I'm not so sure we'd be pouring scorn on other teams if the situation was reversed. Limerick did a job to Offaly in last year's Qualifers.
They massed up behind the ball, kept a blocking sweeper in front of Niall Mac, the whole works. On the rare occasions when they did get decent possession, they had a very effective counter attack strategy. Donegal probably lacked that.
The overriding sentiment was frustation at how Offaly didn't have the guile to break them down.
I don't remember a single criticism from Offaly about Limerick being bad mans and not letting us play football.
Lets enjoy this win and not be throwing pens - Eamon Dunphy during Italia '90!
Donegal won division 2 title and ulster title and got to the semil-final of the all ireland they might not be nice to watch but they
have won sliverware, i'd say most lads here wouldn't give a sh.t what way offaly play if we could win division 3, leinster title and get
to a all ireland semil.
as they say i rather win a bad game than lose a thriller.
Both semi final fixtures on the 21st of March Offaly vs Louth is fixed for Navan at 7.30 and the other semi final between Dublin and Westmeath in portlaoise. !!
In terms of heart, commitment, and execution of a game plan, Offaly deserved the win and deserved to win by a lot more - I was amazed by how clueless Kildare were on the ball and you can see why there is a large subset of people in the county with the knives out for Alan Barry. I thought Mulhall looked very sharp for them and I was very happy to see him be taken off for yet another monstrous orc dressed in white with no real incisiveness.
That said, and probably a lot of this has to go down to the standard of the opposition, but I actually wasn't as impressed with the execution of the tactics last night. Against Meath lads dropped deep but there was great support off the shoulder, breaks were done at pace, always moving forward and always recycling around to support from behind and attack the space. I thought we lapsed into a lot more side to side stuff last night, and I got heart failure a few times as the ball carrier often had no support from behind and all his outlets were in front - which is a very dangerous alignment to be caught in if you concede possession. Against Meath we never looked vulnerable, here we did - but we can thank Kildare for their lack of imagination and for the fact that they kept leading Fogarty into the corner.
In the general footballing sense, it might not be nice but Kildare had the weapons to counteract us and didn't use them - they could have hit the square with high ball, or they could have shot from range - they did neither. The key to playing against massed defence is make sure you play the ball dead every time, or make sure to lose it inside the opposition 14m line. Kildare did neither, so I've no sympathy for any old world types who think Paschal's style is spoiling the game.
I agree that McPadden is going to genuinely get his head knocked off one of these times, but in fairness to him, he knows its coming and takes the hit and he gave us a few crucial breathers in both games now. As was pointed out Hannon has a great engine and he covered great ground, as did Declan Hogan, and I contunie to be impressed with Bernard Allen's ability to win ball that he really has no right to win. I was hugely impressed with him last night and if the scoresheet continues to mark us out as a one man attack, so much the better.
I remain very worried about not using the bench however. It's a high octane game and you need to rotate as much as you can - sending on a clearly injured Guilfoyle over other players is a huge statement of how little the selectors must think of the subs. That worries me.
All in all though, great stuff and I'm still buzzing about it today. It's a long time since I've felt such optimism about an Offaly team.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
Also, just to throw in here, I was one of those that doubted the ability of Gracefield to handle a game like this but the club, admittedly with a lot of support from others around, did a fantastic job of handling the crowd, the traffic and everything else. It was a very well managed situation and the club deserve a lot of credit for doing so.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
I wasnt running the team down, it was a great win, and its brilliant to be in a semi final. i just felt to concentrated to much on defending. if they come up against a more football minded team the will leak a few more scores and will have to attack more. from the very off there were 13/14 men behind the ball so i would say they were on a par with donegal in there tactics. they had a couple of goal chances but this was purely down to bad defending. i read all the hype about kildare and i was expecting an awesome team but in my opinion they were inferior to us in almost everywhere bar midfield. let hope we'v a leinster final to go to in a couple of weeks.
Gavin Shiels, David Hanlon, Eoin Rigney, Jake Kavanagh, Stephen Hannon, John Ledwith, James Mc Padden, Michael Brazil, Derek Kelly, Declan Hogan, Anton Sullivan (c), Graham Guilfoyle, Tom Spain, Bernard Allen, Mark Young
Wonder will that team start? Would say Hanlon & Guilfoyle would be doubts or are they definitely ok after injuries picked up the last day?
Best of luck to the lads tonight and hopefully a decent crowd will make their way up to Navan.
Please God we dont bottle the favourites tag! I hope they can add some accurate kick passes to their armoury, Louth will have a bit of homework done on the short passing and defensive style we adopt so we will need to work even harder, plus we wont have the advantage of Gracefield which was surely worth a couple of points.
About to hit the road for this now, really looking forward to it. It feels like forever since there was a real feelgood factor about an Offaly football team older than minor, and this group have earned a lot of support after two great performances.
Huge test for the new system tonight as well because if the lads can sweep back quick enough, we should be well placed. Louth's scoring largely comes from Willam Woods and Ben Rogan, two very sharp inside forwards, though neither of them are very tall. We have to make sure not to be hit on the break or these lads will do a lot of damage. If we can slow Louth down, we should restrict them.
Huge battle at midfield as well between Derek Kelly (presumably) and Shane O'Hanlon, who's the heartbeat of this Louth team, a real box to box runner who would remind you of Ciarán McManus in his prime.
Still, if the lads can reproduce the Kildare performance and maybe get a bit more luck in front of goal, hopefully we'll have a Leinster final to look forward to. Bring it on......
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
