Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

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The Biff
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by The Biff »

Feck it but I have to come straight out and say that Saturday night was a fantastic performance to witness as an Offaly fan. I haven't been as impressed probably since that great day in the sun in '97.

The whole style of play was so impressive, direct fast running up-field, very few sideways passes and only when they were the right option as opposed to the easy option, great scores, great support play, great attitude. It completely re-invigorated my enthusiasm for supporting the lads. Great credit is due to Pat Flanagan and his back-room team. Whatever they've done, its worked and I hope it keeps working.

Right .... now .... as I'm getting totally carried away, time to bring myself back down to Earth

We hit more wides than Longford, even though theirs seemed more wasteful, so still room to improve there.
While Moloney's charge up-field looked great, he seemed fecked after it and took a full minute to walk back to position. He did recover, but needs to be able to do so quicker. Great game from him.
Was Anton the only person in Croker not to hear the ref's whistle? I doubt it; I think he was time-wasting and he drew fire on himself because of that.
Longford will definitely get better next time, can we be as good again?
Lets not worry about who plays the Dubs or where until after the next game is done first. The Dubs wont rate either The Larries or ourselves either way.

Offaly put up the best performance of all 8 teams at the weekend . Enjoy this for itself, and well done lads.

p.s. Thanks to the man who gave myself and Junior the Complimentary Tickets on the way in. Just parked the car, checked the Meter didn't need feeding, and then Santa Claus appears bearing gifts. Woohoo!
Peter Parker: I missed the part where that's MY problem.

Kevin
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by Kevin »

The Biff wrote: Lets not worry about who plays the Dubs or where until after the next game is done first. The Dubs wont rate either The Larries or ourselves either way.
Word up.
Kevin Clancey. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

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bula bula
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by bula bula »

kingscounty wrote:
biffinbanner wrote:Great win for offaly.thers one thing strikes me as being very unfair.whoever wins the 16th wi llhave to. Go t corker t oface the super dubs with inevitable consequences.surely in fairness the game should have gone to Longford or tulamore?very unfair.either might give the dubs a game at home but doubtful in croker.so much for promoting the game in weaker county's...
yes if Offaly overcome Longford the dubs are a huge challenge, but I disagree with you on the venue. Croke park Saturday suited our game perfectly, we used the space and ran out of defence and we were always trying to go forward and make ground and Croke Park allowed us to do this . A tighter pitch might suit Longford the next day , as they didn't look to do much support running or attack at pace . They will pump the ball into Kavanagh the next day and he can take a score and get handy enough frees. I would imagine as Flanagan had said they would love a crack at Dublin , of course tullamore would be great but Croke Park will do me fine.
O Connor park is a bigger pitch dimensionally than Croke Park. This bullshit that the tv pundits have put out there of the " wide open spaces of Croke Park" bugs me no end.
"Ohhh mamma!"

bare biffo
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by bare biffo »

One of the advantages of promotion hopefully will be better referees. Even though no one cared because of the result saturdays ref made a huge amount of plain wrong decisions both ways. The one that annoys me most and he did it several times was to penalise the player with the ball when he was surrounded by 2 or 3 players who tied him up round the chest bit like a rugby choke tackle. As far as i know this is a foul on the man. Also in the run up to Antons sending off the Longford corner back hopped the ball twice coming out with it and it wasnt picked up. Then there was Pearse Pk.

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by Bord na Mona man »

The biggest mistake I saw from the ref was just before half time, when he seemed to signal an advantage to Niall McNamee and then brought him back for the free as soon as he got clear and put the ball over.

llkj
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by llkj »

A question that has been on my mind throughout this league is, are we in much of a different situation now than we were in 2 years ago?

At that time, we had a new manager that people were praising, good buzz around the place (remember the walk that the players organized) , got promotion to Division 3 and we were talking about going in the right direction including a decent performance running Kildare to 4 points in Championship. Only to lose heavily to Tyrone in C'ship and then have a poor league campaign the following season.

What is the sense of the optimism this time round? Is it that Pat Flanagan is a more experienced manager or are there some other factors that we can point to and say that things are going to be different now? A strong case could be made to say that we are just about floating at our level - top of division 4, mid/bottom of division 3 and that in any given year we could find ourselves in either division.

Not aiming to put down the players efforts here, just looking to discuss where we stand. Well done to all on winning the title last weekend and best of luck in the Championship in a few weeks.

bare biffo
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by bare biffo »

Very good and valid topic for debate.
I have not seen all the games played over the period you are talking about but sometimes you get a better view from a distance.
Fistly the management team is better. I dont think there can be any debate about that. Flanagan is an experienced manager at a higher level than Offaly are at right now.
Secondly the players physical conditioning seems better. We will only know this for sure in championship football but thats how it looks.
The players attitude looks better. I have not seen so much energy in a performance in the last 10 years. I left O'Connor park a few years ago after spending my birthday watching an abysmal exit from the championship against Wexford swearing I'd never set foot at another Offaly game. Of course I did but saturday was the first time I felt a bit of the oul butterfly stomach watching Offaly football.
The players look like better players. Again we wont know this until they face championship football and better opposition. But I dont think I've seen the Darby's playing so well, John Moloney looks a great addition at 6, the mid field looks better than its been for a long time, Smyth looks th eplayer I thought he was going to be several years ago and Guillfoyle has been brilliant so far. I really like Eoin Carrolls style terrific ball winner in the air and Anton Sullivan is running himself to a standstill. (just dont shoot too often). The full forward line look the most exciting I have seen since 2006 with Niall Mc and T Deehan. As for Niall Mc, class is permanent, but the big thing is he is not on his own anymore.
Limerick were not significantly better than Offaly two years ago yet they maintained div 3. I think this Offaly team is definitely in a better place than the one 2 years ago.

The only thing that matters now is Longford again in 3 weeks.

kingscounty
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by kingscounty »

llkj wrote:A question that has been on my mind throughout this league is, are we in much of a different situation now than we were in 2 years ago?

At that time, we had a new manager that people were praising, good buzz around the place (remember the walk that the players organized) , got promotion to Division 3 and we were talking about going in the right direction including a decent performance running Kildare to 4 points in Championship. Only to lose heavily to Tyrone in C'ship and then have a poor league campaign the following season.

What is the sense of the optimism this time round? Is it that Pat Flanagan is a more experienced manager or are there some other factors that we can point to and say that things are going to be different now? A strong case could be made to say that we are just about floating at our level - top of division 4, mid/bottom of division 3 and that in any given year we could find ourselves in either division.

Not aiming to put down the players efforts here, just looking to discuss where we stand. Well done to all on winning the title last weekend and best of luck in the Championship in a few weeks.
one difference I see is that the team seem to be more together , a few years back there was unrest with players leaving the panel and other players complaining about the set up . This time around I haven't heard any moaning from any of the players. They look like a tight group , they won the division title this time and from what I saw Saturday we can't ask anymore from the players , positivity on here and in the county is what we need ahead of the battle in 3 weeks time .

dubbiff
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by dubbiff »

I think we should beat Longford and then will probably lose to Dublin. I doubt if anyone would disagree with that. However I feel that progress will best be judged by our attitude to the qualifiers. We do seem fitter and stronger than before and there should be no reason why a good run is beyond us. In past years however we have not approached this competition with the right attitude and as a result we have one of the worst records of any team. I hope Pat and the lads give it a right rattle this year

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The Biff
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Re: Division 4 league final Offaly v Longford

Post by The Biff »

llkj wrote:A question that has been on my mind throughout this league is, are we in much of a different situation now than we were in 2 years ago?
bare biffo responded perfectly to your well-posed question. We have been here before, so what makes this different o previous "false dawns"? Feck it, if I knew that, I'd be managing some decent county team myself. Last Saturday just simply looked better than most of our performances for many a year now, very impressive on many fronts. There is no question that Pat Flanagan brings more experience that we have had in our corner for a similar time.

The margins in Amateur Sport can be very small and fickle. I've always felt that Mental Attitude is so utterly important in driving players forward to play their best, to get in front of your marker and get the next ball, to run the support line even though you are a little out-of-breath, to shoot again with confidence when the last one just missed narrowly.

There is nothing better than Winning to boost your Positive Mental Attitude. And right now, we are a Winning Team.
Peter Parker: I missed the part where that's MY problem.

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