the Limerick inside forward got possession. That might have allowed the likes of Pender, Darby etc to take more chances in trying to attack the ball. Instead they marked conservatively from behind.

For one of the Limerick points in the first half, both Ryan and Collins were almost standing on the edge of the Offaly small square and broke out when the Limerick player on the '45 played in a daisy cutter ball in front of them. It was like those '2 on 2' scoring drills in training where you feed in balls from outfield.
At the other end, the Limerick extra man disrupted Offaly's forward play far more. Sometimes Niall Mac ended up having to drift out to the sideline to actually get an unhindered line.

I know it might drive some lads into meltdown here, but I felt that John Reynolds could have made a difference to Offaly. His ability to get a shot away from a static position, in tight spaces, with minimum wind up might have gotten us a couple of extra scores with our attacking play quagmired. Whereas Niall Darby seems to need a running wind up to a shot, and if he gets forced to change direction in any way, his shooting compass is thrown off.

The sad thing is, I didn't feel Offaly would pull through, even on the occasions when they got it back to 2 points. It just felt like Limerick had everything their own way tactically and Offaly never returned the serve.

[townman]

I agree with most of what you say there BnM man. It's disconcerting to see how ill-prepared we were when Limerick dropped Lavin back in front of the front two. What did we think they would do when we brought Scott Brady back into our weird 'half sweeper, half spare half back' position?

Everything from the movement of the forwards to the terrible passing back and forth just seemed completely stumped at this development, and it was very frustrating.

I thought the team won a lot of ball, and the likes of Niall Smyth (Smith??) and Ritchie Dalton were fine there. But when we attacked we were rudderless, and Limerick's economy when the roles were reversed was a lesson on how to use a two man inside line. As a football man, you had to appreciate Ian Ryan's display.

Even with all the problems we had, I thought we were going to sneak it when we got back to two points, but Joe's unfortunate mistake summed up his day and it was curtains.

I think we're going to have to dispense with the square plugs and round holes approach as well. Niall Darby is not a scoring wing forward, nor is Karol Slattery. We played at least 4 or 5 half backs in the 6 positions between 5-7 and 10-12. It's hardly surprising then that we struggle to use the ball well and kick atrocious wides.

Was Sean Ryan injured? That game cried out for him to come on and run at Limerick at pace, but bringing him on with about 2 minutes left was a futile gesture. Was John Coughlan injured? Ken Casey did well, but if we are strugging to pass the ball through the sweeper, why not go orthodox for 15 minutes and play a full forward target man.

I'm afraid it all goes back to not having alternate plans to react to what the opposition does.

yes your right it all you said above its kind of looking like its who you are not how good you are with Cribbin when it comes to picking his team
if sean ryan only gets 2 minutes left and limerick are kicking the sh.t out of you why would you bother, your point is right about Niall Darby he was cruel
again kildare in portlaoise a few years ago and still gets to play, you don't blame Deehan or Reynolds from going off the panel.

Karol is no inter county forward either he might do the job for Gracefield there but not inter county, Richie Dalton fair enough had a great game again monaghan
but lads though he was the new jacko'shea after that game lads fair is fair he has been cruel as well in midfield for most of the league and the wexford game
if he plays maybe a half back where he plays most his underage football but he is not a centre field player, with Brian Connor gone maybe Cribbin had no choice.

the only thing i would say is where are the lads that have got to 3 or 4 minor lenister football final's we seem to be bring the same players on year after year and most
are not up to it.

sean ryan gave up the hurling and maybe a first team place with the county hurling team, to get just 2 minutes football when most of the crowd were gone home
and sean is in with the footballers since 2006 and still doesn't know if he playes from one day to another is that not telling him something.

like Joe Dooley tom Cribbin will go now but who do we get in its hard to know, but do you know where i would start with getting offaly back again
i would run the gobshites that are our county board because belive me their are some muppets in there at the moment.

there is two there that i know won't watch well one wouldn't watch offaly footballers if they were outside his window he was once hear saying and the other buck
doesn't have much time for offaly hurling and never did so thats what is running our county board get them out and then start with looking for good hurling and football men
on our county board, get good mangers over football and hurling side outsiders would be best bet and maybe we can get off the ground thats where the county are at the moment.

if someone said to me maybe ten years ago that Wexford footballers would be way ahead of us and Dublin hurlers would be the second best team in leinster i would have told
him to go to the redbrick in portlaoise...

[Lone Shark]

This is nothing to do with the hurlers, so I'm not really sure how any of that came up, but the simple fact here is that this was a hugely disappointing result, made all the more so by the draw that Limerick got last night.

It would be easy to say that the full back line got skinned and to a certain extent the lads back there were struggling, but you cannot expect any defender to contain forwards of the calibre of Ger Collins and Ian Ryan in thirty yards of space, that's just not realistic. The crucial aspect here for me was the inability of our players to lay a hand on the Limerick lads coming out of defence with the ball when we turned it over. After all, we dominated the primary possession battle, and half of the time when Limerick did manage to retain one of their own kickouts, it was because they chipped it short. The vast majority of their possession came to them in their own defence, and yet we were unable to stop them walking out and finding the lads up front from midfield. We never got a yellow card even, it wasn't like we even had the cop on to foul them and slow the game down, give our defence a chance to set. Criminal stuff.

We needed to be able to change the way this game was being played, either by taking shots from further out the field or else pulling the full forward line out entirely and leaving space in behind to run into. The tally of fifteen wides was atrocious, but a lot of those wides came from Niall Darby and Ross Brady, who weren't having a good day with their shooting and wouldn't be specialists at long range scores anyway. Pulling Niall McNamee out and letting him get on the ball and shoot from range was one option, while McManus was on a great day with his shooting boots and would have been a good bet to take a few pot shots. When you're dominating kickouts, shooting wides is not a bad thing - coughing the ball up certainly is.

[townman]

not saying anything to do with the hurlers just my point was Sean Ryan giving up the hurling and maybe a place on the side, to sit most days on the bench
with the footballers and bring him on when the crowd are on the way home long before he came on, i know it is his choice to give up the county hurling side
maybe he will have a long look at it for the rest of the summer when he is hurling with Birr and might come back into the hurling team for next year. he could still play both
its not as if we will have long summers it both codes is it.

[faithfullad]

Very disappointing result alright. It's true, the lads at the back got a bit of a roasting but they tried their best. They never had the support around the backline that the Limerick boys always seemed to have when we got the ball up there. Offaly always got bottled up and ended up taking ridiculous shots. I know you're told to keep shooting after a wide but Niall Darby, wow, none of his shots were even close, they were all 5-15 yards wide each time.

The lads in midfield won enough ball to win the game, no problem there. I thought Dalton played well for the 2nd time in a row although he was a bit dodgy coming out of defence. The half forward line was non-existent. It just didn't happen for them. Ken Casey was the top forward I thought. Some of the passing was shocking as well. Ross Brady gave several balls away without looking. He tries hard but I really don't see what Tom Cribben sees in him and its a mystery to me how he has started every game under him.