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Wexford 1-14
Offaly 0-12

Tiernan Rossiter's 21st minute goal set Wexford up for victory over Offaly at O'Kennedy Park in New Ross.

The newly-promoted visitors opened the scoring through Niall McNamee, but then played second fiddle to Aidan O'Brien's side who proceeded to score 1-6 without reply.

However, the Faithful rallied with scores from Niall Darby, Ciaran Hurley, Ken Casey and Nigel Dunne to trail by 0-6 to 1-6 at the break.

But Wexford grabbed the first two points of the second half to go five points clear, and the margin was still the same at full-time, with three points from substitute PJ Banville sealing the win.

Wexford - S Roche; R Tierney, G Molloy, C Carty; B Malone, J Breen, T Rossiter (1-0); D Waters (0-1), P Byrne (0-1); C Kehoe, M Furlong, B Brosnan (0-3, 2'45, 1f); C Lyng (0-5, 3f), J Holmes (0-1), K O'Grady. Subs: R Dempsey for O'Grady, PJ Banville (0-3) for Holmes, G Cullen for Tierney, P Kelly for Kehoe.

Offaly - A Mulhall; D Brady, P Conway, J O'Connor; E Carroll, J Moloney, N Darby (0-1); M Brazil, N Smith (0-1); G Guilfoyle, P Cunningham, C Hurley (0-1); A Sullivan (0-1), N Dunne (0-4f), N McNamee (0-1). Subs: K Casey (0-1) for Guilfoyle (BC), D Hanlon for O'Connor, R Allen (0-1) for Hurley, J Maher (0-1f) for Dunne, J Brickland for Smith.

Referee - M Deegan

Didnt think Anton Sullivan was due back until March, encouraging to see him start and indeed score a point.

Long term you would hope he would stay injury free and add more potency to that full forward line. With him and Niall Mc inside as finshers you would imagine Offaly can put up respectable scorelines.

I wasn't at it and indeed believe very few traveled. From what I've read and heard we were outplayed at midfield for most of the game. Daithi Waters controlled the game for Wexford it appears. This is frustrating to hear but not unexpected. Our lack of midfielders over the last few years has halted any real chances of building a team to progress to the next level. Although the game has evolved there still remains a basic requirement to contest ball around the middle of the park.
I fear over the next few years this team is likely to yo yo between divisions 3 & 4....however Sunday is another day and we'll have a clearer picture after then....we won't lose hope just yet.

I see eoin carroll moving to midfield in a few years. He is great at winning the ball in the air and he has a great physical presence about him

He played very well when moved there on Sunday, don't be surprised if thats where he starts on Sunday coming

midfield is a problem Brian Connor is a big miss, himself and maybe Niall Smith would be a good pairing
they be the best thats in offaly at the moment well one of them is in the states.

Hyper wrote:He played very well when moved there on Sunday, don't be surprised if thats where he starts on Sunday coming

your spot on Hyper he is mdfield with Smith for sundays game.

I hear the bad weather has hampered the Cavan fans trying to dry the teabags for tomorrow!

anyone on here going today, is it still on.

Scandalous performance.On numerous occassions we had 3 or 4 extra men in defence and still Cavan could easily pop passes around as they liked , no pressure on the ball and terrible marking from Offaly in defence.We cannot play defensive football properly so why the manager is persisting with it I don't know.There was no energy and drive in the team either (are they training before the matches).Our attacking plan seemed to be just pump the ball into the Niall McNamee and hope he does something special.For some unknown reason Niall McNamee was playing in the half forward line/midfield for the first 20 minutes.Playing our best forward miles out from goal is idiotic.Things are getting worse not better and you'd have to wonder where can we go from here.

division 4 is where we are going back to, as the manger is that level, and the way he sets his team
to play football. i think the players themselfs dont care anymore,

Lads, it's time we packed in the football, we're an embarrassment at the moment. Waste of time and more importantly money been spent on this set up. We can't be successful at both codes not in this day and age. All efforts should be to make us strong at one code (hurling) and get us to level where we can compete. What's the point in having 2 mediocre outfits instead of the whole county from edenderry to birr just concentrating on hurling.

That's a lazy, ignorant, moronic statement to make. I'd say the players do care. And very much too.

townman wrote: i think the players themselfs dont care anymore,

Plain of the Herbs wrote:That's a lazy, ignorant, moronic statement to make. I'd say the players do care. And very much too.

townman wrote: i think the players themselfs dont care anymore,

don't be like that Herbs make love not war well they sure aint playing like a side who care

allstar2010 wrote:Lads, it's time we packed in the football, we're an embarrassment at the moment. Waste of time and more importantly money been spent on this set up. We can't be successful at both codes not in this day and age. All efforts should be to make us strong at one code (hurling) and get us to level where we can compete. What's the point in having 2 mediocre outfits instead of the whole county from edenderry to birr just concentrating on hurling.

We really should have packed in hurling after the embarrassing defeat to Kilkenny in 2005.Then we would have had the last 9 years focusing solely on football and we might have won todays match or maybe be even playing in the top 2 divisions.