Relegated

[Unrealbanter]

Lads i reckon it wont make much difference whos over them i just dont think we have the players at the moment Now thats just my oppinion and i could be wrong!

[townman]

don't have the players is right, we have been going on with this sh.t about who is best to be over offaly for years
the players have had to much to say in this in the past Richie Connor comes to mind the players didn't want him.

they got their wish that year they went out again kildare in the championship after and got the sh.t kick out of them
and they still are getting it kick out of them since in championship.

does anyone remember Gerry Fahy the Galwayman how he was rode out of the job

[Bord na Mona man]

Back in January it became obvious Offaly were going to struggle. There was a sizeable clear out of players and there wasn't a contingent of strong players coming in to replace them. The new management team were put in place late last year. With the existing residual problems such as lack of conditioning, this year was unlikely to be one where much progress. However the drop in form since then has been surprising.

The lack of fitness, strength and low work rate off the ball has been a feature since then. There have been exceptions though. Some players have acquited themselves well, but sadly not enough.

Stepping back from it, I'm not sure if any individuals are to blame or there is a magic fix.
I just think there is a greater cultural problem.
Apathy from the Offaly public, disinterest from good players who don't make themselves available - or worse still, make themselves half heartedly available and drag everyone else down. Poor preparations. Poor decisions at county board level. Reasonably promising minor teams not being built on. Several clubs surviving rather than thriving.

Purely from my own impressions, I would also say that the 'slob culture' for want of a better phrase is more pervasive across the GAA in Offaly than elsewhere. There is a lazy mindset among too many teams and players in how they prepare and too many who are too fond of pouring beer into themselves.

Obviously there are many players who work hard and fulfil or even overdeliver on their potential, but far too many that don't come near living up to their promise and end up being oafs. It's no one's business but their own and these are voluntary games, but it is sad to see all the same.

[townman]

Back in January it became obvious Offaly were going to struggle. There was a sizeable clear out of players and there wasn't a contingent of strong players coming in to replace them. The new management team were put in place late last year. With the existing residual problems such as lack of conditioning, this year was unlikely to be one where much progress. However the drop in form since then has been surprising.

The lack of fitness, strength and low work rate off the ball has been a feature since then. There have been exceptions though. Some players have acquited themselves well, but sadly not enough.

Stepping back from it, I'm not sure if any individuals are to blame or there is a magic fix.
I just think there is a greater cultural problem.
Apathy from the Offaly public, disinterest from good players who don't make themselves available - or worse still, make themselves half heartedly available and drag everyone else down. Poor preparations. Poor decisions at county board level. Reasonably promising minor teams not being built on. Several clubs surviving rather than thriving.

Purely from my own impressions, I would also say that the 'slob culture' for want of a better phrase is more pervasive across the GAA in Offaly than elsewhere. There is a lazy mindset among too many teams and players in how they prepare and too many who are too fond of pouring beer into themselves.

Obviously there are many players who work hard and fulfil or even overdeliver on their potential, but far too many that don't come near living up to their promise and end up being oafs. It's no one's business but their own and these are voluntary games, but it is sad to see all the same.

but offaly were brutal again wexford in tullamore last year bord na mona man it was the worst display i have seen from an offaly football team in tullamore anyway
so a clear out had to be done.

and yes you hit the nail on the head most of them are lazy and pour beer into themselfs but as you said its their choice and own business and its a voluntary games
but thats why offaly are a division 4 team because theses lads are doing this and going out with an offaly jersey on them the next weekend.

[Hyper]

Townman, who are "most of them" that are lazy and pour beer into themselves?

[townman]

Townman, who are "most of them" that are lazy and pour beer into themselves?

well their was one last week at a fightnight and most weekends i hear likes to pour it down, you should get out some night in tullamore
sure they are well know for it there as was well brought up on this site many times before.

as i said its their choice they are the ones who train during the week so its up to them to do what they like but while they are at it
why the shock that they are in division 4 now.

wasn't there a good weekend in Galway last year with a few countymen let there hair down might as well call an ace an ace everybody
else outside the county knows it so don't come all over shocked about it Hyper.

[bracknaghboy]

Our countys football woes now go beyond any one individual, or any one decision at this stage. Its actually an extremely complicated situation and we'd be here until the start of next years eagerly Division 4 campaign if we dug deep enough but heres a start.

* County board messing about with managers and not giving them time to develope a solid team, O'Kelly and Fahy as examples.
* Player power strike in 2004 and ousting of Connor in 2009 followed by crap championship performances proving it wasn't the managers fault after all!
* County board taking to long to appoint managers, last year is the best example.
* Managers out of their depth...Roe, Cribbin potential examples.
* Our county championship structure is so drawn out and filled with meaningless games its not conducive to producing or preparing decent standard players. In fact the structure is leading to indifference.
* Theres an arrogance in Offaly football because we won a few Leinsters and All-Irelands, theres a feeling that we are a traditional footballing power. The media fuel this rubbish as well expressing their shock at our 'demise' and relegation.
* The reality is we are way off the pace and no matter how many 20th, 25th or 30th anniversary dinner nights we have to remember the team of '82 it simply won't change where we stand today.
* Theres a feeling Offaly that Division 4 is beneath us.
* The fact we are a county that are renound for not taking the qualifiers seriously tells us all we need to know!!! Again they must be beneath us.
* All of the above leads to apathy and lads not wanting to play. Playing in the bottom tier against Kilkenny and London is unlikely to help here either.
* Many of thoses that do play are out of their depth but see themselves as superstars with the Twitter pages and the like. Lads I've news for ye!
* What manager would want to touch this team now?
* Its so bad that RTE is having to spare the licence payers the horror of watching Kildare maul us in June.
* Theres no easy fix except accepting we are probably the 30th ranked team in the country and rolling up the sleeves and hauling ourselves out of Division 4 and moving up. Other counties are doing this of late. You can either wallow in division 4 or use it as a spring board.....but theres so much negativity about at the moment its hard to see us doing the latter.

My overall feeling is that we are and have been living off past glories and assuming that because we won All-Irelands 30-40 years ago or a Leinster 15 years ago ah sure things can't be too bad. That reminds me it'll be 30 years since 1982 this years surely there must be an auld dinner night coming up to boost our morale

Finally we need to give Cooney a chance to see this out. The loss of Niall has been the difference between going down and finishing mid table also there no experience with Brady, McManus and Slattery gone. He has had so little time to prepare its hard to see what brining in someone else will do at this stage unless he has lost the dressing room which I don't believe he has?

[Plain of the Herbs]

Don't mind him Hyp, the flute has a different meaning of the word 'most' to the rest of us. He is the master of only one thing, the sweping generalisation. To the rest of us, 'most' is the majority, that is, more than half. I haven't worked out Flute's definition. Nor do I intend to.

Did he say lazy? At times like this I sympathise with teachers who must despair at imparting the most basic of knowledge into their numb skulls.

Townman, who are "most of them" that are lazy and pour beer into themselves?

[townman]

Don't mind him Hyp, the flute has a different meaning of the word 'most' to the rest of us. He is the master of only one thing, the sweping generalisation. To the rest of us, 'most' is the majority, that is, more than half. I haven't worked out Flute's definition. Nor do I intend to.

Did he say lazy? At times like this I sympathise with teachers who must despair at imparting the most basic of knowledge into their numb skulls.

Townman, who are "most of them" that are lazy and pour beer into themselves?

well plain of the herbs why was offalys main midfielder not playing sunday and yes this sh.t of turning a blind eye to the carry on of players
your the biggest flute to think it doesn't go on .

bord na mona man also post about players pouring beer down themselfs but your such a two face flute not to say anything to him
last year a offaly footballer was threw out of a public house for pissing at the bar wake up and smell the coffee plain it is going on
the whole country knows it the daily papers had it as well.

[Deadandgone]

And do u not think the hurlers r not out drinkin a couple of nights before the clare game hence the result. It seems to be a problem in offaly at the moment. Both cooney and baker need to leave these guys to party.

[DAF]

The last time Offaly played in Division 4 we won a Leinster so the good times are just around teh corner.If anything this relegation is a big boost

The pass the parcel type football is just terrible.I'd prefer if we kicked 40 wides in a game rathher than passing the ball across the field and inevitably conceding possession.The more shots you take the more chance you have at scoring it may be very unscientific but its better than the sh1te we've had to watch for the last few years.Also we need to play direct football.If we got somebody to just stand in near the square and lump the ball in we might actuially get somewhere (look at Kildars goal on sunday or the second half againstWetmeath last year).Long ball football bypassess and awful lot of poor players so its a better option than trying to play the ball fro defence for attack and not having the players to do so.The club championship structure is a farce.We have 5 group gmaes 2 of which you have to win so most of our championship football in Offaly are basically challenege matches that cant be good for teh evelopement of young player who need to be exposed to lots of tough games before making the step up, 2 from 6 in each group is plenty.

[Fargo Boyle]

Our countys football woes now go beyond any one individual, or any one decision at this stage. Its actually an extremely complicated situation and we'd be here until the start of next years eagerly Division 4 campaign if we dug deep enough but heres a start.

* County board messing about with managers and not giving them time to develope a solid team, O'Kelly and Fahy as examples.
* Player power strike in 2004 and ousting of Connor in 2009 followed by crap championship performances proving it wasn't the managers fault after all!
* County board taking to long to appoint managers, last year is the best example.
* Managers out of their depth...Roe, Cribbin potential examples.
* Our county championship structure is so drawn out and filled with meaningless games its not conducive to producing or preparing decent standard players. In fact the structure is leading to indifference.
* Theres an arrogance in Offaly football because we won a few Leinsters and All-Irelands, theres a feeling that we are a traditional footballing power. The media fuel this rubbish as well expressing their shock at our 'demise' and relegation.
* The reality is we are way off the pace and no matter how many 20th, 25th or 30th anniversary dinner nights we have to remember the team of '82 it simply won't change where we stand today.
* Theres a feeling Offaly that Division 4 is beneath us.
* The fact we are a county that are renound for not taking the qualifiers seriously tells us all we need to know!!! Again they must be beneath us.
* All of the above leads to apathy and lads not wanting to play. Playing in the bottom tier against Kilkenny and London is unlikely to help here either.
* Many of thoses that do play are out of their depth but see themselves as superstars with the Twitter pages and the like. Lads I've news for ye!
* What manager would want to touch this team now?
* Its so bad that RTE is having to spare the licence payers the horror of watching Kildare maul us in June.
* Theres no easy fix except accepting we are probably the 30th ranked team in the country and rolling up the sleeves and hauling ourselves out of Division 4 and moving up. Other counties are doing this of late. You can either wallow in division 4 or use it as a spring board.....but theres so much negativity about at the moment its hard to see us doing the latter.

My overall feeling is that we are and have been living off past glories and assuming that because we won All-Irelands 30-40 years ago or a Leinster 15 years ago ah sure things can't be too bad. That reminds me it'll be 30 years since 1982 this years surely there must be an auld dinner night coming up to boost our morale

Finally we need to give Cooney a chance to see this out. The loss of Niall has been the difference between going down and finishing mid table also there no experience with Brady, McManus and Slattery gone. He has had so little time to prepare its hard to see what brining in someone else will do at this stage unless he has lost the dressing room which I don't believe he has?

Excellent post Bracknaghboy. Too much harping on about the past in this county and on this forum. I even recently seen the Independent refer to us as "sleeping giants". What planet do they live on. The media always tarnish us as plucky and easy go lucky but this is utter crap and just plain lazy journalism and unfortunately we like to believe this and play to the crowd.

Someone refered to us as the 30th best county. Out of interest other than Kilkenny who would Offaly footballers beat?

[townman]

Cavan

[Lean Times]

And do u not think the hurlers r not out drinkin a couple of nights before the clare game hence the result. It seems to be a problem in offaly at the moment. Both cooney and baker need to leave these guys to party.

A contingent had pints in hand at the Limerick Race Day the Thursday before the Clare match. I am not saying they were on a bender or anything but was somewhat shocked to see this a few days before such a crucial game. And Townman, they were from your neck of the woods aswell!

[Fargo Boyle]

Cavan

In the heat of the championship battle my money would go on cavan all day. Cavan will at least have some battle in them come Ulster championship while we will roll over and take a pasting off the flour bags.

I wouldn't fancy Offaly to beat NY or London in an away championship match