Delegate slams 'sub-standard' Offaly football team

[GreatDayForTheParish]

I think the delegates were dead right to tear into the teams. They are a joke, a laughing stock in GAA circles.

Like it or lump it the majority of the lads playing with the county are doing it out of ego trips for themselves, they dont give a damn about their county team mates, the county itself, winning, or their management. They are going to try look after themselves first and foremost, get a bit of free gear to wear around the place, and be seen as a county player. The only problem now is that to be seen as an Offaly county player would be on a par with been seen as a Junior C footballer. I could go and name names, and quiet alot of names at that of the players that have completely the wrong attitude and reasons for playing county football but ye all could have a fair rattle at who they are.

Yes theres not a massive amount of talent in this little county of ours but there certainly is enough to be competitive with 75 % of the counties. Theres no excuse for not been competitive.

When Offaly teams fall a bit behind, the towel is thrown in completely, sure what about it we'll head to the tap and stick the chests out and that will be great.

Possibly the most guttless, depressing Offaly football performance I saw was against Westmeath in O' Connor park not too long ago. On our own patch against a piss poor Westmeath team, they were hammered. I saw the players after that evening and I can guarantee you here and now only two of them were absolutely gutted. A ballycumber man, and a gracefield man. The rest were in buoyant mood. Now McNamee and Mcmanus were not to be seen but knowing them and their winning attitude and pride for the county jersey I'd say they just went home in disgust straight from O' Connor park.

The attitude is wrong, vey very wrong.

Your argument lost any weight when you used a match two years ago, two managers ago to highlight your point. Granted that was a very poor performance but how long will you stick these players with that obsolete mill around their neck? Two years, five, ten?

To denigrate most of the panel as being in it for 'ego trips' is just mindless pub talk. Nothing more than unsubstantiated opinion. What is known for a fact is that these players give commitment to a cause many wouldn't. Running around the muck in January when in their heart of hearts they know that winning a medal, any sort of a medal is probably beyond them. They deserve our respect.
Isn't it amazing and laughable how this 'ego trip', 'players don't have their heart in it' lark is almost always a complaint levelled at the less successful teams. Is it not much easier to a member of the Kerry, Tyrone or Cork panels? Training away in the best of set ups with a very good chance of being in Croke Park in September. Why are all of their players automatically considered to be selfless, fully committed Gaels? Why are teams and players labelled as selfish only when they loose?

As for the delegates and the vitriol they spouted at the meeting. Whether anybody agrees with what they had to say is beside the point. What should instead be considered is what possible advantage was there in saying it now and not when the season was over? I can think of none whatsoever. Instead it only serves to demoralise the players and the management and degrade the county team ethos mid-season. This should be cause for great anger among genuine supporters.

Our footballers could easily go on a run in the qualifiers and prove themselves to be competitive with ''75% of the counties''. The season could yet salvaged, thats indisputable, however unlikely somebody may personally feel it to be the case. They were beaten and beaten well by a good Meath side, missing 21 yard frees and having a player sent off. Perspective people until the season is over and it can be judged in its entirety.

[TheManFromFerbane]

Isn't it amazing and laughable how this 'ego trip', 'players don't have their heart in it' lark is almost always a complaint levelled at the less successful teams. Is it not much easier to a member of the Kerry, Tyrone or Cork panels? Training away in the best of set ups with a very good chance of being in Croke Park in September. Why are all of their players automatically considered to be selfless, fully committed Gaels? Why are teams and players labelled as selfish only when they loose?

Great point.

I personally think Long John may have had a point a couple of years ago but to be fair I think that's been rooted out at this stage in 99% of the players. There's no chests being stuck out any more, going in to play with Offaly and putting in all that slog for nothing but dogs abuse must be very depressing. The fact that they didn't give up against Kildare last year when the game was gone and the fact that they were right in the game up to the sending off this year (along with missing a few easy frees) tells me that there is work and commitment being put in and that we're not as far off as we think we are. Comments like this from the county board delegates and supports just makes it even harder for these guys to turn up to training and I checked the constitution, as far as I can see there's nothing in there that says they have to.

[GOOFY]

GDFTP you articulate with words what i never could. Excellent post, ur bang on, take a bow

[Lone Shark]

I'm wary to say too much on a topic like this for reasons that many of ye will be well aware of, however I do think it's not unreasonable to make a couple of points here.

(1) County board delegates must be aware that in terms of what's "on the table" to be involved in Offaly football (and I presume hurling though I don't speak from any knowledge on that) there is feck all carrot there. There will be inconvenience, sacrifice, there is feck all chance of success, there is all the usual penny pinching and in order to get involved at all, one would have to be aware that all this is an issue. Now I'm not trying to argue for a minute that this is an argument towards "looking after" players better in the sense of how the GPA would have it, however as I've mentioned before, there are a lot of footballers in Offaly who would have the talent to compete for a place in the first fifteen but they laid it clearly on the table earlier in the year that they have no interest in doing so. Now I've no problem with someone taking that decision and that's exactly what somebody should do if they aren't in a position to do what it takes, but delegates, and supporters in general, tend to compare the players on the field with those that aren't on the field, and that's a very simplistic view.

(2) I genuinely don't believe that delegates, or again a lot of supporters for that matter, are aware of the amount of residual work that needs to be built up in order to play intercounty football. The level of core strength involved is not the kind of thing which you can develop over one winter of training - you need to be doing it for years on end. You cannot waste years on the same guys and then expect the new lads coming in not to have some ground to make up.

(3) As was pointed out here by other posters, that Meath game was a ten point beating on the scoreboard, but not in fact. After forty minutes, Cian Ward had hit everything, Niall Darby had a nightmare by his own very good standards and we were right there. John Coughlan might not have looked like he was doing that much, but crucially, neither was Crawford. Now there are different views on Coughlan's red card, but I would look at it like this - Ciarán McManus got a hot headed card or two in his youth, but he learned and grew into one of the most influential footballers of his generation. John can learn from this too.

(4) The qualifier mentality is a different thing again, but once again delegates have to ask themselves - for how much are they responsible? For the last few years, in the week leading up to the qualifiers, all the talk has been of how the club championships will be on the following week. Of course there is a need to get club fixtures played too, but for God's sake, it's hard to get players motivated to try and put together a run when half the county is talking about the game that's going to happen the following Saturday after they've been beaten. Offaly is a special case with regard to having to cater for football and hurling, but anyone who gets to see the master fixture list at the start of the year (the select few, I'm well aware that such a thing is a closely guarded secret!! ) will know that failure is presumed throughout, at every level.


The players are far from blameless in the sense that there are some who occasionally let themselves down, however there is a bigger picture here and the delegates need to be aware that ultimately, the county board is responsible. God knows we don't have to look too far to find examples of where they were directly responsible for the whole thing spinning off the tracks.

[Long John]

I am no major fan of the delegates in question myself but I genuinely feel these players need a good kick up the arse.

The problems Offaly are having in GAA is a good combination of the incompetence of the board at underage and adult level and a lack of genuine commitment from the players. The best 15 players in the county are not wearing the county jersey and thats fair enough if they have not the interest or commitment but the lads that are on board are not as committed as they need to be and the focus should be on the good of the team rather than "well i scored 2 points" attitude.

The Westmeath defeat may have been 2 years ago but things have got no better since then. Both from a results perspective and an attitude perspective.

Meath are no world beaters and the Galway team that annihilated Offaly in Edenderry are also just a mediocre outfit. Make all the excuses you want, the truth is Offaly should be competing better than they are and the players have to take some blame.

[offalyman08]

Offaly senior team is completely under performing over the last 3 years or so. I think that westmeath game in 2008 was the worst ever but Down and Kildare wasnt a whole lot better.

Anyone idea what the answer is? What needs to be done?

[Bord na Mona man]

I'm not so sure the players could be accused of being on ego trips.
When only about 500 Offaly people turn up to big games and most of the players would hardly be recognised by anyone on the street, there isn't much personal glory in playing for the county.

Players are unlikely to be in it for free gear either?
There are probably easier ways to earn yourself a €30 polo shirt than spending months running around a field.

While there may be obvious under performance in the squad, the bigger picture has to be looked at too.
I don't see any harm in a bit of outrage from delegates. This might eventually go digging and might get closer to finding the root causes.
Hopefully they get beyond simply blaming the "the players" or "the management".

[black and red exile]

This whole debate is ridiculous, as a supporter who for many years has watched our footballers and hurlers in league, championship, O'Byrne cup, Walsh cup and challenge games I for one has never seeing guys wearing the Tri-colour not trying. When our footballers and hurlers go out on a field to represent their county they leave everything on the pitch, of that I have no doubt whatsoever, this crap of players'' not trying'', it seems to be a statement that every Tom, Dick or Harry likes to throw around after every bad defeat or performance, players don't intentionally go out to underperfom, they are human beings and not robots, as LS indicated the sacrifices these fellas make nowadays while on the county panel are frightening, basically their lives are put on hold for 7 to 8 months of the year because they want to perform for themselves of course but also for supporters who quite alot will tear them asunder in website posts as well as the public barstools, If I was a county footballer bursting my bloodvessels in trying to give my county some cheer in these recessionary times and was then ridiculed by idiots then I would stuff this, stay with my club and stay away from mob rule that has taken over Offaly over the last few years

[Oceans 15]

I think the delegates were right. Did anyone see the Sunday Game on Sunday night? The RTE cameras were in the Offaly Dressing Room before the game and there was a couple of offaly players joking and laughing and acting like school kids cause the cameras were there. I was in town the night of the Meath match and the Sunday Game was on in the pub and they were at the same anytime they came up on the TV. They just didn't care about the result. Obviously all the players are not like this, its just a few.

[Bord na Mona man]

I think the delegates were right. Did anyone see the Sunday Game on Sunday night? The RTE cameras were in the Offaly Dressing Room before the game and there was a couple of offaly players joking and laughing and acting like school kids cause the cameras were there. I was in town the night of the Meath match and the Sunday Game was on in the pub and they were at the same anytime they came up on the TV. They just didn't care about the result. Obviously all the players are not like this, its just a few.

You could over-analyse it too.
I presume the cameras were in the dressing room well before any warm ups and final team talks.
At that stage a bit of banter can lift the tension and make players less apprehensive.

[GOOFY]

Jasus Oceans15 i think the fact they scored 2 - 9 in the second half shows that they care. Thin ur readin too much into it myself.

[Oceans 15]

Jasus Oceans15 i think the fact they scored 2 - 9 in the second half shows that they care. Thin ur readin too much into it myself.

As I said its not the majority its only 2 or 3. I suppose what made my blood boil was that the one i seen laughing & skiting the night of the Meath match were the same ones that i seen on the TV on Sunday night. By the way the same players proceeded to do the whole day on the beer on saturday after the match while most of the players went to the hurling..

[the bare biffo]

Jasus Oceans15 i think the fact they scored 2 - 9 in the second half shows that they care. Thin ur readin too much into it myself.

As I said its not the majority its only 2 or 3. I suppose what made my blood boil was that the one i seen laughing & skiting the night of the Meath match were the same ones that i seen on the TV on Sunday night. By the way the same players proceeded to do the whole day on the beer on saturday after the match while most of the players went to the hurling..

I dunno, I think some people need to stop watching what players are doing in their own time, it's really none of our business. If they are not performing for any reason then its up to Tom Cribben to take appropriate action.

Personally unless a lad was a relative or good friend of mine, then I have no interest in what he does in his own time.

[Oceans 15]

Jasus Oceans15 i think the fact they scored 2 - 9 in the second half shows that they care. Thin ur readin too much into it myself.

As I said its not the majority its only 2 or 3. I suppose what made my blood boil was that the one i seen laughing & skiting the night of the Meath match were the same ones that i seen on the TV on Sunday night. By the way the same players proceeded to do the whole day on the beer on saturday after the match while most of the players went to the hurling..

I dunno, I think some people need to stop watching what players are doing in their own time, it's really none of our business. If they are not performing for any reason then its up to Tom Cribben to take appropriate action.

Personally unless a lad was a relative or good friend of mine, then I have no interest in what he does in his own time.

Its nothing personal Bare Biffo but its exactly that attitude that has us where we are. Do you think any of the players from Kerry, Meath, Cork, Tyrone etc would go on the beer 2 weeks before a championship match? I don't think so..

[the bare biffo]

Its nothing personal Bare Biffo but its exactly that attitude that has us where we are. Do you think any of the players from Kerry, Meath, Cork, Tyrone etc would go on the beer 2 weeks before a championship match? I don't think so..

To be honest I am quite sure my attitude has absolutely no impact on the state of Offaly football and unless you are directly involved neither does yours.
This is still an amateur sport, in the words of Christy Cooney "a passtime of choice". Players behaviour should be a matter for their own conscience first and the consideration of their management and teammates second. I dont believe that posting tabloid style dirt on public forums about the players serves any constructive purpose.
Absolutely if you want to criticise a player on the basis of their performance on the pitch, no problem, when you take the jersey you put yourself up for that. But off the field activities, I think, are really none of our business.