I would say it’s Offaly’s biggest win in nearly two decades. Considering beating Longford in 2016 was our first win in Leinster since 2007, and Leinster wins have been like hens teeth since. Few bad years losing to Westmeath in tight games and then the Wicklow match, a lot of these players have soldiered on without big days. Meath have been dismal over the last 10 years and if they thought they’d walk into Tullamore and get a win by just lacing the boots, they were mistaken, having said that, to beat a historically big team, you have to beat a historically big team.Behindthegoal wrote: ↑Mon Apr 24, 2023 11:40 pm Lads I don’t mean to rain on the parade here but I thought the celebrations were a bit much if you didn’t know what the game meant you’d have sworn we won the Leinster championship, lads doing knee slides and punching the ground after winning a quarter final says a lot about where we are at, Don’t get me wrong it’s great to win and all but personally I thought it was a bit over the top. Our neighbours Westmeath and Laois have contested Leinster finals over the last few years and I don’t remember any scenes like yesterday from their players it has a small team mentality about it
Yes we beat the name Meath and they were wearing Meath jerseys but to be realistic that’s the worst Meath team since back well beyond the 80s, they won’t be anywhere near winning the tailteann cup so if we beat another team at that level would we be celebrating as much? The place is burning down around Colm O’Rourke with players leaving the panel and some of the stories coming out of the camp they were absolutely hammered by Cavan and Clare in two recent challenges games so let’s put a bit of perspective on the win
Offaly Gaa have tweeted out three montage videos from the “day” as if it’s being written into folklore, Jesus remember the day we won the Leinster quarter final I think it’s way too much considering the semi-final is in a weeks time, Louth game back from the dead against Westmeath and their players shook hands with them at full time and their social media isn’t plastered with montages
Louth are a completely different animal to Meath at the moment and people seem to think we have a great chance because they don’t have the name or tradition that Meath do, I heard on a podcast today that Louth are “no great shakes” I’m not sure who we think we are but Louth are at least 6 point favourites to beat us on Sunday
They were one game away from reaching division one this year, they beat Kildare Cork and Meath, they only lost to Derry by three points, and played a full strength Dublin team in croke park and lost by 7 points, Dublin beat Laois by 27 yesterday to put that into perspective. Mickey Harte has worked his magic they are extremely well organised and fit they break at lighting speed and have massive men all over the field I think they’ll be laughing at offalys celebrations and can’t wait to take us out after the O’Byrne cup argument earlier in the year I just think we could have left off opening up the champagne for now as we will look very silly if we end up taking a beating from Louth which is quite possible
Lads putting in a full weeks work outside of their careers just play an amateur sport only popular on a small island - massive sacrifice and commitment- getting a rare win over a team with a strong tradition is only to celebrated. Maybe if the celebration police were on duty they would have quelled the unnecessary knee slides but they’ve been woefully underfunded since the recession and probably didn’t have a unit there on the day