From yesterday's Tribune:
Faithfully carrying the banner on the road less travelled
Ewan MacKenna
Midfielder Alan McNamee looks to Rhode to find winning touch in the absence of intercounty success with Offaly
It's a ghost town. The shutters have long been pulled down and the doors bolted up behind a veil of cobwebs as the tumbleweed rolls casually down the street. The only signs of life in this barren wasteland are to be found in Rhode but then again, that's been somewhat of an Offaly footballing trend these past few years. And what's worse again, some believe the two are related.
Alan McNamee begs to differ but he does agree there's a link between his own dip in form and the eerie silence these past few summers. Most will point to 2006 as the last time he showed that head-down ruthlessness around the middle as Offaly bundled their way to a Leinster final. Then he forgot how to play, Rhode failed to make the local final for the first time since 2002, while the county's only championship win came against Carlow and even that was hard work as they shipped 3-7. Only this Autumn have people looked away from his brother Niall's brilliance and found a more earthly comfort in his tireless grafting and with those stares of approval comes today's provincial final.
"It's been well publicised around Rhode and Offaly, the fact I've been playing better the last couple of months This year and last year were tough. But [Rhode manager] Tom Coffey gave me some time off, tried a couple of different things, tried to play me at centre-forward because he thought I needed to improve going forward. That freshened things up and I've rediscovered a bit of form thankfully. I suppose playing with Offaly, it wasn't enjoyable this year and to have Rhode to come back to, it's great to come back to a winning team.
"Up to that I was aware I wasn't playing well and things haven't been great with Offaly the last couple of years, the set-up hasn't been the greatest. The players had the ambition but whether it's there in the county board and in people higher up, well that's hard to know. But it was good to get away from that set-up and you could nearly say that Rhode have a more professional set-up than what's been going on with Offaly this past while to be honest."
McNamee mentions that buses left Tubber, Ballycumber and Daingean for their two Leinster outings against Portlaoise and Éire Óg and believes people are latching on to the little success the county has to offer, even if it's down to their rivals. But back in spring as Offaly were whittling their way through Division Four of the league, they were losing players at a worrying rate. Conor Evans, Ken Casey and Neville Coughlan had all walked away for reasons linked to the management and PJ Ward was on the brink. The former Westmeath player was far from happy with the treatment handed out by some of the Rhode contingent and during the warm up to a game against Kilkenny, he was punched by McNamee.
He coughs uncomfortably and inquires. "How did you find out about that by the way?"
That's really irrelevant. What was behind all that?
"Do you mind if I don't comment on it?"
Well I'd prefer if you did.
"In a camp that big not everyone gets on that well."
It's a bit extreme though?
"I won't say anything on that."
Well there's a new manager, if both you and PJ Ward are on the panel next year, will ye row in the same direction?
"Definitely. Lads on that panel, we've been there a good few years. It'll be my ninth year with Offaly and a few more have been there in that time and they haven't won anything of consequence. If we get back with Offaly, everyone will be striving to put things right under the new management. We are desperate to win."
At the time of that incident in Nowlan Park a number of senior players on the panel asked Pat Roe to take action. One threatened to walk away after the response from management was that it was better to lose one player than the whole of Rhode. You ask McNamee if he felt the management gave him and his club colleagues preferential treatment and if it led to Offaly's most humiliating championship on record.
"I didn't notice it anyway. I don't think that was a factor. You'd imagine all that stuff shouldn't have happened. Let me think... look, it's well known there were a lot of problems and when you are in Division Four, lads feel they should be higher. On top of that it's frustrating and if lads are not getting games, it's very easy to opt out because they feel there is no glory in playing that low. Another thing would have been that lads felt they weren't going anywhere. And in a county like Offaly we need everyone. Unfortunately lads pulled out but hopefully we can all get our act together over the next few years.
"Now I have to say that's not down to Pat [Roe]. We won challenge games, and I know they are no reflection on the real thing, but we beat Derry and Mayo in the weeks leading up to the Westmeath game and it seemed like we were in good form for it. It's just we didn't perform on the day. After that, leading up to the Down game, things went pear-shaped again. Training wasn't going well, I suppose interest waned, we didn't care like we should have and we got exactly what we deserved. They gave us a good hiding, it was disappointing. No. It was an embarrassing joke and that was what we deserved. Lads started pointing fingers. A lot of new faces had been brought in, lads were given their chance, weren't up to the standard and got found out. We were a mess."
He left the dressing room quickly after that game, and on returning home looked next door to the house of Stephen Darby, his childhood hero. Others at the time in Rhode would have looked up to Martin Heavey and Johnny Mooney. "All Ireland-medal winners," he says. "They all started out as winners here. Maybe we can do something similar."
A Leinster title would be a good place to start.
emackenna@tribune.ie