Offaly Senior Hurlers 2025

[faithfulfanatic]

Kiely unfortunately was very poor on introduction.
Gave away a sloppy free and took his own shot when Cathal King was available for an easy score.
He also let the Dublin man skip past him on the Dublin 45 in a world of space to deliver the ball for the goal, when before the man even struck it those of us around had agreed he needed to be stopped no matter what, as they had space and momentum.

[greenairfield]

Not sure how lads still see him as a starter, his attitude apparently is not great at the minute maybe it's time to move on from him as when he is like that can be a liability.

[SearingDrive]

Not sure how lads still see him as a starter, his attitude apparently is not great at the minute maybe it's time to move on from him as when he is like that can be a liability.

That’s not good. Kiely needs to realise he is part of a team .

[Bord na Mona man]

A couple of follow on points from Saturday.
Offaly puckouts started to falter in the closing stages once Dublin twigged that Oisin Kelly was the primary target and made sure to bottle him up. As mentioned a few posts back, taking Mitchell off had some downsides.

Dublin's 3 or 4 man handpassing moves regularly broke down when a player spilled the wet ball. The times they did work, they were able to play around the Offaly cover. On occasions, Offaly players were drawn towards the ball carrier while a spare Dublin player ghosted into space. Offaly were caught for legs in the closing stages and this is where the bench was short of options.
This is something Offaly can work on. Short passing, running teams are not common in the other hurling tiers. Experience will teach the best times to rush in on the ball carrier, or whether to stand off and stay in formation.

After hitting a few wides, Dublin opted for a the hail mary ball into the big square. It yielded a goal for them. I'd expect Galway will be reviewing this and will try the same on Saturday.

[Bord na Mona man]

Looking ahead to Saturday, was it such a big underperformance from Galway at the weekend? I think Kilkenny are well ahead of them and may prove to be well ahead of the rest of Leinster too.
Galway will be highly motivated to bounce back this Saturday, but they are short on quality.

Offaly need to be smart too. These intense games are coming at us quickly.
Great displays against the established Leinster sides are nice, of course. But imagine we arrive to the last day against Antrim having run Dublin, Galway and Wexford to within a couple of points. We're still starting from ground zero, and Antrim have been waiting in the long grass.

Offaly need to conserve both physical and emotional energy for that contest.

[frankthetank]

Looking ahead to Saturday, was it such a big underperformance from Galway at the weekend? I think Kilkenny are well ahead of them and may prove to be well ahead of the rest of Leinster too.
Galway will be highly motivated to bounce back this Saturday, but they are short on quality.

Offaly need to be smart too. These intense games are coming at us quickly.
Great displays against the established Leinster sides are nice, of course. But imagine we arrive to the last day against Antrim having run Dublin, Galway and Wexford to within a couple of points. We're still starting from ground zero, and Antrim have been waiting in the long grass.

Offaly need to conserve both physical and emotional energy for that contest.

I’d be firmly of the opinion that we go full throttle for Saturday. If we lose we then tailor our entire training regime, preparation and team selections for the rest of the season with the Antrim game in mind.

The Kilkenny and Wexford games become an irrelevance.

Of course that scenario goes out the window if we win Saturday.

[oneshot]

This has came up here before and there is no doubt M Troy is a very good shot stopper but we really need to realise his puck outs aren't up too it.

He couldn't go short or didn't want too and his hanging puck outs that travelled 70 yards weren't long enough and put us under immense pressure it was prob the turning point of the game.

Hoare would of been able to go longer and I think we would of held on for the win.

jasus change the record Troys the best keeper in offaly at the moment, i take it you weren't in ballinasloe a few weeks ago. Mark Troys display in goals has us in division one next year. as for his puckouts last saturday its not his fault some players weren't able to compete for the high ball . what ever problems we have the goalkeeper isn't one of them.

[Wing Back]

This has came up here before and there is no doubt M Troy is a very good shot stopper but we really need to realise his puck outs aren't up too it.

He couldn't go short or didn't want too and his hanging puck outs that travelled 70 yards weren't long enough and put us under immense pressure it was prob the turning point of the game.

Hoare would of been able to go longer and I think we would of held on for the win.

jasus change the record Troys the best keeper in offaly at the moment, i take it you weren't in ballinasloe a few weeks ago. Mark Troys display in goals has us in division one next year. as for his puckouts last saturday its not his fault some players weren't able to compete for the high ball . what ever problems we have the goalkeeper isn't one of them.

I think you are right overall. Troy definitely has to stay our number 1. He's been excellent all year....I think we can all agree he has got us out of jail on several occasions.

But saying that.....there was a big problem for Offaly in the last 15mins of the Dublin game with our puckouts, where we lost 90% of them I would estimate. It would be quite foolish to just ignore this and leave it unaddressed. I'm not laying the blame on this with Mark, far from it. I think there were a number of factors at play.

1. We were flagging badly, where many lads were out on their feet. So very few lads were making runs for Mark.
2. Our long ball option to Oisin was copped by Dublin who doubled up on him and cleaned the breaks as the game wore on.
3. Although Cillian came in as an option, it didn't seem to help as he never really seemed to be in a great place as an option for the puck out.
4. I thought our full back line were excellent the whole match and dealt with an awful lot of pressure, cutting out certain scores.....but I felt we missed Mahon back there for the short puckout options. He is a real ball playing corner back and gives great ball to our attackers further up the field.
5. Dublin were just fitter and when we seemed to be open, they beat us in the footrace to the puck out.
6. I will attribute 1 stray puckout in the 2nd half to Mark that went straight to an unmarked Dublin midfielder....these things happen though, especially considering the volume of puckouts he had to undertake.

Those are just a few opinions of my own from memory. I'm sure there are many other factors. But many of these are things we can address. I think that we are fit....but Dublin are as fit as any team in the country, and out lasted us in this department. I felt we finished all our games really strongly this year bar this one......and the Waterford one where we were down to 14. So not too worried about points related to this. I think we need to present better options for Mark when our big men are being double marked.....as there should be a loose man somewhere. But these are tactical things that can be worked on to help our puckout strategy.

Theres no need to panic....just learn from our experiences and be better, Mark has been great....we just need to set up a bit better for the puckouts coming down the stretch and that will help an awful lot to sort this issue I feel.

[Thomas mc]

We're gonna learn a lot about the team this weekend. I think we'll rattle Galway and they are on the ropes if we can get at them.. hopefully there's no backlash outta them.. there's a real crisis over on the Galway forum which is funny to read and a lot of them are not expecting anything against us .

[G91]

Galway will have you believe whatever you want

We’ve been down this road before they were there for the taking but we took nothing

How bad can they be Kilkenny are best team in Leinster so getting beat like that is always a possibility

[frankthetank]

Considering one wouldn’t exactly view Galway as hurling aristocrats (1 All Ireland in 36 years) Offaly have a poor enough championship record against them.

Played 13
Offaly wins 4
Galway win 8
Draw 1

Last Offaly win: 1994
Last Galway win: 2018

Biggest Offaly win:
14 points. 1984 All Ireland SHC Semi-Final. 4-15 to 1-10

Biggest Galway win:
19 points. 2017 Leinster SHC Semi-Final. 0-33 to 1-11.

[faithfulfanatic]

Only one change to Galway team, Daithi Burke in for Grealish.
Fintan Burke to corner back is there to be got at.
Surprised they didn’t make any changes up top.

No change on our side, Screeney and Brecon on to the subs.
Jack Clancy drops off subs which I think is harsh enough, hurled well when he came on in league final and last weeks game would have suited him massively.

I was very impressed with Dublin last weekend and I expect them to beat Wexford @ 13/8.

[Wing Back]

Jack Clancy drops off subs which I think is harsh enough, hurled well when he came on in league final and last weeks game would have suited him massively.

Kind of thought the same last week....was expecting him to be brought in as he has a good engine. But to be fair to management, they make the calls, and they have us hurling well to date.

[JimBwobb]

Looking forward to tomorrow, any indication on ticket sales ?

[G91]

Kinda harsh on jack clancy I think he deserves his spot at least on the subs

He’s one of the better options we have , maybe there’s a valid reason and it’s not that he’s just been dropped

Anyway it is what it is , cautiously optimistic

Build on that performance v Dublin learn our mistakes