Another crisis in Offaly football

[llkj]

What is the source of this quote? Is it in an interview on the Radio and if so, does anyone have a link to it online anywhere?

Or if it was to the written reporters, could we see a more detailed version of the quote. I would love to read what question was posed to him and what his full answer was. Context here can be everything.

[Bord na Mona man]

Option A - The short term option. (We don't do long term in Offaly)
Gerry Cooney leaves or gets the chop. Obviously harsh and the ills of Offaly football can't be attributed to him.

Then we go and round up all the old stagers - Ciaran McManus, Scott Brady and other players who are out of the picture.
They mightn't all be sharp or match fit, but some of them will have a point to prove and can draw on their experience.

Throw them into the fray against Kildare in June and hope for the bounce effect. We'll most likely lose by a few points but it won't be of the scale of the Wexford hammering yesterday.

[clubman]

i feel sorry for gerry cooney,he was on a hiding to nothing from the start,came in to late and didnt get the commitment of the players.i dont blame gerry for the fiasco,it the county boards fault.now were back where we started and looking for a miracle or maybe this is as good as we are

[jimbob17]

i feel sorry for gerry cooney,he was on a hiding to nothing from the start,came in to late and didnt get the commitment of the players.i dont blame gerry for the fiasco,it the county boards fault.now were back where we started and looking for a miracle or maybe this is as good as we are

reading this clubman, are you implying that something is happening that we dont know about?? I agree with you though, the board have a lot to answer for! so do the players however and reading between the lines, and from some of the stories emanating from the camp, they appear to be an impossible bunch with no respect for the jersey and what it stands for whatsoever. Pity some of them don't get the sack for a change.

[Lean Times]

i feel sorry for gerry cooney,he was on a hiding to nothing from the start,came in to late and didnt get the commitment of the players.i dont blame gerry for the fiasco,it the county boards fault.now were back where we started and looking for a miracle or maybe this is as good as we are

reading this clubman, are you implying that something is happening that we dont know about?? I agree with you though, the board have a lot to answer for! so do the players however and reading between the lines, and from some of the stories emanating from the camp, they appear to be an impossible bunch with no respect for the jersey and what it stands for whatsoever. Pity some of them don't get the sack for a change.

13 training one of the nights last week.....says it all really. I have to say i feel sorry for G. C.

[Lone Shark]

I'm still in two minds over this. That there is a crisis in the camp is clear. One or two bad results were to be expected, but we've now shipped three heavy defeats and lost one home game by three points where really we were lucky to be that close - clearly something is badly wrong. Of course players need time to get up to the pace of things, but other counties are a long way from their peak as well, and we don't seem to be showing any signs of progress. You'd have to wonder why this is the case.

Just to take one further point, without looking to press the matter - if it is the case that there were only thirteen training on a night when training was called. If so, then we're looking at one of the following situations:

(1) An outbreak of bubonic plague in the camp
(2) A spate of no-shows
(3) Half the lads on the panel standing on the sidelines watching training with a variety of "strains" and "tight feelings" in their muscles and joints.

Now I'm guessing we'd have heard about option (1). Option (2), if unauthorised, should be enough to justify removal from the panel. Nobody in this day and age can't pick up the phone to explain their case and it should not be happening to anyone more than once in a blue moon. However based on what little insight I've had from a few different viewpoints, I'm inclined to suspect that it might be option (3). I've never known a panel to have so many players that are perennially affected by twinges, tweaks and various other repeated minor ailments. In some cases they are genuine, but some lads seem to need very little to rule them out of training. If that is the case, then Gerry Cooney needs to make some tough calls and either get lads out onto the field and call their bluff, or else send them home and tell them to come back when they're fit, and in the meantime draft in someone else.

In Kilkenny hurling or Kerry football, you don't want to get injured because you might never get your place back. In Offaly football, it can sometimes be the case that you don't ever want to be fit because you might have to prove your worth playing intercounty football instead of living off your reputation forged in club/underage games.

Paschal Kelleghan and the under-21s have proved that when steered in the right direction, there are footballers in the county who can be competitive. Somewhere in the process at senior level, that's breaking down.

[red exile]

Confirmation that Gerry will continue to manage Offaly this yr puts an end to any speculation about his imminent departure so hopefully things will improve over the next few weeks with a few good results over Sligo Cavan and tipp

[Bord na Mona man]

If those rumours about him considering position came from Cooney himself, then I feel he has already undermined his position.
After every Offaly defeat is he now going to consider his position?
There is a danger that the players will have already subconsciously switched off and have half an eye on how the next management regime might pan out.

[kingscounty]

magee wrote a nice little bit in todays indo , for me he hits the nail on the head. the pride and never say die attitude offaly always had is gone and if something is not done soon we risk being left in the dark ages again. hes not all negative and says that there is light and hope in the county at under 21 and schools level . i think if cooney has any thoughts or doubts about staying on he should just leave now, we need someone who is going to put in 3 or 4 years of hard work because the damage done now is going to take a long time to repair , the under 21s have done well and need to be brought along over the next few years and be prepared to eventually become the guts of a senior team.

[llkj]

Sorry for repeating the question folks, but does anyone know the source of both the original quote and the updated statement today?

[Bord na Mona man]

Eugene McGee's article:

Eugene McGee: Spirited youth can save offaly from oblivion

Tuesday March 13 2012
The shocking depths to which the Offaly senior football team has sunk in the past decade is a cause for major concern, even despair, to followers of the Faithful county, but it should also be a worry to the Gaelic football world at large.

Because over the past 50 years, since they won their first Leinster title in 1960, Offaly footballers have made major contributions to Gaelic football in Leinster and beyond. They have played in 15 Leinster finals in 50 years, winning 10 and competed in seven All-Irelands finals, drawing one and winning three. Offaly have also won minor and U-21 All-Irelands in the period. This is an average better than all but a handful of counties.

At the moment, Offaly football is at its lowest ebb in 50 years and the team seems likely to be relegated to Division 4. They are currently at the bottom of Division 3 with no points and a score difference of -38, the second worst in the NFL after Kilkenny.

But this is no sudden decline in Offaly. It has been signposted consistently since 1999, when Tommy Lyons left as manager after they had won both the National League and the 1997 Leinster championship. What most concerns their despairing followers is that all the things that made Offaly football great over the years seem to have disappeared into thin air and what is left is like the shell of a bombed-out building.

In the past, Offaly had a good record of winning tight championship games. They no longer even manage to make the games tight. Offaly had a fearsome reputation for raw courage in the face of adversity when playing teams such as Dublin, Kerry, Galway or Meath in their heyday.

That, too, is now just a memory, even when playing at O'Connor Park, which was always regarded as one of the main 'fortress venues' in the GAA. It was only after a tempestuous Offaly v Dublin league game in the 1970s that it was decided to fence in O'Connor Park, and not without reason!

Also gone is Offaly's great ability to beat their neighbouring rivals -- Kildare, Laois and Westmeath -- consistently. A few years ago, Westmeath beat Offaly in the championship for the first time in 50 years.

So, the Offaly decline to near obscurity is well documented by now. The question is what has gone wrong? How have so many cornerstones of the game in the county disappeared to be replaced by pathetic imitations of those involved in past glories, with defeat following inevitable defeat?

The turnover of managers has certainly been a huge factor since I left in 1984. It has been ridiculously high and indicates that the system of appointing managers leaves a lot to be desired.

But alongside that, it is obvious that some players who have been selected for the county panel should not have been, simply because they were not up to the required standard. This is not specific to the current panel because Offaly's problems go back many years.

Offaly football people who I talk to mostly blame the attitude of modern-day players compared to their predecessors and while this is a view held in many other counties too, there is no doubt it is especially true in Offaly's case.

The killer streak, the ravenous will to win and the famous fighting spirit when the team's back was against the wall -- they are the qualities that have largely disappeared and it is this situation that most upsets supporters and makes them angry.

HOPE

But bad and all as the situation is at senior county level, there IS hope emerging in the county. Last weekend two Offaly schools, St Mary's of Edenderry and Gallen of Ferbane, won the two premier secondary and vocational finals in Leinster. Gallen won the All-Ireland VS SFC final last year and a couple of years ago Edenderry were only beaten by a last-second goal by Kerry's Colaiste na Sceilge in the All-Ireland final.

In addition, Offaly have played in several Leinster minor finals in recent years, so there are still good footballers in the county.

Under Paschal Keelaghan, the Offaly U-21 team have already beaten Meath and Kildare and play Louth in the semi-final -- no small achievement when we consider the populations of each of those two counties is twice that of Offaly.

Selecting younger players prepared to put into practice the traditional attitudes and beliefs of Offaly football is the greatest single hope for a revival, and that must exclude players who cannot, or will not, buy into this.

This ingredient is at the heart of teams like Kerry, Dublin, Tyrone and Armagh. Offaly need to acquire it now or face total football oblivion.


http://www.independent.ie/opinion/colum ... 47748.html

[llkj]

Is anyone else completely sick of Offaly GAA making the papers at the wrong time of year, for the wrong reasons? We get more column inches from October to March than any other county out there, usually for some petty squabble or off the field activity. When it actually comes to the time when you want to be hitting the headlines, we are already knocked out of the Championship and left with too much time on our hands to plot our next crisis.

[GreatDayForTheParish]

Is there anything to be said for another Mass?

[Bord na Mona man]

Is there anything to be said for another Mass?

Where would you have it?
Birr or Tellamore.

[GreatDayForTheParish]

Is there anything to be said for another Mass?

Where would you have it?
Birr or Tellamore.

The new home of Offaly Football - the only place where the Gods show us any fortune.
That place? Gracefield.