Hopefully they'll have learned some lessons from our senior hurlers last year about underestimating the Skittles ......
Tis wojious early to be out in a minor championship, but these things have to start somewhere - and on the face of it you'd hope this would be a reasonable team, between Birr and the county VS outfits both hurling reasonably well in the schools competitions, even if Birr did miss a great opportunity against the Dubs.
Anyone going down? Who should I be harassing for an update on Saturday evening .....
If Carlow are anything like as good/committed as they were last year Offaly could be in for a big shock on Saturday. Look out for Aaron Cox, think he is still underage for Carlow, a fine hurler.
On my way to game at 2.15 expecting to arrive at Dr Cullen park at 2.45, but on my way decided to turn on car radio to discover that the game was already on 13 minutes. Aparently the game was bought forward to 2pm from 3pm due to the GPA meeting at 5pm in Portlaoise. Now that is fine and dandy but you'de think one of the sports bulletins on one of the radio stations might just let the public know about this, but then again in general the ordinary supporter is treated like dirt by the GAA for many years now.
Bad form with the misinformation all right. Strange how a minor match had to be moved because of a GPA meeting, but I'm sure there's a reason somewhere .......
As to the match itself, it seems we dodged a bullet. I was expecting Carlow to be reasonable, but not this good. I only saw the HS report which was scant to say the least, but did anyone go to this? It seems we started well, got pegged back and were lucky to get a late winner. Even allowing for our propensity to be pegged back by weaker teams, this was still a pretty poor result. Are Carlow that good that they'll rattle the likes of Wexford and Dublin as well? Were we just off form?
Wasn't at the game myself but my brother is involved with the Laois minors so he went along for a look. He didn't go into the game in detail but according to him Offaly were extremely lucky to get anything from the game, nevermind win it.
That's the second time this group of Carlow hurlers have been beaten in agonising circumstances. Sometimes sport can be most cruel on those who need luck most...
