Allianz Hurling League Roinn 1B 2016

[kingscounty]

Best of luck lads against the kingdom , il go for Offaly 4-20 Kerry 1-13

[Kevin]

Good luck to the team v Kerry.

JUST WIN BABY!!!!!!

[Anfearban]

Let's keep the recovery going...seriously best of luck to the hurlers today. Let's get it over the line.

[sam88885a]

lovely day for hurling , nice calm dry day in birr , i expect a big home crowd in birr to see their first league game in years .
presure is on kerry so i think offaly will win with a bit to spare .
best of luck lads

[SearingDrive]

Let's keep the recovery going...seriously best of luck to the hurlers today. Let's get it over the line.

Look what happened to FG using that phrase! Hope Offaly pull through though.

[kingscounty]

Home of hurling my fucking arse

[Buttons]

Home of hurling my fucking arse

Lets hope what happened today can put an end to the whole Birr/ Tullamore debate. The day itself was ideal for hurling, dry and little to no wind. The only good thing is that come championship we get revenge, well done to Kerry and a shame that wexford got the injury time point to prevent kerry from staying up.

[townman]

as i said in my post yesterday if they were all irelands for countys that let it go tits's up offaly would win it most years. but fair play to kerry by far the better hurling team they twice let offaly get a 6 point lead on them and still beat us, let me add if this game was in tullamore, Thurles, Croker, Kerry would have still won, what offaly can learn off Kerry today would be heart and guts and pride in the jersey which was lacking in most of offaly players today.

look no point slating this offaly team we all know that we don't have our best in with the county and the players that are there are doing there best and thats all we can asked for, Laois last year in the championship and Kerry today the first time since 1957 that they have beaten us we may get used to this as this is the level we are going to be at for the future sadly

kilkenny next what should Eamon Kelly do i would say play about 7 in the fullback line as the though of kilkennys forwards again our fulback line won't make for great viewing. just the last word i though Dooley and Joe Bergin link up play was top class some lovely scores got from both players god help us when they call it a day,

as for our clash in the championship a few years ago i would have said offaly will be better come championship time not so sure now that Kerry team today won't fear facing that side later on sign of the times i suppose.

[Bord na Mona man]

An even bigger defeat when you consider that 'Fortress' Birr is supposedly an 8 or 10 point head start to Offaly!
No surprise though, since Setanta was a young lad, Offaly have almost always failed to string 2 decent performances together.

[DAF]

if the match today was played in Tullamore we'd have won.

[private joker]

Was at the game. Offaly started of very good and looked on course to a big win. Then the standards just dropped off. Kerry smelt blood and saw the game was there for the taking and took it. Offaly had the better hurlers but did not seem to want it as much. Dooley and bergin were very good but seem to fade in the middle of the 2nd half, Kerry deserved their win. full hearted in the tackle and really went at Offaly. kk will destroy offaly I fear. Also , I be interested in the attendance at the game. seemed to be more at the Walsh cup game but I could be wrong. Well done to Kerry.

[Keiap]

Not 100% on the exact figure but some where in the region of the Walsh cup match..around 1,900 to 2,000..before any sledging is done just remember offaly are in a quarter final it's where we want to be playing the likes of Kilkenny is who you want to be playing against.well done to Offaly eye was firmly off the ball today all the players and management know that..best of luck in the 1/4 final

[fifitrixiebelle]

kelly is an exc manager, well he seems to have left the kingdom in good shape anyhow!!

[Exiled in Connacht]

It was my first opportunity to see the hurlers this year and it was undoubtedly a terrible let down.

I was looking to see some signs of progression and it was terribly disappointing to see us being out fought and out thought in the second half.Kerry smelled victory and fought tooth and nail to get the win. Once again the lack of leaders in the team was very evident. Unfortunately our lack of success at underage means that very few if any of our players have grown up winning tight matches, or indeed any matches in truth. That lack of a tradition of recent success means we struggle in games when we go behind. Players go missing and its disappointing to witness.

Did the players and team management under estimate Kerry after the great win last week ? Maybe they did and if they did then the manager with his knowledge of Kerry hurling must take some of the blame.

We now could face a mauling against Kilkenny and it will then leave us with a month until the first qualifier in Mullingar. With the three qualifiers spaced out over 3 weeks we will rely on keeping fit Shane Dooley and Joe Bergin especially. At least we have an axe to grind with Kerry when they come to Tullamore in the last game on May 22nd. I suppose if we won today we might have taken them for granted in the more important championship game. I think I'm grasping at straws here !

Anyway we have to continue to keep positive. It's a long road ahead and there will be disappointment along the way. We should be used to it by now I suppose. Our inconsistency is frustrating but I do think we are in a better space than we were last year under Sid

[jimbob17]

Agreed Exiled. Still reckon we are in much better place and to a large extent, Eamon Kelly is doing a very good job. There is some positivity there at least unlike last 2 years which were disaster.

Let this be the end of the Birr Tullamore debate. In fact playing Kerry in a small tight venue would fit right into Kerry hands and I'd feel to more open confines of OCP would have facilitated us better today. Birr might be better idea when hosting likes of Clare and Limerick and maybe wexford. Better hurlers like more open space. We played into their hands by playing Limerick in OCP.