Offaly Senior Hurlers 2023

[Superhans75]

Good luck to us offalites today let's enjoy the sun and a dry day .
Up Offaly

[JimBwobb]

Up Offaly, give it socks.

Very quiet here lately, Charlie Mitchell captaining the under 20s yesterday - will he get a run today ? Could do with him.

Anyways, best of luck today

[Dodge83]

That first half was a disgrace. I’d compare them to Junior B hurlers only that would be an insult to junior B hurlers. If Kildare were more accurate it would be game over. Our forwards are terrible. Laois will hop off us next weekend

[private joker]

Hard fought win in the end. Dug it out. Unless there is massive improvement, offalys year is done. Even though offaly won, one team is on the rise the other is standing still.

[Dodge83]

Our lack of goals is very worrying. We didn’t even look like scoring one today if the game went on for another hour

[Hasselhoff]

Well done to the lads on the win.
They dug it out in the end. Sometimes we forget that Gaa is an amateur sport and the dedication these lads put in to represent their county.

Eoin Cahill saved the day once again. Without him we would have been lost.

We seem to be very tired and some of the players would not even run for the ball in the first half.
We just about pulled it out of the fire but we got there in the end.
It's a pity the league is not 2A, 1A 1B like it was a few years ago.

Kildare impressed me. They started well and their good running troubled offaly in the early stages. But Kildares wides again cost them. They are a big physical team with some good hurlers.

At least we might have something coming through from the under 20s in a few years as well.

[jimbob17]

Well done to players today. However, am bit underwhelmed by hurling performances last few years.

3 or 4 years ago, we were in Christy Ring Cup and Offaly under Michael Fennelly, swept a new broom across senior panel, significantly altering panel with new young group of hurlers that were going to be the future.

Lots of senior players were cast aside and the following year we were in 2A with likes of Carlow Meath Kerry and Down etc. We were beating all before us by at least 12 points per game to get promotion to Div 1. We won Chtisty Ring comfortably enough as expected and went up to Joe Mac following year. At the time, new players were showing in team like Burke, Sampson, Keenaghan, Langton, Duignan, Ravenhill, Eimhin Kelly, Nally and Murphy among others. A few older lads like Oisin Kelly, Paddy Delaney, Ben Conneely and Eoin Cahill were a bit more experienced from Kevin Martins stint as manager but were still quite young in their senior careers. A couple of older lads like King, Treacey, and Dooley were elder statesmen but it was largely a very young group, all seemed really positive and results suggested we were on right road, though knowing there was long way to go, despite beating these second tier teams comprehensively.

Since then we seem to have gone a bit stagnant.

The following year, ie last year we obviously struggled in higher league tier as expected but then failed to get into Joe Mac final, losing last game in very poor performance v Carlow but also struggling against these same tier 2 teams like Kerry and Down and others.

We have pretty much a similar bunch of players now with similar management in that the coach then is manager now. 2 or 3 players have moved on but in the main, we have the same group of players who are now 2 or 3 years older, more experienced and battle hardened, and with the benefits of S&C and turning from boys to men etc....

Back then, it would have been anticipated we were moving up and away from the Kerrys Carlows Kildares etc. But it appears now we are back really struggling to beat these teams at this level, only scraping over any of these teams by one score margins in the league.

While todays victory is great and its another small step in right direction, I'd have been hoping we would be further down the line and were closing towards level of Dublin and Antrim and other such teams at this point. While winning the division is mission accomplished in a sense, it is hard to say that beating Kildare by 3 points is a success for Offaly hurling.

Going on displays this year in league, it seems we may be fairly stagnant from where we were with the young group 2 or 3 years ago and still have a very long way to go to get to McCarthy Cup. Laois the next day is HUGE in telling us about our progress, as will be the game against other Joe Mac teams. We NEED to be getting to a Joe MacDonagh final this year at least to demonstrate progress.

It is good that there is some talent coming and the u20s progressing in next few years needs to be big priority to bridge the gap.

[Superhans75]

We got over the line bur the performance was very average halfback line may as well had some cones
From the motorway.
Even Stevie wonder can see that
Every county now's our weaknesses but nothing is done about .
The midfield is having to drop back hence our chances of getting goals (a goal lol ) are gone .
Personally it's hard to see improvement in the next couple of years.
But hope springs eternal.
Let's enjoy the win but teams will be licking there lips
To play against us

[faithfulfanatic]

We got over the line bur the performance was very average halfback line may as well had some cones
From the motorway.
Even Stevie wonder can see that
Every county now's our weaknesses but nothing is done about .
The midfield is having to drop back hence our chances of getting goals (a goal lol ) are gone .
Personally it's hard to see improvement in the next couple of years.
But hope springs eternal.
Let's enjoy the win but teams will be licking there lips
To play against us

‘Halfback line may as well had some cones’.. what match were you at today?? Half back line had a fine performance, they were overrun in the early stages because our midfield and forwards simply couldn’t match the runs from everywhere of their markers up the field.. once our sweeper dropped in and the midfield learned to stay defensive side of rucks, the game changed.. up to that we were getting drawn into rucks (which suited kildare down to the ground) and they broke at us in their signature all athletic handpass game style.. Offaly have more lads capable of striking scores and this paid true in the second half.. summer hurling will suit our lads.. some awful negative comments from Dodge above also which are no use to anyone, especially not from a blow in

[Superhans75]

No the problem is it gets overcrowd my father was pointing that out all the time yesterday.
We didn't have single run on goal yesterday .
We lost a good few line balls as well .
Number 13 had excellent game yesterday got a hurling brain.
I never mention individual performances as it's a team game but even a couple of Kildare fans were on about him

[ah lethimoutwithit]

I have to say it is fairly negative here but there was a lot to admire about our players and management yesterday.

At 1-04 to 01 we could have buckled, last day when Kildare went 6 up could have buckled, in Kerry when they reeled us in could have buckled. We may have gotten a bit of luck against Kildare the first day with the 2 goals but we got through a heavy work load in the last few weeks.
Fair enough, Kildare yesterday and Kerry in Tullamore pucked some shocking wides.
But we did settle yesterday and pucked some good scores to outscore them by 10-7 in the last 25 mins or so of the first half and butchered 2 goal chances (although we got points from them).

In the second half we completely dominated tactically and it was an excellent defensive display, Kildare ended up going long as were unable to puck over from halfway and we swarmed them.
The negative, we hit an amount of ball aimlessly away back on top of their fullback line when we had options to get our shooters on the ball from halfway. We have to get this right if we want to live the the Laois's, Westmeath and Antrim, and keep our noses ahead of the rest. At the same time, Kildare did seem to struggle under the high ball at times and we got a decent amount of joy.
I watched it on telly and couldn't believe how we didn't drive on when we were 5 up with around 10 to play. Some horrendous basic errors crept and not picking on the lad but Liam Langtons handpass on the terrace side direct to a Kildare player under limited pressure is all too typical of why we are not putting distance between us and the rest, the short game doesn't sit well with us and I don't know why, these are simple skills that make the game easier to play around the pitch.

GAA nose will be slighty out of joint and would have been a media bonanza if Kildare had won, so lets drive on from here now. Listening afterwards, the players and manager are rightly proud of this success but know that there is a lot of work to be done. Laois will be a completely different proposition next week, skillwise, pace and power, but we have to take the learnigns and the confidence into it and give it a lash. Laois will most likely make the final either way so will not be the end of the world. Game in Newbridge will be a crucial game as many if our lads will have never played there, and they will be out for vengence and see a chance of making that final if they cna beat us there.
Weather looks decent for next Sat also.


Ref was decent yesterday in my opinion also and did a good job.

[faithfulfanatic]

SuperHans we had at least 3-4 clear cut goal chances in the first half? Dooley really should have scored and goalie made a great save from Kiely.. IMO Nally at no.13 was poor for long spells and is very weak in tackle, but himself and Cahill showed their class in the second half.. St Conleths Park in Newbridge is closed for redevelopment for the next 18 months and Kildare will have to play their games outside the county, so perhaps in Navan or Mullingar? I also agree with comments on the ref above, thought he had a great game both ways, no frees gave for lads looking for frees, except for the last free that no.3 for Kildare bought for the 21 yard free in Agree also with the comments regarding Langton, tries his best and gets around but too many silly mistakes

[greenairfield]

I think the way results have gone this year a win next week isn't out of the question.
Offaly are not hectic we know that but they are well drilled and all work hard laois aren't world beaters I think we should be trying to have a really good swipe at them next week it could be a huge opportunity.

[joe bloggs]

I was very impressed with how we worked our way back into the game after an horrendous start. Kildare had their tails up and there was a large support there for them as this was a major chance for them to get top flight hurling.
Once we put a sweeper in it nullified their attack and we just kept in touch for tge rest of the first half. The breeze had a big impact on shooting and kildare really strggled in the second half as they needed to get in closer to shoot.
One curious thing about our own play, we used our sweeper for our puckouts alot which is what you would expect, but we often then hit it long straight away meaning our forwards were outnumbered on those long balls. I'd like to see them wotk the ball through the lines a bit more if we are using the short puckouts.

[faithfulfanatic]

I was very impressed with how we worked our way back into the game after an horrendous start. Kildare had their tails up and there was a large support there for them as this was a major chance for them to get top flight hurling.
Once we put a sweeper in it nullified their attack and we just kept in touch for tge rest of the first half. The breeze had a big impact on shooting and kildare really strggled in the second half as they needed to get in closer to shoot.
One curious thing about our own play, we used our sweeper for our puckouts alot which is what you would expect, but we often then hit it long straight away meaning our forwards were outnumbered on those long balls. I'd like to see them wotk the ball through the lines a bit more if we are using the short puckouts.

The last day against Kildare we tried that in the second half.. they literally left nobody in our 45 and waited for us to try play a short game through them, where they then hammered us around the middle of the field.. I felt it worked quite well yesterday, with Adrian Cleary giving some great, direct balls into our forwards.. Kildare had not planned for this and it nullified their middle third counter press to an extent