offaly 2013

[timber]

If a lad has to be chased to come play for you, whether at senior county level or even at club junior, chances are he's not going to make a significant difference to your chances of winning something. However if a lad approached the Offaly management and said that his mother/father was from Offaly and he'd like to be considered for selection, I'd be happy to select him.

To take the example of John Coughlan, you're right that he didn't get picked to play for Dublin - however there are over 30 senior teams in Dublin, and plenty of good intermediate and junior ones as well. When you have so many players to choose from, it's easy for certain guys to slip through the net. There were plenty of people in Dublin who would have liked to have seen him called into their panel and while his red card against Meath in the championship was a bit bone-headed, he had a better attitude and more respect for the county jersey than a lot of guys that were born somewhere between Shannonbridge and Portarlington.

Truthfully, I'd still have him on a panel, although there are others within the county that I'd possibly have on a team in front of him.

Brian Hanamy looked very raw when he came in but again he seemed to have a good attitude - but I'd be worried about the fact that he didn't even feature for Kilmacud all this year. It's hard to make a case for a guy who's not making his club team, even if that team is Kilmacud Crokes.


Finally, as for those taking shots at lads transferring to clubs in Dublin but trying to stay on playing with the county - quite a lot of clubs in Dublin have the means to offer guys jobs if they transfer up. In this climate, that's absolutely massive. I'd never criticize any guy for making a decision like that.

The one thing here I would agree with is Lone shark's point on chasing players. Regardless of what level it is, if you have to chase players then they are just a waste of time and effort.

We are not taking shots at players who have transferred. What I am saying and I have seen it is this county and others is that lads are getting jobs in Dublin for example that are not given to them by clubs up there. Aunts, uncles or even jobs they got themselves maybe. But yet they make a big thing about the need to transfer because of travel. Total bull crap. Any lad who has anything worthwhile in him would want to play with the club he grew up in. Why cant they just train during the week up there and come home at the weekend. Is there any club that would not facilitate a player like that. For me and for alot of true gaels I have chatted with, its purely the case of chasing medals elsewhere, an attitude that "I am too good for them". Might seem harsh but its the truth in alot of cases. And players from bigger and better clubs in other counties have said this also.

[True Red]

Seeing as LS mentioned John Coughlan.......was chatting Phil O'Reilly Snr last year and in his opinion he reckoned that the best full forward line (or definitely worth a tryout) for Offaly would be Niall McNamee, John Coughlan at 14 and Shane Dooley.(hurling commitments aside)

He said it would a great combination of power, pace and style and Coughlan had a great pair of hands which the other two could work off.

After a few games together, ye wouldnt like to be the full back line to have to face that Trio.

[jimbob17]

Apologies for that goofy, must try harder. Dont get away with much here.....

Anyone have any idea of who was called into the offaly hurlers and footballers?? any new additions??

Nobody here able to answer this at all??? Surely someone knows what is going on. Ive heard they are going hard in gym but hear that most years. Wondering what new players are in around the scene. Assume there are a few from last years 21 team and the minors of 3 years ago...Anybody know if the older fellas are still knocking around?? Alan McNamee Shane Sullivan Scott Brady etc??? or is it A total wipe-out and fresh start??

Fully agree about big John Coughlan. He has that abrasiveness that you need at this level and if fully fit could really be a player for us in my opinion. Think he is carrying a little weight from what i seen before. I think if Henry was approached in right manner, he might bite.
I know that he has mentioned it previously that he would always have liked to have played for Offaly. Still super fit and starring for his club. I think management should definitely make an approach and see what comes of it.

[Lone Shark]

We are not taking shots at players who have transferred. What I am saying and I have seen it is this county and others is that lads are getting jobs in Dublin for example that are not given to them by clubs up there. Aunts, uncles or even jobs they got themselves maybe. But yet they make a big thing about the need to transfer because of travel. Total bull crap. Any lad who has anything worthwhile in him would want to play with the club he grew up in. Why cant they just train during the week up there and come home at the weekend. Is there any club that would not facilitate a player like that. For me and for alot of true gaels I have chatted with, its purely the case of chasing medals elsewhere, an attitude that "I am too good for them". Might seem harsh but its the truth in alot of cases. And players from bigger and better clubs in other counties have said this also.

Just on that point, it doesn't always work out as easily as that. A lot of team managers are big on visibility and while you might be given the cost of your fuel to travel, (you might not either) you're still expected to attend training, even if that's a six hour commitment for you while it's only a couple of hours for the lad who lives ten minutes down the road. Also, managers will usually give leeway in January and February, but I suspect that if it's an important challenge game or the week of championship, they'd expect you to be wherever the team is, even if that's a huge inconvenience for you or requires you to quit work early. That's before we take into account the culture of a team meeting the night before the game, which I'm not a big believer in but is still very common, or championship games on midweek nights, which are starting to become more commonplace.

Secondly, it needs a lot of trust and faith between team-mates, which isn't always automatic. If a club is doing a hard training schedule in the Spring and lads are finding it tough, there is a solidarity that comes from looking across at your team-mate and seeing him putting the effort in too. You don't mind putting the work in because everyone is. The problem is that the lad up in Dublin might be training just as hard with a Dublin club, but you don't see it and doubts start to creep in. It's the same thing when the inevitable drinking ban is imposed. The lad at home with his tongue hanging out for a pint gets through it in some cases because he knows he'll be caught out if he drops down to the local, or if he heads into Birr/Tullamore for the Saturday night. He starts to resent the freedom that the Dublin lad has to go out for one or two if he wants, even though the Dublin lad might have no interest. One or two comments out of place and next thing the lad in Dublin starts to say "feck this for a game of darts" and he decides to throw in his lot with the Dublin club, rather than busting his nuts for the sake of the lads at home who don't even appreciate that he's putting in twice the amount of hours they are.

It might seem ridiculous to you, but I've seen it happen in a small rural club in Offaly to a lad I got to know in Dublin. He didn't drink in Dublin - he did go out, but it was club orange all the way - and he trained like a demon, even though he'd be naturally fit to begin with, well above the level of the club at home. But because he wasn't in a position to travel up and down twice midweek as well as at the weekend, he was told he wasn't wanted - despite being one of the best players in the club by a mile.


Not meaning to cause a sideshow either, but I'm always skeptical too when people use the term "true gaels" - what does that mean exactly? My Irish is terrible and I look like I have epilepsy when I'm dragged in to do a Siege of Ennis at weddings - does that rule me out?

[Lone Shark]

Seeing as LS mentioned John Coughlan.......was chatting Phil O'Reilly Snr last year and in his opinion he reckoned that the best full forward line (or definitely worth a tryout) for Offaly would be Niall McNamee, John Coughlan at 14 and Shane Dooley.(hurling commitments aside)

He said it would a great combination of power, pace and style and Coughlan had a great pair of hands which the other two could work off.

After a few games together, ye wouldnt like to be the full back line to have to face that Trio.

It's a nice idea, but I'm not sure that forward lines like this really work any more except in emergency scenarios in club games. We've all seen how Niall is much more effective in a two man full forward line than a three, and when Cork tried this strategy with Nicholas Murphy this year, they ended up giving up on it.

Shane would be a decent county footballer without question, but I think we all know that'll never happen. I don't know if I'd even want it to. He's one of the handful of hurlers that we have who are All Star class - I wouldn't want to see him lose any of that just so he could be a passable county footballer.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

No list of the panels available for training at the moment and also no debate on the merits of voting in Padraig or Martin? And yet tonnes of speculation on 2013 team, how clued in are we at all lads to the here and now?
Either of the 2 boys are with us for the next 5 years and no discussion about their aims. was looking at the local paper today, you would think they might ge tsome sort of interview off them on their plans so that lads could talk to their clubs and give views on who to vote for.

[Lone Shark]

No list of the panels available for training at the moment and also no debate on the merits of voting in Padraig or Martin? And yet tonnes of speculation on 2013 team, how clued in are we at all lads to the here and now?
Either of the 2 boys are with us for the next 5 years and no discussion about their aims. was looking at the local paper today, you would think they might get some sort of interview off them on their plans so that lads could talk to their clubs and give views on who to vote for.

When is that being voted on? I can try and have something sorted for next week - I probably should have this week, but to be honest it never occurred to me.

[timber]

I would have to disagree with lone shark based on my own experiences. I know a good number of players both in my own club and elsewhere who have moved away but kept playing with their club. None of them have ever complained about trust between team mates. If anything and I know it from experience, it would rise moral to see lads coming home to play. If they are willing to be committed to their club then it should encourage the lads living locally to up their effort. I have never heard of any unrest as a result. Now maybe Lone shark you have witnessed it and that's fair enough. But I would be very suprised that would be a reason for transferring away.

Visibility at training from the managements point of view is obviously a major variable in all this. Chances are unless you have a right stubborn manager in place there would be no issue. The large majority of managers at club level and with emigration and all that has gone on would be only too delighted to have any player he could. There is not too many who would turn players away. I know lads travelling home to clubs and management have facilitated getting them in with other clubs during the week and being as helpful as possible. There is the obvious chance that every now and again a manager will come along and try and lay down the law. That may be needed by times but for anybody living away from home, common sense would prevail and a compromise is easily made.

Mid week games are a problem. And not just for players away from home. This has been a common issue on this forum, and the county board should see sense and not fix any championship game for mid week. Maybe the odd league game you will get away with but the bottom line is there is plenty of weekends to facilitate games if they structured the bloody thing correctly. This is something that the board has complete control over and it can also be easily solved. I have never heard of a player transferring away for this reason.

The true gael bit was nothing more than shortening a long winded sentence in referring to GAA people who have a genuine interest in their club.

We can talk all night about it, but from my point of few there is very little reason anyone should turn their back on their club. I know if it was me, I would do as much as was possible to continue playing with the club that gave you the chance and ability to play. Unfortunately, we have to accept that there is players out there who will always think of themselves to be bigger than their club and team mates.

[Lone Shark]

I agree that there are all sorts. There are players who go chasing medals with other clubs, I'm not denying their existence at all, and there are players who transfer for practical reasons like employment. And I agree that in the majority of cases (I typed the word "vast" there but deleted it upon consideration) that player would make an effort to stick with their home club and would be thanked for doing so by their colleagues. The average club nowadays might have 5-10 lads on their senior panel living more than 30 miles away, not including students, and they would also be unlikely to have too many "imports", so in 80% of cases or more, lads just suck it up and make the trek home as often as they need to. However that doesn't change the fact that there are exceptions to that rule and I would say that while there are medal chasers, for each one of them there are equivalent players that aren't "one of the lads" to the same degree and thus they don't get afforded the same faith that others do. This is where you get lads that might transfer and it also increases the likelihood of people making less-than-kind comments about their motivation after they leave.


I will accept too that the current climate, with lads emigrating and struggling to hold on to jobs, has encouraged club managers to be a little more tolerant, and that side effect is a really good thing. My example was very much at the height of the Celtic Tiger era, when jobs were easy got so there wasn't very much tolerance of phrases like "I can't get the time off". There was nearly an expectancy that if you didn't have a job where you could hop off at 4pm if you needed to, then you should change jobs. Crazy stuff.

That said, just as there are in the workplace, there are still GAA managers out there for whom it's not enough to do the work, you have to BE SEEN to do the work. Your club seems to have been lucky and seems to have dodged all these bullets - I assure you though there are plenty of them out there.

[TheDooneGoone]

I've been viewing this page for a couple of weeks and have been waiting for the conversation to begin about Offaly 2013, not an attempt to define "the true gael" which is just a complete waste of time. Lets analyse the modern game. The days of a three man full forward line striking fear into the opposition are just over. I'd say Frank Mc Glynn scored more than some of our forwards last year in half the games he played. Anyone with any sort of notion about modern Gaelic football knows we need to build from the back. Tactically using goal keepers kick outs, corner backs bursting forward to support and take scores with adequate cover at the back. We need to play with 12 to 13 men behind the ball when the opposition is in possession. To criticise this style of play is naive and a waste of time- a defensive base has been a platform for sucess at intercounty for the past 10 years, if any genius has an alternative, show me how successful its been recently. At the same time its pointless to think that lumping 12 behind the ball will lead to success. There needs to be a massive emphasis on the skill of tackling and positional sense. In addition to fitness, I wouldn't work on anything else in the first year with the seniors. To commit 5 days a week with all that entails is a necessity to even be competitive at intercounty never mind successful. There needs to be more money pumped in to finance the team with the tools needed in the modern game. New players need to be looked at. Heres hoping with the new management in place we'll have the intelligence, commitment and awareness to bring in new talent, work with whats there and adapt to the modern game. Knowlege is power. Uibhfhaili abu

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

County convention Dec 10th in Kilcormac Lone Shark. So you could do a piece next week.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Never heard of a Farrelly bloke playing with Tullamore?????????

But you seem to have the style of play cracked any way, simple, isnt it?

[llkj]

I've been viewing this page for a couple of weeks and have been waiting for the conversation to begin about Offaly 2013, not an attempt to define "the true gael" which is just a complete waste of time.

What's the point in waiting for a couple of weeks to post your opinions. If you want the conversation to begin about Offaly in 2013 or are not happy with the direction a thread is taking, then make an active contribution to the forum and do something to change things.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Something to do with . . . Brosna Gaels?

The press release for the players going for a walk on the canal notes 'Offaly Gales'. Something to do with windswept boglands perhaps?

Not meaning to cause a sideshow either, but I'm always skeptical too when people use the term "true gaels" - what does that mean exactly? My Irish is terrible and I look like I have epilepsy when I'm dragged in to do a Siege of Ennis at weddings - does that rule me out?

[TheDooneGoone]

llkj
"What's the point in waiting for a couple of weeks to post your opinions. If you want the conversation to begin about Offaly in 2013 or are not happy with the direction a thread is taking, then make an active contribution to the forum and do something to change things".[/quote]

You've wrote 2 lines of criticism I've wrote 11 lines of constructive ways to take the senior team forward and influence this forum, who would you say has made an active contribution to the forum and doing something to change things? Thought so. I've spent the last few weeks promoting the Gaa within Offaly, which is more than you've been doing so sorry I'm only getting around to this now. I criticised a lack of focus on this forum on the real issues facing Offaly in 2013. I doubt McGuiness is worrying about the meaning of the true gael. Moaning on about fellas trying to suggest positive modern ideas within the county. Small minded cynicism never brings emerging counties anywhere.