Offaly Senior Football 2026

[Behindthegoal]

Great to get the win you looked like we were goosed when they got it back to 1 but hyland stood up he is fantastic

They put pressure on our kickouts thought Melia did well to get short ones away in 2nd half especially

They butchered an awful amount of chances both goals and 2 point efforts you would have to question what we’re Donegal at when they lost to them

There is still some strange selections on the panel jack bryant came out of nowhere today to get game time after being out with 2 injuries Darragh Flynn never got a minute. I’m not naming names but there’s one player starting and another on the bench which I can’t fathom. Cian johnson scored 3-8 against bracknagh on Friday and can’t make the subs bench there’s more going on than meets the eye


One more win and a trip to croke park be mighty!

[pigeon house biffo]

Johnson was in the stand in gear with the extended panel, not match fit?

[hamstrings]

Delighted for the players, great win. I always felt once we got back a few players from injuries particularly hyland and Higgins things would improve. Hyland would make any team in the country.

Side note between midlands 103 and Saturday game saying it's a famous win etc I wouldn't go that far, good win but we were in division 2 and down division 3 also we beat them in 2022 not that long ago. I get downs footballing history etc but its hardly a famous win.

[Behindthegoal]

Johnson was in the stand in gear with the extended panel, not match fit?

If you can score 1-7 against Clara and 3-8 against Bracknagh teams who have basically their championship 15 you should be able to make the bench at least something fishy going on there similar to the plunkett situation before this year it seems

[faithfulfanatic]

Great to get the win you looked like we were goosed when they got it back to 1 but hyland stood up he is fantastic

They put pressure on our kickouts thought Melia did well to get short ones away in 2nd half especially

They butchered an awful amount of chances both goals and 2 point efforts you would have to question what we’re Donegal at when they lost to them

There is still some strange selections on the panel jack bryant came out of nowhere today to get game time after being out with 2 injuries Darragh Flynn never got a minute. I’m not naming names but there’s one player starting and another on the bench which I can’t fathom. Cian johnson scored 3-8 against bracknagh on Friday and can’t make the subs bench there’s more going on than meets the eye


One more win and a trip to croke park be mighty!

You’re not naming names but have already named 3 names there?
Jack Bryant is better at football than Darragh Flynn and any other attacking sub, which might explain that one.
As for Johnson, the same old argument for him after a good club performance, he’s clearly not up to inter county conditioning and I’d be fairly sure management will be able to identify if/when he is.

On another note, very weird/sour tweet from Pat Nolan following the game.
Just congratulated the players, specific enough to leave management or anyone else out.
Then commented to say that the turnaround is due to players taking ownership and that the team selection is weird and Offaly rode their luck to win.

Firstly, I highly doubt any player on the panel is talking to him, so there’s no way he’d know what the turnaround is down to.
Secondly, the team selection must be fairly ok with 2 wins from 2, against 2 of the pre tournament favourites.
Finally, any 4/1 outsider is going to have to ride their luck to beat a team who just took down Donegal a few weeks ago!

[G91]

Would have to agree here Daragh Flynn is an exceptional footballer, he had an more impressive championship than jack ,

Both are great footballers but when your selecting who to play surely you pick the in form player.

[VicarOfDibley]

Johnson was selected to start the last game of the league but called the manager 24 hours before throw in with an injury. We are talking about this for the guts of 10 years now. Inter-county football is a whole different level of s&c and nutrition and not everyone is up to that standard.

[Thomas mc]

All the talk of discontent in the camp... this year clearly demonstrates that the opposite is true and we have the panel of players who are there, who want to be there and who are working together for their team mates and their management.. bear in mind this is our championship and all games to this point and all preparation should have been for this. Im so sick of this shite talk about lads "who should be in there" its quite clear that the right lads are in there.. as for Cian Jonson his team mates hand him the ball at club level and he scores and does little or no other work, or even win any of his own ball, hes simply not good enough or fit enough for county level, if he was and he was bothered he'd be playing. What we've seen over the last 3 years in a nut shell is a tidy up and progression of Offaly football.. in kellys first year he started getting rid of the older lads and the rot (the ones that had achieved little or nothing and wanted to control the dressin room) and he blooded new and younger players .. that bore fruit the following year when harte came in and got rid of others aswell or didnt invite lads back.. we won division 3 and beat kildare twice in the process and we actually competed in the tailteann cup, something we rarely bothered with. This year we were in division 2 and simply had no chance with the number of injuries we had but management didnt panic and resisted the urge to recall the older lads and the rot back into the panel.. the team and management stuck together and prepared as best they could for the tailteann cup and we got some guys back from injury and credit to all involved.. and still shite talk about team selection, we beat clare the first day and now Down who beat Donegal a few weeks ago so i would say the team selection was fine.. id say there are lads on here who hate to see us win and be proved wrong.. get behind the team and management and forget about anton, nigel, panda, the cians, bill caroll and mcnamee and whatever other lads ye do be shiting on about.. if they were good enough and wanted, they would be there.

[Lone Shark]

Lets be balanced here.

In his first year in charge, but also as joint manager with Mickey Harte, Declan Kelly took a hardline approach to who he wanted and didn't want on the panel. As manager/co-manager, that is his right, it's not reasonable to give someone a job and then dictate how they do it, when they are the ones that will be accountable.

That meant that (1) the panel would only be comprised of players that management was happy to work with, (2) that there would be other players who would themselves choose not to be part of the panel because of this approach, and (3) that there would be an issue regarding depth of quality.

Once more with feeling - management made those choices with their eyes wide open.

Since then, in the last two years, we have seen the team put together an excellent 2025 campaign where they earned promotion and won a Division Three title, and even in their two knockout championship defeats to Meath and Kildare, they were very competitive, albeit the lack of quality subs made a huge difference in both games. But what cannot be denied is that in 2025, we were abnormally lucky when it came to injuries - even though a significant cohort of players played 95% or more of the total minutes, most of them just about made it through the year intact.

Then in 2026 we saw the team put together eight consecutive defeats, mitigated somewhat by two good performances in the Tailteann Cup since then. In 2026 the team was abnormally unlucky with injuries, and that's taking the benign view that the huge number of soft tissue injuries in the Spring was coincidental, and not connected to the training load.

My point is this - when you make decisions that will clearly leave you with a thinner panel than might otherwise be the case, you have to own it. If Declan Kelly and Mickey Harte are to get credit for what happened in 2025, then they have to take ownership of what happens in 2026. If 2026 is simply down to bad luck with injuries, then 2025 is down to incredibly good luck with an almost completely clean bill of health for most of the year.

What is NOT reasonable is picking and choosing, and deciding that the success in 2025 was the result of good management, but that 2026 was out of their hands due to the litany of injuries. That's not how this works.

[aigne]

Is the venue for Tailteann Cup Quarter Final going to be a draw or do the Round 2a winners like Offaly have home advantage?

[Offaly Hero]

Is the venue for Tailteann Cup Quarter Final going to be a draw or do the Round 2a winners like Offaly have home advantage?

Offaly have the home draw.

[jimbob17]

Lets be balanced here.

In his first year in charge, but also as joint manager with Mickey Harte, Declan Kelly took a hardline approach to who he wanted and didn't want on the panel. As manager/co-manager, that is his right, it's not reasonable to give someone a job and then dictate how they do it, when they are the ones that will be accountable.

That meant that (1) the panel would only be comprised of players that management was happy to work with, (2) that there would be other players who would themselves choose not to be part of the panel because of this approach, and (3) that there would be an issue regarding depth of quality.

Once more with feeling - management made those choices with their eyes wide open.

Since then, in the last two years, we have seen the team put together an excellent 2025 campaign where they earned promotion and won a Division Three title, and even in their two knockout championship defeats to Meath and Kildare, they were very competitive, albeit the lack of quality subs made a huge difference in both games. But what cannot be denied is that in 2025, we were abnormally lucky when it came to injuries - even though a significant cohort of players played 95% or more of the total minutes, most of them just about made it through the year intact.

Then in 2026 we saw the team put together eight consecutive defeats, mitigated somewhat by two good performances in the Tailteann Cup since then. In 2026 the team was abnormally unlucky with injuries, and that's taking the benign view that the huge number of soft tissue injuries in the Spring was coincidental, and not connected to the training load.

My point is this - when you make decisions that will clearly leave you with a thinner panel than might otherwise be the case, you have to own it. If Declan Kelly and Mickey Harte are to get credit for what happened in 2025, then they have to take ownership of what happens in 2026. If 2026 is simply down to bad luck with injuries, then 2025 is down to incredibly good luck with an almost completely clean bill of health for most of the year.

What is NOT reasonable is picking and choosing, and deciding that the success in 2025 was the result of good management, but that 2026 was out of their hands due to the litany of injuries. That's not how this works.

LS makes some very valid points here and I fully agree with him. How anyone can paint 2024 in positive light, as in post above simply is beyond me and clearly, they have no idea re player sentiment of that time. 2 words describe it: sh*t show.

Drastic improvement last year no doubt after Harte entered fray. However, this year again in league has not been good enough. Players returning have made difference and couple of underdog victories have somewhat changed the narrative.

At the end of year, the Co board should engage with players and management and critically review year and come to decision then, based on the whole year / time of current management, with view to see if progress is achievable or sustainable for another year.

You can't laud management on one hand and absolve them from blame on another when they lose every game in league.

My reading is that panel depth has been grossly affected by current management, to point where we are ok now when at full strength but not able to perform when we go down the depth chart due to injuries. Every team gets injuries from time to time and need to be able to absorb them abd still perform. What would be wrong with having some of those better lads in who are not, and having some or more competition for places. That is only way I'd see us improving. Whether that is with current or new management next year is immaterial, but given all of above, squad depth should be part of conversation when assessing where we are at at end of year.

[jimbob17]

With reference to Saturday, lots has been made of that u20 group and all they've done etc and senior team built around them etc etc etc. However, This is a real nod of acclaim and well done to the more senior lads who actually carried us the last day and some of whom, have been doing this for a while.

In Tierney, Hyland and Hayes, we had 3 guys the last day who really showed up. They scored 2-19 between them and most of it from play. They are all around same age and came off good crop of minors about 12 years ago playing minor in 2014 or 2015. In addition to those, kudos also to Kyle Higgins who has made massive improvement to team since his return. Dempsey, Leavy and Poland are of similar vintage also I think and combined, those 7 lads were likely to have been in around the team that played the U21 final in 2017.

Winning underage is not essential, but it is important we get best players into underage structures and that we keep progressing them up towards senior ranks so that we are strong for future at senior level. Getting 2 or 3 good ones off every u20 or minor team is fierce important for our chances of future success.

[Snotser123]

People have been asked from day dot who could be brought into improve the panel and the same old names of lads that were struggling 4 and 5 years ago are brought up .....let's say for arguments sake a new manager comes in ......who are these players that would walk into this set up and improve things ..??people have failed to come up with any new here...ferbane and tullamore get to the county final almost every year and between then can't provide an elite forward outside of cathal Flynn ....the bitterness here is shocking towards management .....do ye magically think the next manager is gonna pick the exact panel ye want and if he doesn't are ye gonna set up hate campaigns against him too ? Tierney , o neill , Hyland, the two bigger lads at wing forward...a bit like what they done last year with Higgins and Burke I fail to see what is so wrong with the team selections for the most part .....where are these mythical midfielders around Offaly that would have done a better job than hayes Saturday evening ? The Egans , dalton , all good lads , again I'm struggling with people acting like they would pick totally different teams than the current management

[jimbob17]

I am not overly sure of how to explain this very simple concept in a way that it has not been explained to you already Snotser.

The team of last year is acceptable and likely close to the team of what plenty would choose. That is us at full strength missing nobody which will rarely happen. We had 5 or 6 injuries this year that hurt us badly. Most teams will have that volume of injuries at a given time but absorb them because they have a capable squad of players. Our problem is this: OUR BENCH IS WAY OFF WHAT IT COULD BE BECAUSE MANY HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO BE INVOLVED UNDER CURRENT MANAGEMENT OR CURRENT MANAGEMENT HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO INCLUDE LADS - as is their right.

The management chose Sawyer, Murphy and a plethora of other lads who simply are not inter county senior standard footballers. We lost 8 games in the league as a result! That is an unavoidable fact. When we go down the depth chart, we played lads that would not make a Tullamore or Ferbane team. The likes of the following, who were not involved either of their own choosing or otherwise would have been a lot stronger in a team selection than what the management selected - and would have been much stronger options to challenge last years starting team for starting spots. Under a different management and management culture, some if not all of these would have been involved. In the full forward line alone, we did not have Cian Farrell, Kellaghan or Ruairi McNamee. In a half forward line, we could have had likes of Bill Carroll or Jamie Evans for competition. That is 5 for forwards alone without mentioning Anton S, who you appear to have a major issue with for some reason. Ruairi Egan played a good few league games as a wing forward as a result ffs. A blind man could see he is not a wing forward. Murphy started at 14 in at least one if not two league matches while Harry Plunkett was excluded.

Now when you consider we started Sawyer and Murphy among others in league ahead of these 6, then we have a problem with team functioning. We all saw how that worked out, taking 8 losses and plenty of hammerings in league when it could have been a hell of a lot different. It is as simple as that.

But no doubt, you can just not come to terms with that very simple explanation.