Offaly Senior Hurlers 2024

[Superhans75]

On the way home on the train beer Nazis
Are on
Great performance
Hard to tell if we had a.week or two rest before but it is what it is
Defence wise we are still poor
Roll on next January

[FaithfulFuture]

Lots of positives to take from today, I thought a lot of lads really stood up when teams of the past would have coasted and more importantly, we kept fighting to the end and got our just rewards.

I thought Conneely, the two Kings, Shirley, the two Sampsons, Dan Bourke and Oisin put in excellent shifts.

Dan Bourke has pushed on ridiculously well this year. The man pops up everywhere, shows incredible composure and makes good decisions on the ball. He's an incredible team player and the free roaming role really suits him.
I thought King looked very settled at centre back.

We will need a stronger bench impact moving into Leinster next year.

Outside of the additional 5 or 6 that will move up from the 20s, are there players around the county that look like they can add to the mix?
Is Ciaran Cleary still out of the country? I think he has the ability to cause trouble at senior IC level. Would Luke O'Connor & John Murphy come back in I wonder?

[faithfulfanatic]

Lots of positives to take from today, I thought a lot of lads really stood up when teams of the past would have coasted and more importantly, we kept fighting to the end and got our just rewards.

I thought Conneely, the two Kings, Shirley, the two Sampsons, Dan Bourke and Oisin put in excellent shifts.

Dan Bourke has pushed on ridiculously well this year. The man pops up everywhere, shows incredible composure and makes good decisions on the ball. He's an incredible team player and the free roaming role really suits him.
I thought King looked very settled at centre back.

We will need a stronger bench impact moving into Leinster next year.

Outside of the additional 5 or 6 that will move up from the 20s, are there players around the county that look like they can add to the mix?
Is Ciaran Cleary still out of the country? I think he has the ability to cause trouble at senior IC level. Would Luke O'Connor & John Murphy come back in I wonder?

Ciaran Cleary still in Australia.
John Murphy started his I/c career off very well but was nowhere near the starting XV in his last year on the panel.
Luke O’Connor was on the panel for long enough without ever pushing on to a starting team. Always carrying an injury.

[JimBwobb]

I'd like to see Paddy Clancy and Adrian Cleary coming back into the fold especially Adrian was brilliant last year.

Obviously both are travelling so will depend on that.

[faithfulfanatic]

Very positive year.

At the start of the year, the morale may have been fairly low.
It seemed like the loss to Carlow last year was a killer, along with our second underage all ireland loss in a row.

Goals at the start of the year for inter county hurling would have been:
1. Win the Joe Mc (achieved)
2. Win a Leinster u20 (achieved and some more)
3. Give a good account of ourselves in the league games against a higher standard of opposition and don’t take any bad beatings. We took 1 bad beating which was against Cork and we more than made up for that today.

It felt like minutes 51-70 were going to leave a sour taste for the next 6 months but the 2 added time goals were great to see and were no less than we deserved.
After Oisin’s miss (brilliant save by Collins more than a miss) in the 51st minute, we failed to score again for 20 minutes and let cork turn a 6 point lead into 15 points.
I was actually surprised to see Oisin go off but he may have been blowing a bit.

1. Mark Troy was outstanding in the goals and capped off a fine year. Made some brilliant courageous saves, 1 in either half from Horgan. There was some discontent with every puckout in the first half going to Sampson but it was a clear tactic to exploit Mark Coleman 1 on 1. No disrespect to Stephen Corcoran but Mark Troy was a step up this year. Expect himself and Hoare to battle for the no.1 for years to come.
2. I thought Ben Conneely had a poor game by his high standards. He was caught on the turn on numerous occasions when jumping in having arrived a split second late.
3. Ciaran Burke had an outstanding game. There’s not many full backs in the country who will keep Alan Connolly as quiet as he did. Not afraid to engage in the dark arts.
4. Cathal King had another great game. Not easy for a 20 year old to be tasked with Patrick Horgan but he took it in his stride.
5. David King hurled as well as he has in a long time. Steadied the whole thing when he went to centre back.
6. Cillian Kiely looked completely out of sorts today. Was caught for the Shane Barrett goal having over-committed and the head seemed to go from there out, almost tentative to engage the player for fear of being turned. Im sure he will bounce back next year.
7. Donal Shirley hurled well again today and can be extremely proud of his first year at senior inter county.
8. Jason Sampson’s performance of late have been hard to gauge. He has done some brilliant things and also some sloppy mistakes. Covers a lot of ground and always helps out in the backs.
9. Ross Ravenhill struggled to get to grips with the game. He has very little hurling done and I was surprised to see him start, having not featured at all last weekend. Will be a big asset if back to full throttle next year. Withdrawn after 46.
10. Oisin Kelly did well. He is back to his dangerous best and could have had a hat trick. Collins made 2 great saves but I wonder if a low ball may have caught him out. Linked well with Sampson in the second half, breaking ball to him.
11. Dan Bourke is a special special talent. Covered every inch of O’Connor Park and was never found wanting. The whole game seems to slow down when the ball is in his hand and the next thing he just takes off on a mazy run. Never seems to lose the ball. Joe McDonagh hurler of the year?
12. Killian Sampson had a great game with 1-4 from play. Has fantastic wrists. I don’t know how he squeezed that goal in at the finish.
13. Eoghan Cahill was relatively anonymous and offered little from play before being withdrawn at half time. Hopefully a good run with Birr reignites him.
14. Brian Duignan showed well at times but then drifted out of the game. Has grown into a leader on this team. Was surprised he lasted the full match.
15. Charlie Mitchell struggled today after the high of last week but has had a fantastic year.
Subs - Eimhin Kelly came in for Ravenhill at half time and shipped a heavy blow in a clothes line tackle soon after.
Jack Clancy is a serious athlete and took his goal well.
Sam Bourke hurled well after coming in.

On the topic of Cork, it’s hard to know what to think.
It’s not like they took the foot off the pedal or began to tap over points at any stage. They continually went for goals all afternoon and simply couldn’t find the gaps that were in the Offaly defence against Tipp last year.
The Cork crowd were never at their raucous best as expected. The only time they really got going was after Horgan’s goal. Don’t forget that was preceded by a clear foul on Mitchell at the far end. The Cork crowd really love Horgan and this seems to be reciprocated by his teammates who looked to get him the ball at every opportunity. Very Cork of him to go for goal from a 21 yard free after 20 minutes, Cathal King with a great save. I read this morning of Horgan’s attempt to chase down TJ Reid on the all time scorers list and watching the game with this in mind, you could tell he was a bit selfish today.

I thought Sean Stack was very harsh on us today. I am far from saying that we would have won or anything, but 2-3 soft decisions definitely went Cork’s way at the end of the first half. Let’s just say if he called those frees in a Munster championship match, he would be consigned to Leinster or the Joe Mc for a while.

Thankfully, we can look forward to next year with a positive frame of mind.
1. Top half finish in division 1B, including a scalp of an already-established Liam McCarthy team (Antrim, Dublin, Waterford).
2. Ensure survival in the Leinster Championship. Best way to do this is target a third place finish. Wexford, Dublin and Antrim would far prefer to face Laois, Carlow or Westmeath.
3. Retain our Leinster u20 crown. Target on our back now and Kilkenny, Wexford and Galway will come all guns blazing to knock us down a peg or two. Win Leinster and we get a chance to retain our all ireland crown. Would be great to see some 18-19 year olds break onto this team alongside the magic year of lads born in 2005.

With regards to a senior panel for next year, I’d imagine a large cohort of this years u20s will be involved for the Winter.
Screeney, Ravenhill and Shirley have already got the foot in the door and Brecon Kavanagh has been training with the group.
Liam Hoare, James Mahon, Ruairi Kelly, Ter Guinan, Shane Rigney, Conor Doyle are the most obvious options to be involved.
Of the group that will be overage next year, Spain, King and Bourke are already in and Ben Miller is worth a go.

It is great to have the youth, but I do think we need some older lads not involved this year to commit.
Lads may not want to given the group of lads coming through as they may feel like they won’t get a place or that youth will be prioritised.
It is hard to see an older lad who hasn’t been involved before joining the set up, so the onus is on the likes of Paddy Delaney and Joey Keenaghan to step up in club championship.
Does anyone know if the likes of Paddy Clancy, Ciaran Cleary or Adrian Cleary will be returning from their travels?

All in all, it’s been the best year as an Offaly hurling fan in a long, long time.
At the end of the day, every single lad is giving up every bit of his spare time and putting his body in the line for the county, and they totally deserve this.
Up Offaly!

(I might do a preview of each of the club hurling championships like last year in the next few weeks if anyone has any interest?)

[JohnnyBoy24]

Good performance yesterday all things considered, youd have thought cork were the ones on the Monday club last week looking at it. We are definitely going in the right direction, hope they actually take learnings from the cork game yesterday as we would need to be taking some of the chances we created yesterday and tighten up in other spots in Leinster next year , but that's all for another day.

Great year , goals achieved, onwards and upwards for 2025

[frankthetank]

Faithfulfanatic,

After that fantastic post I’d love to hear your thoughts on the the Offaly SHC.

[JohnnyBoy24]

Please do faithful also, great idea thanks

[G91]

Did paddy delaney walk away from tge pannel this year over some dispute with johny Kelly ?

As for the lads travelled abroad it's hard to see them coming back could do with them but it's a long shot

Outside if lads mentioned, who might be considered for the pannel next year.

Any player outside of the top contneders for club championship or the usual feeder clubs

[frankthetank]

I don’t think Paddy Delaney and Johnny Kelly had a dispute.

Delaney felt he wasn’t getting enough game time and left as a result. Not exactly Israel v Palestine.

[greenairfield]

I am sure when we get the vast majority of the 20s in we should be able to get 4 or 5 who didn't commit due to where we were and for whatever other reason.

[Kevin]

Congrats to the team for meeting their objectives this year. Don’t want to be carried away, but for years now we’ve watched on as we’ve hung close for 50 minutes only for there to be a rampage by the opposition to close out the game. It could be said that the goals at the end made the scoreboard look better and so it did. On the bright side the lads didn’t throw in the towel and kept pushing forward! Love that and may we continue to build on that going forward. Fingers crossed for more big days in the future.

UIBHFHAILI ABU!!!

[Kevin]

AND to all it applies to:

Happy Father’s Day!!

[Buttons]

What is the most promising is how some of the u20s from the last two years have settled in to the senior team and not look out of place.

Just a word on Dan Bourke, last year would I have said out of everyone on the team would he have made the biggest impact for both the u20s and the last 2 weeks with the seniors few would have expected it. He has the ability to look like he has so much time on the ball with lots of pace. The point I am making will there be another player like Dan who will make such a massive impact next year. These guys are mainly 19 and only getting a feel for senior.

There isn’t a county similar to ours that could get to 4 underage all irelands. Hopefully with hard work we can be watching the Joe Mcdonagh finals but with us in the Leinster finals soon.

Fantastic year and can’t wait for next year to come around already

[Up The Faithful]

What a great year it has been for Offaly supporters....Roll on 2025!!
I know its early days but we have compiled a list of players who could make the breakthrough/didn't get much game time this year with the seniors/could come back into the fold;

L Hoare
R Kelly
B Miller
P Delaney
T Guinan
J Keenaghan
B Kavanagh
C Spain
D Ravenhill
S Rigney
J Murphy
A Cleary
D Nally
C Cleary
L' O'Connor
-----------
J Mahon
L Fox
C Doyle
L Kavanagh
D Hand
B Egan
C O'Meara
C Hardiman
L Nolan
P Clancy
R Carthy
J Hoctor

There will now be a hunger to make the county panel, be interesting to see what sort of S&C work is done over the winter.