Offaly Vs Wexford 2/6/12 Leinster Championship

[Bord na Mona man]

€25 is pricey for the stand to watch Offaly pick the strawberries.
I remember my Hogan Stand ticket for the 2000 All Ireland final was £25.

which would be 50 euro now

All Ireland final tickets are €80 now.

[DAF]

€25 is pricey for the stand to watch Offaly pick the strawberries.
I remember my Hogan Stand ticket for the 2000 All Ireland final was £25.

which would be 50 euro now

All Ireland final tickets are €80 now.

Hasnt it been very thoughtful of our footballers and hurlers not to get to any all Irelands in the alst 10 years or so.Think of the amount of money they have saved us

[Plain of the Herbs]

Bad news i'm afraid.

John Sexton has been appointed to referee this.

At least that's what I thought I heard on the radio this evening. Maybe it was a nightmare brought on by heat-stroke.

All bets are off if this is true though.

[kingscounty]

not long left now , cant wait its time for this group of players to step up and overcome wexford and get the ball rolling for the leinster championship. its not going to be easy but i hope a large crowd show up and get behind the team , come on the faithful.

[UibhFhaili2012]

This day next week hoping to read the newspaper with caption of something like "Faithful Reach Leinster Semi-Final" Or "Bergin Goal Seals Offaly Victory" Or whatever the headline may be.. once we beat the yellow bellies, Home crowd, hopefully large and a atmosphere behind the lads in O'Connor Park will hopefully let us go home happy and not another "nearly" Moment for the Ofaly Hurlers.

It's about time these group of lads Pull out all the stops now as they are together long enough now to know what is required to finish games, i.e Put Away Wexford this time..

I can't wait for this match as it will be an entertaining game and if we get behind the lads hopefully we will be their 16th man and roar them onto victory.

Dylan Haden is definetely Out of the game as far as i have heard, any news on Rory Haniffy?

[RealFaithful]

A few months ago I was looking forward to this game with a lot of hope. I even believed we would have a great chance of reaching the Leinster final.

Now though I am worried. As usual we have a team of potential but its doesn't seem to be clicking.

I hope I am wrong but am worried for Offaly agaisnt Wexford.

[aze111]

is it just me or have offaly hurlers played complete shite anytime they enter O'Connor Park...they cant seem to perform there. id travel to Birr for the atmosphere alone

[Bord na Mona man]

A few months ago I was looking forward to this game with a lot of hope. I even believed we would have a great chance of reaching the Leinster final.

Now though I am worried. As usual we have a team of potential but its doesn't seem to be clicking.

I hope I am wrong but am worried for Offaly agaisnt Wexford.

It's hard to know.
Offaly have never really been a team that relies on momentum and runs of good form to set them up for championship.
We have often delivered big performance with little build up or prior indicators.

One of the main characteristic of great Offaly performances has been disrupting the opposition with an absurdly high work rate. i.e. players battling really hard to win back every ball, 2 or 3 tacklers swarming on every opponent in possession and forcing the errors, trying to create as much loose ball as possible and moving it quickly away from ruck areas. Basically turning the game into unstructured chaos and being better at ab-libbing than the opposition.

This style is hard to bring to every game, hence Offaly rarely put in a streak of these performances.
Remember that even at the peak of Offaly hurling, teams usually struggled to put in consecutive excellent performances.

By all accounts Offaly set at Kilkenny in the same fashion for a while last Sunday. But most likely when the game became unwinnable, the desire to hunt like dogs for everything soon wanes. Unfortunately Offaly teams can also unravel badly once they aren't managing to disrupt their opponents and devour the breaks. Since they aren't operating off a strong bedrock of ball winning power and possession maintaining patterns, it often descends into individuals having to whack away balls that the opposition get back too quickly.

Back to Wexford on Saturday. The game is Offaly's to win. If both teams played to their full potential and abilities, Offaly would win IMO. But...teams rarely do.
I keep thinking back to Wexford Park in 2009. When Tomás Waters went through and shoulder charged Ger Oakley into the face at the very start of the game, too many Offaly players looked the other way. It was as good indicator as any that Offaly just weren't properly primed for the encounter.

I don’t expect Liam Dunne to bring hurling tactics to new levels, but I’d say when it comes to firing up his players and getting them worked up, he’ll be more than capable. Neither team are playing efficient, precision hurling at the moment so it could be all down to whose heads are right on the night.

[bracknaghboy]

is it just me or have offaly hurlers played complete shite anytime they enter O'Connor Park...they cant seem to perform there. id travel to Birr for the atmosphere alone

Yes, its just you. The hurlers have been playing "shite" for the last 12 years regardless of venue. Up and down the country they have put in woeful shows since 2000 with the odd eye opening good performance here and there. This has nothing to do with O'Connor Park. If they are beaten Saturday (and I don't think they will be) it will have nothing to do with the venue. Lets clear this up now.

[timber]

Well said Bracknaghboy. You summed it up perfectly.

This is a game Offaly can win if they hurl hard and aggressive but use their heads. The Wexford way is to come out all fired up and try rattle the opposition. Match them at this but keep hurling and let them get all hot and bothered.

Coolderry showed against Oulart that Offaly have nothing to fear. And I hope the County travels to Tullamore to support them. Its our main venue, so lets get behind them and drive on. Its there to be won if they want it enough.

[aze111]

i seen we are 4/9 to win..bit skimpy to say the least!!

[Plain of the Herbs]

Liam Dunne is set to cause a distraction to the build-up. Wexford Radio are broadcasting an interview with the Manager at 10.10am. Described as "he shirks no questions and it will stir debate" on Twitter by the interviewer, Alan Corcoran. Which might mean it's a whole lotta nuthin'. Described as "intriguing and unmissable" by the Wexford County Board's Twitter Account, so it's not related to a domestic split.

Whatever, it is a planned ruse by Wexford and is intended as a distraction in the build-up. A verbal Tomás Waters, if you like. Expect the media lemmings to jump on it and make tomorrow's headlines out of it. Ant the next day there will be a continuation as the sub-plots are developed.

Just keep focussed on the match.

[UibhFhaili2012]

Here's The Link To The Interview... http://www.southeastradio.ie/podcast/it ... mdunne.mp3

Seems to be a very straight talking man, take's no sh1t i reckon....

"His Boys are ready for this "......... Hopefully our boys are pumped up for this as much as wexford are, they seem to be raring to go.. apparently the worst thing for them is "to be bet on satuarday".......

I honestly fear wexfors satuarday.... and offaly been a 4/9 shot is definetely a bit exagerated, hopefully Offaly will put these yellow bellies to bed.....

Jason questions how much Baker wants the job.

[Kevin]

Just had a listen.

Tame enough overall.

Please correct me if I'm wrong UibhFhaili2012, but was it not Dunne himself who questioned how committed Ollie is 'being a Clare man' and all??

Thought that was a bit of a 'wild pull'.

Of course its all talk anyway...

He sounded very confident for sure.

Hoping we have the cure for that on Saturday night!!!!

[Plain of the Herbs]

Well that was a whole lodda nuthin'. The fella who sensationalised that interview in advance will be much sought after by both yes and no camps in the referendum.

The quote Dunne made about Baker was "Ollie Baker's the manager of Ofaly, y'know, deep down, how bad does he really want that job? He's a Clareman, y'know, emm." I take it Dunne won't be managing any other counties ever, for the rest of his life, ever!

Forewarned is forearmed. Wexford will be fired up to the gills on Saturday. We can expect Tomás Waters mark II. And you will get away with anything in the first five minutes of a match. Who you target depends on how mentally strong you are. Genuinely strong and you will target the opposition's strong man, as Waters did thre years ago when he buried Ger Oakley. Weak mentally and you will target the small guy. In that situation Wexford would target perhaps James Rigney simply because he is built like a scrum-half. Fact is that Rigney is the toughest man on the Offaly team.

Now, getting fired up is a delicate thing to manage. Too fired up and it could go wrong as it did in the 1998 Munster Final. Too fired up too early and players could be jaded by Saturday evening. No doubts as to Dunne's message although he doesn't seem sure of the venue, other than that its in Offaly!