Offaly Senior Footballers 2024

[joey1001]

Honestly, going into the weekend, I still reckoned they had a promotion chance. They fecked up a good position against Clare to lose by a point (where have we heard that story before ) and then went on to win the games I expected them to win with something to spare.

That left them going to Newry and in a situation where a win or draw would leave them right in the mix, and even a narrow defeat wouldn't have left them without hope (they win out, Down beat Westmeath, and they take Westmeath on the head to head) but instead they've done their scoring difference a lot of harm, so are probably out of the hunt. I genuinely thought they had a proper chance in that game, and I actually backed them on the handicap when I saw that Odhrán Murdock was out of the Down team.

So I got that one wrong, but if I'm to be completely honest, I still think they're a decent team, and I still think Offaly could go to Markievicz Park, play well and fall short. But I was wrong last weekend, and hopefully I'll be wrong this weekend too!

I'm not sure what lads are looking at.. after Clare beat us I lined out the circumstances (including missing players, ground, manager coming in, form that left us 9 points clear of a Clare team in the second half who are pushing for promotion) that were holding us back and pointed out the form lines that actually showed us in a good light where lads thought we were terrible and heading for division 4.. on the basis of the above I predicted a better than expected showing against Down followed by 3 comfortable wins in the last 3 games, so far so good for my prediction.. I would suggest that the form to date and confidence/momentum from a big win albeit against wicklow would have made Offaly slight favourites against Sligo even factoring in home advantage.. however that's not the case and I think Offaly are excellent value at 6/4 and I expect them to go to Sligo and win by 3/4 points, followed by an easy win against Limerick. We can then look ahead to Leinster and the tailteann cup

So much for an “easy win” against Limerick…

Can all other users please report this clown to admin and get him removed??? You waited for the result today, then went out of your way to find this comment and come back to highlight it and try start an argument, you're not getting an argument and you weren't at the game today.

[Fairplayalways]

Not a day or night to be shooting down posters but by God today was painful...do we know our starting 15???maybe we do..but are they going to go out and have a go and, yes, maybe lose bit with their boots on, or go as If we are playing a top tier team trying to contain them, that's light years ahead in fairness..how anyone on here seems to think we are promotion candidates next year YET AGAIN in Division 3 really escapes me...based on what??? Predicted performances and progress to be seen yet in Tailteann Cup?? Today wouldn't inspire most supporters..talk of making a mountain out of a molehill..each to their own..Division 3 is as tough if not rougher next year than this year..year upon year upon year now we are "developing" and focus is "on next year"...it is as it is..

[SearingDrive]

Anton out for Cathal Flynn today.

Let’s hope it’s a straight forward afternoon and we aren’t checking the result in Belfast.

It was not as you expected today.

[joey1001]

Not a day or night to be shooting down posters but by God today was painful...do we know our starting 15???maybe we do..but are they going to go out and have a go and, yes, maybe lose bit with their boots on, or go as If we are playing a top tier team trying to contain them, that's light years ahead in fairness..how anyone on here seems to think we are promotion candidates next year YET AGAIN in Division 3 really escapes me...based on what??? Predicted performances and progress to be seen yet in Tailteann Cup?? Today wouldn't inspire most supporters..talk of making a mountain out of a molehill..each to their own..Division 3 is as tough if not rougher next year than this year..year upon year upon year now we are "developing" and focus is "on next year"...it is as it is..

At the start of the league, I didn't see us as promotion contenders, Westmeath and Down were always gonna be the 2 teams, they are division 2 teams in division 3 and will do well there next year, we were also short our best forward and defender for first couple of games, with new management and new team I was not expecting much of a promotion push, we had a good start last year and then we gave up after Leinster. Today was about winning, Limerick are poor but they had nothing to play for and they parked the bus and did everything in their power to stifle Offaly including dirty tackles etc, we found a way to win. Last day of the league, take a look at all the other results in the other matches, a lot of unexpected stuff! Teams are tired and I think Offaly were and will need to revitalise before championship, 3 week break and will be fresh and ready to go. We went to Sligo last week and got a draw, Sligo hammered Westmeath yesterday. We have a better performance in Down than any of the other teams in the division, easily disposed of Wicklow, the Clare game was a freak result, bear in mind we played well enough to get 9 points clear of them, they were in the shake up for promotion, went to Antrim without our best players, lost by 1 point. We beat one of the demoted teams (yes they were poor but were a division above us last year) and should have beaten the other demoted team, played them off the field for 55 minutes (yes yes I know it's 70 minutes) People will say I'm making excuses etc but 7 games on the trot , a lot of teams are going straight into championship and it's poorly laid out by GAA, I think there is a lot of tiredness in teams. We've got a lot of game time into new players and we have a pretty good idea of our starting team v Laois, injuries aside. And this idea of "going out and having a go" is complete nonsense, you go out to win the game the best way you can.. nothing worse than listening to Laz Molloy and Brian gavin on Radio 3, wanting them to kick the ball in and "have a go".. the days of kicking the ball 60 yards back to the opposition are gone, thank God! Offaly struggle against teams who park the bus as Limerick did yesterday, not the case in other games. From what we've seen this year and in the circumstances(you can call them excuses but you can't just ignore them as if they weren't a huge factor) , we've had the beating of all teams in the division this year, weren't all that bad even against Westmeath who on their day are a strong division 2 team (look at their performances in all Ireland series last year). Fermanagh and Kildare are weaker than the 2 teams gone up and Laois and Leitrim will struggle massively. I still maintain based on what we've seen on the league that we will beat laois, get hammered by Dublin and have a good run in the tailteann cup.

[Bord na Mona man]

It felt inevitable that we’d end up checking the scores from Belfast, just in case. While it never felt like Offaly were going to lose at any stage, Limerick always had a puncher’s chance and that’s what made it less than comfortable.

And that’s not being negative; it’s the reality that a team in a relegation situation will have lost some tight games along the way and will not be brimming with self-confidence.
Although relegated, Limerick still wanted to finish on a high note before the Championship. Had we played a team already promoted, they’d be playing subs and minding themselves for the final.

By half time Limerick could have been further ahead, as they'd missed some long range frees. Also, they made a strange point of slowing the game down ‘blue ball’ and timewasting over frees. With the wind behind them, they should have been making hay.

Offaly’s running game into the wind wasn’t particularly effective. Limerick were always able to get their screen back in enough time and set up. While kicking into the wind is difficult in the circumstances, it at least stretches the opposition's backs and makes them have to defend going backwards if they’ve pushed up. Bryant and O’Neill are not natural ball winners, but I’d still be trying to vary the attacks and kick into space.
Some of Hyland’s points from play came at times when the Offaly attack moves were running out of momentum and he took the initiative himself to shoot.

The second half response was expected, when Offaly quickly took command. Correctly, Offaly didn’t drop off and pressured Limerick high which directly yielded the winning goal.
The close out should have been more comfortable after the goal, but Offaly’s concentration levels dropped slightly in some cases, allowing a contest break out again.

The big pity is that the red cards occurred after the final whistle had gone in Antrim and safety was confirmed. I’d be of the view that the tannoy should have given score updates from around the grounds.

The referee didn’t have the best of days and in injury time things got very ragged. He’d showed too much leniency on a couple of Limerick challenges in normal time which opened the door for them to dish out more late on. Also, probably not knowing they were safe, Offaly went into full disruption mode at the end. Instead of playing 10 additional, the ref should have read the situation and blown up earlier. The fracas that happened were not entirely his fault, but they amplified some of the weaker parts of his display.

[ah lethimoutwithit]

I would agree to a point with Joey and fully with BNM man.
At the same time as Fairplay says , this is more of the same as in recent years.

Only difference is, we never took a hammering during this league and have been competitive.
Personally I would have hoped we would not be looking over the shoulder to such an extent as we did.

Yesterday was a terrible display in many regards and this is the frustration, we should have scored at least 3 goals and cruised but again left ourselves in the mire to the end. There was no bite on the pitch or in the crowd and it was the refs ineptitude that led to the issues at the end.
The management are likely to expand the play slightly after the league but unfortunately this appears to be the style, safety first but will see what happens.
It appears that we are working off a small panel of players now with those who started along with Anton, Jack O'Brien, Kevin McDermott, and nigel dunne, along with Aidan Bracken who is injured. Nathan Poland has made some impact also. Nothing has been seen of the rest really and going into championship with no idea if the rest of the panel have anything to offer.
Local media appears to think that Morgan is next in line but based on what? Cian Farrell is gone by the wayside and Cathal O'Donoghue and Rory Egan as well have made little impact on the league.

But this would have been similar over recent years with likely more limited use of subs bench.

So the situation at present is that its much of the same and unfortunately some players are not stepping up to the mark.

I do think that we can improve in the build up to the championship but the loss of Nigel Dunne and Anton now tip the balance towards Laois's favour and I would hope that we can blend some additional players into the panel.
Box ticked in terms of survival. A championship win would deliver a pass verdict for all concerned i would guess?

[Bord na Mona man]

Looking at the final league table.
- Offaly the 2nd highest scorers.
- 2nd most goals with 11, next best had 7 goals.
- Points difference, only one less than Westmeath.
- Limerick with only 3 goals and Wicklow with one goal, so we should have been less worried about either of them doing a smash and grab yesterday!
- The 5-15 vs. Wicklow may be a stat-padding outlier, but Offaly still scored a goal in every game from Rnd 2 onwards.

[joey1001]

I would agree to a point with Joey and fully with BNM man.
At the same time as Fairplay says , this is more of the same as in recent years.

Only difference is, we never took a hammering during this league and have been competitive.
Personally I would have hoped we would not be looking over the shoulder to such an extent as we did.

Yesterday was a terrible display in many regards and this is the frustration, we should have scored at least 3 goals and cruised but again left ourselves in the mire to the end. There was no bite on the pitch or in the crowd and it was the refs ineptitude that led to the issues at the end.
The management are likely to expand the play slightly after the league but unfortunately this appears to be the style, safety first but will see what happens.
It appears that we are working off a small panel of players now with those who started along with Anton, Jack O'Brien, Kevin McDermott, and nigel dunne, along with Aidan Bracken who is injured. Nathan Poland has made some impact also. Nothing has been seen of the rest really and going into championship with no idea if the rest of the panel have anything to offer.
Local media appears to think that Morgan is next in line but based on what? Cian Farrell is gone by the wayside and Cathal O'Donoghue and Rory Egan as well have made little impact on the league.

But this would have been similar over recent years with likely more limited use of subs bench.

So the situation at present is that its much of the same and unfortunately some players are not stepping up to the mark.

I do think that we can improve in the build up to the championship but the loss of Nigel Dunne and Anton now tip the balance towards Laois's favour and I would hope that we can blend some additional players into the panel.
Box ticked in terms of survival. A championship win would deliver a pass verdict for all concerned i would guess?

A lot of valid points, I think we heard yesterday a lot of people complaining about the schedule after Dublin/Tyrone, Westmeath ran out of steam also. And it is difficult run off 7 very competitive games on the trot early in the year and especially with a small panel. I would strongly disagree that the balance is tipped in laois favour, I'd be of the opinion that we are a step above Laois and would pass no remarks in the game between the 2 last year an up for it Laois team against Offaly who had shut off at that stage. Anything but a win against Laois would be very disappointing and we will be comfortable favourites. A lot will depend on how we approach things after the Laois match, we gave up and didn't bother with the tailteann cup last year. I think the split season is a big problem for the likes of Offaly, players seemed tired and not bothered and just waiting to get back to their clubs last year, I fear the same could be true this year, I understand Offaly were back together as a team as early as August last year. If the club and county ran together I think it would help us but not gonna solve that issue soon or easy .

[Faithful follower]

Regarding the Limerick game, our boys seem to be very lethargic and had lost their spark, a lot of errors in the first half and that could go wrong did , second half Offaly attack the game much better. One big mistake with our game plan, we need more width in our attack, we are bringing out forwards to do work the central field and half back line can do, this is causing us problems as the centre field area is too crowded and we don’t have room for the likes of Conor Egan to run at the opposition, yesterday Egan did a few runs and it took maybe 3 opponents to shut him down ,
We need to keep our forwards in danger areas to keep the opposition defence honest, as it is we pull out some of our forwards the allowed the opposition to push up and crowd out our attacking options, our forwards that remains in place are not natural ball winners because of their stature .
We need to get our game plan to allow Egan and other runs at the opposition plan A , plan B send in long balls in to keep opponents on their toes .

[ah lethimoutwithit]

In relation to the championship game against Laois, I'm only going on the fact that we struggled against both teams that came up from Div 4 last year, we struggled against Laois in the OB cup early on and anyone that wsa at that could see that laois were tactically ahead of us until they made a number of changes.

I've admired your optimism Joey to date, but on no basis can I agree that we are comfortable favourites. We are not ahead of where we were last year in my opinion and Laois are coming in on the back of promotion after a couple of years in the basement and will be hell bent on getting a champioship win under their belts.
I agree that we took our foot off the pedal last year after the championship, but at the same time I think we would have hoped for a few more guys to have stepped up to the mark during the league.

The ability to handle any sort of pressure is also a concern and no better than an Armagh man to ensure that we are well tested in that department!

[Superhans75]

The league is water under the bridge now
God help us there is enough of the stuff about
We need to focus on what is ahead of us
What players are willing to step up to the plate and the motion men .we need drying ground for our style of play and every team has copped on to it but we need some sort
Of plan B or a leader on the pitch to control
The players because the cards are becoming
Ridiculous. Some silly ones but some born of
Frustration .
This is what the management is getting
It's butter vouchers for .
Have a good week.

[Fairplayalways]

So we just forget about the league now??...like what have we learned from it??and do we approach Championship and follow up tailteann cup now in "experimental' mode too...that's what the league is for apparently although i think the leaguevshould be our 'championship...hot favoutites to beat Laois now is putting a massive front on it in all honestly...take our 5-15 V Wicklow and a poor Wicklow team(which was our first high tally in something like 15 years) take that out of our stats and bar Down game our scoring in all other games was among lowest in all divisions..but look, we may go ahead now and see where we are..

[pigeon house biffo]

Realistically we’ll be in the same scenario next year. We rarely seem to get anything handy off laois, and given the time of year the game will be played, their physicality will probably be too much for us. Its hard to describe it as anything other than threading water at the minute.

[joey1001]

Realistically we’ll be in the same scenario next year. We rarely seem to get anything handy off laois, and given the time of year the game will be played, their physicality will probably be too much for us. Its hard to describe it as anything other than threading water at the minute.

I get the feeling that after yesterday, lads seem to think Laois are favourites to beat us? which frankly is astounding given we've competed at a higher level this year and competed well against far better teams, laois got promoted from a shockingly poor division 4, hardly a big achievement. Jays we put up a great performance against down in down, hammered Wicklow, drew with Sligo up there who hammered Westmeath yesterday and beat Limerick who went out of their way to stifle Offaly yesterday and all of a sudden, it's doom and gloom and Laois are going to beat us?

[private joker]

Little difference between the top of Div 4 and the bottom of Division 3. Offaly could very easily have ended up in Division 4. Only for wicklow the wicklow result, offalys stats during the league are very poor.