National Foothall league Div 2 predictions

[Bord na Mona man]

Yes, it will be tough.
It's possible that will Clare have a cracking good campaign, but more likely they will finish nearer the bottom. Offaly are already a disadvantage if it came down to a head-to-head tie breaker.
Early days of course.

[private joker]

The football will be tough, the hurling will be rough.

[bracknaghboy]

Clare 1-13 Offaly 0-7

You have to go back 90 games to 2012 in League or Championship for a lower tally from the Offaly Senior footballers. That was 0-6 against Kildare in the Leinster championship and we all know what went on that year that resulted in that poor showing.
I'm not going to criticise the players today. But I am going to criticise management. Lads, what on earth were ye looking at for the first 35 minutes of this game today? If Tomas O'Se was doing match analysis on the TV for this he would go to town on the Offaly set up and he'd be right. The problem is I assume he had a major hand in todays calamity.
Offaly had a significantly strong wind in the opening half and played terribly conservative stuff, lots of aimless handpassing around the middle and no penetration at all, no back up runners to assist the man in possession and zero quick ball into the forwards. The Clare management couldn't believe their luck I'd say and were delighted to sit back and absorb it all. When Offaly did push on a bit they kicked 3 or 4 lovely scores.
When you start Niall McNamee you have to leave the man no further than 21 yards from goal where he is most dangerous and can create things from nothing. But today there was the depressing spectacle of him traipsing back after Clare players and running around between the Offaly 21 and 45. No doubt Clare couldn't believe their luck. When a couple of balls did go into Niall he had already emptied the tank tracking back and was easily blocked or dispossessed.
Offaly dispossessed Clare a number of times in the first half but either had nobody in attack and therefore had to pass it back around the defence or else had Ruairi and Panda in the full forward line and no Offaly player within 90 yards of them so again it was back to handpassing it around the defence.

In contrast Clare played with the strong wind exactly as you'd expect a team to. They got on with it, ran at Offaly, had support, took shots when they were on and tried a couple of quick balls into the forwards and they got their reward.
Clare don't look much good to me which is a worry.
Look, I think given the resources available to Offaly it was always going to be a battle hardened Clare that would emerge by a couple of points but no way was 9 points on the cards.
A few young lads got some experience today in bad conditions, it'll stand to them.
Survival looks close to impossible now as a minimum of 2 wins would be required but stranger things have happened, lets no write them off just yet.
It's Derry at home next weekend and the sideline needs to get it's act together.

[substandard]

I would have thought before the fixtures, Clare would be pivotal to survival on head to head.
Cork were no great shakes against us today, and neither Down nor Meath would put the fear of God into teams, but the problem is most teams would have been targeting Offaly for two points, and today won't make any of them sit up and take notice.
Roscommon almost always cough up one abysmal performance against a relegation candidate, even if pushing for promotion. I'll be hoping not on this occasion (last August was enough for ye!!), but there will be twists in this Division yet. Derry might be a bit too far ahead for the moment, but the sooner Offaly can register points, the better.

[Lone Shark]

I was on duty elsewhere today so I haven't had a chance to see any of the highlights of the game, but I will say this - you could play well in a place like Ennis, and still not get anything from the game. Clare are a solid, consistent Division Two team for basically a decade now and while I'd certainly give a full strength Offaly team a decent chance of taking something from Ennis, even if we had Rigney, Cunningham, Farrell and a few others, it would still be a splendid result if we did. I said at the start of the league that Down and Meath are the big games. We're a bit unlucky in that we'll play Down with Kilcoo players, others won't, and having been in the Hyde today, Cork will get better as the year goes on too. They're in disarray now, but I'd still be surprised if they don't pick up at least six points over the campaign, particularly when they get the Barrs lads back in. Obviously if they get drawn into the relegation mire, so best, but for me, today was no different to the games against Galway, Roscommon and Derry - you go in hoping for things to go well, but realistically those teams are a good bit ahead of where we are.

My fear with Meath is that Andy McEntee walks before we play them. I suspect he's doing them no favours at all, and the longer he stays there, the better chance Offaly have of turning them over.

[TerraceTalk]

Three draws in Division 1 this weekend

[Bord na Mona man]

My fear with Meath is that Andy McEntee walks before we play them. I suspect he's doing them no favours at all, and the longer he stays there, the better chance Offaly have of turning them over.

Agreed, there seems to be a big backlash in Meath if social media is anything to go by.
Bearing in mind that McEntee barely kept his job at the end of last year he is either; teetering on the edge and the players will help push him under the bus, or else the county board will double down, brazen it out and keep him in the job.

[SearingDrive]

Clare 1-13 Offaly 0-7

You have to go back 90 games to 2012 in League or Championship for a lower tally from the Offaly Senior footballers. That was 0-6 against Kildare in the Leinster championship and we all know what went on that year that resulted in that poor showing.
I'm not going to criticise the players today. But I am going to criticise management. Lads, what on earth were ye looking at for the first 35 minutes of this game today? If Tomas O'Se was doing match analysis on the TV for this he would go to town on the Offaly set up and he'd be right. The problem is I assume he had a major hand in todays calamity.
Offaly had a significantly strong wind in the opening half and played terribly conservative stuff, lots of aimless handpassing around the middle and no penetration at all, no back up runners to assist the man in possession and zero quick ball into the forwards. The Clare management couldn't believe their luck I'd say and were delighted to sit back and absorb it all. When Offaly did push on a bit they kicked 3 or 4 lovely scores.
When you start Niall McNamee you have to leave the man no further than 21 yards from goal where he is most dangerous and can create things from nothing. But today there was the depressing spectacle of him traipsing back after Clare players and running around between the Offaly 21 and 45. No doubt Clare couldn't believe their luck. When a couple of balls did go into Niall he had already emptied the tank tracking back and was easily blocked or dispossessed.
Offaly dispossessed Clare a number of times in the first half but either had nobody in attack and therefore had to pass it back around the defence or else had Ruairi and Panda in the full forward line and no Offaly player within 90 yards of them so again it was back to handpassing it around the defence.

In contrast Clare played with the strong wind exactly as you'd expect a team to. They got on with it, ran at Offaly, had support, took shots when they were on and tried a couple of quick balls into the forwards and they got their reward.
Clare don't look much good to me which is a worry.
Look, I think given the resources available to Offaly it was always going to be a battle hardened Clare that would emerge by a couple of points but no way was 9 points on the cards.
A few young lads got some experience today in bad conditions, it'll stand to them.
Survival looks close to impossible now as a minimum of 2 wins would be required but stranger things have happened, lets no write them off just yet.
It's Derry at home next weekend and the sideline needs to get it's act together.

7 points is a poor return over 70 plus minutes from Offaly. Their obsession with a passing game won’t produce too many scores. Niall McNamee started ahead of Jack Bryant yesterday, but was replaced at half time. It’s Derry at home next, a tough test.

[Fairplayalways]

I was being generous with my prediction of what Offaly might win by, but if they lost (as they did) 9 points was not expected to lose by, and given we were just ahead at halftime..didnt see the game but read a few posts above...certainly if McNamee starts it has to be all systems go..it was over cautious apparently..Meath and Down whom some think we might beat will be looking at us as very possible 3 points...

[private joker]

Played with a very strong wind in first half so writing was on the wall from early on.

[Tmacmahon]

I predicted a 4 pt win , so i feel silly now. all is not lost with down and meath more than beatable we can still survive.
derry next week is tough but at home we need to think of getting something here, they were div 2 last year and hockied us in final, but allowing for all of that, a home game of which we have 4 is a great opportunity to put pts on the board

[BiffoInThurso]

Hopefully the younger lads aren’t going to get bogged down with yesterday. Lot of them made their name playing a swashbuckling brand of football and it seems that this isn’t quite being embraced at senior level. Crazy low scoring considering the wind they had in the first half

[Faithful follower]

Very disappointed with yesterday , in earlier matches Offaly played attacking style football but yesterday we reverted back into our shell , a gale in our backs and do everything else apart from attacking football. We setup very wide but we ran the ball up the middle. I don’t think anton is a centre forward I think he is much better on the wing too much slow ball . Backs and centre field did good considering Clare size but on forward line not enough width and ball was too slow . In earlier matches we got stuck in and played nice attacking football but yesterday was disaster and management my have a good look at their game plan , for a team that difficulty scoring with the wind in our back management should have had a plan b in the first twenty minutes, instead they waited until half time and squandered all opportunities to bring the game to Clare.

[Bord na Mona man]

Playing with the wind in the first half poses its own challenges.
If you've picked a team a few days beforehand and set up with a certain game plan in mind.

You lose the toss and immediately have to have a set up to go all out attack and build scores. There is no settling in period to the game. Unless you make instant subs, you have to do this with the players who are lining out.

The other team can immediately start killing the game and time wasting and refs don't pay much attention. The second half will always be longer anyway as refs add on much more time.
The team with the 2nd half wind can make it's substitutions in a much more planned way. Bringing on shooters and score getters at a nice time.

Offaly were pretty goosed when the lead they built up in the first 35 minutes was wiped out within a couple of minutes.

[bracknaghboy]

Hopefully the younger lads aren’t going to get bogged down with yesterday. Lot of them made their name playing a swashbuckling brand of football and it seems that this isn’t quite being embraced at senior level. Crazy low scoring considering the wind they had in the first half

T'was sub optimal conditions for swashbuckling yesterday in Ennis to be fair