Offaly Senior Footballers 2024

[frankthetank]

Leinster Senior Football Quarter Final vs Laois. Venue decison will be interesting as we have a home/away arrangement with them. Our last Leinster Championship game vs Laois was in O’Connor Park (2003), but our last chapionship meeting was a qualifier in O’Moore Park in 2019. I’m not counting last year’s Tailteann Cup game as that was fixed by Croke Park to the best of my knowledge. I have a feeling this game will be brought to Portlaoise.

Winners will likely have All Ireland Champions Dublin in Semi-Final.

[FJB]

We'd be better off in Portlaoise. They have a dreadful home record but never too bad in Tullamore.
We should be a good bit better than them.

[bracknaghboy]

We'd be better off in Portlaoise. They have a dreadful home record but never too bad in Tullamore.
We should be a good bit better than them.

Are you aware of the Offaly senior footballers record in Portlaiose over the last 20 years in championship proper?

Played 11
Won 1
Drew 1
Lost 9

[GreatDayForTheParish]

We'd be better off in Portlaoise. They have a dreadful home record but never too bad in Tullamore.
We should be a good bit better than them.

Are you also aware that we just about managed to draw with them in the Taitleann cup this year?

[ah lethimoutwithit]

We'd be better off in Portlaoise. They have a dreadful home record but never too bad in Tullamore.
We should be a good bit better than them.

WTF??? We should be a good bit better than them?

[Anonymous1]

We'd be better off in Portlaoise. They have a dreadful home record but never too bad in Tullamore.
We should be a good bit better than them.

Pass me some of that good stuff you're smoking.

[jimbob17]

What would the expectations be for next year?

For what its worth here is what I think. For too long now we have been making up excuses that we are in transition and I'm hearing it again these days. That's absolute rubbish. We are not in transition or at least should not be.

Unlike underage hurling, our minor and u21 / u20 footballers have been very competitive for last 10-15 years. We were in two minor finals in late naughties and most of lads from these teams never appeared to do anything at senior level. Paschal Kellaghan had a very competitive team that should have made a leinster final about 10 years ago that included likes of Eoin Carroll, Peter Cunningham and Anton Sullivan among others. Others a little bit younger or around same age would have played in minor final losing to Longford, having been very hot favourites - same day as Joe Sheridan incident in CP. Included likes of Cian Donoghue and plenty more that played senior since.

Another wraft of younger players were very competitive with a Con O Callaghan led Dublin in Leinster u21 final in 2017 - including likes of Ruairi McNamee, Jordan Hayes, Colm Doyle, David Dempsey, and few more. Most of them Dublin lads have All Ireland senior medals - incl likes of Comerford, Murchan, Howard, O'Callaghan, Basquel, Paddy Small, Aaron Byrne and im sure im leaving out a few too, Offaly would have been lot stronger and closer too if they had a few more that were not available at the time - ie Dylan Hyland and Cathal Mangan among others at the time. They'd all be around 26 mark now.

In 2021 next years U21 group lost a Leinster minor final to Meath after replay and same year, next years u23s won All Ireland u20 championship. We know the names but Furlong, O Toole, Keith O Neill, Jack Bryant, Cathal Donoghue, Dolan, Pearson, Ruairi and Cormac Egan, Morgan Tynan, and Harry Plunkett being just some of more prominent names in these teams. They are all old enough to be playing senior football now.

At younger ages, we have been winning through dev ages and played in a number of Fr Manning Cup finals at u16 level, winning at least one - with Fr Manning being at least an equivalent of a provincial championship with somewhere between 12 and 16 counties involved.

That is a production line plenty of counties would be envious of. So please don't come out and say we are young, we are this that and the other and that they need time. The talent pool is there and needs to be harnessed. The excuses need to stop! The time is now.

Look what Louth did by just getting house in order, picking best players and applying themselves - and they did that with lesser talent pool than us. They went from Div4 to Div2 and were very close to getting to Div1 in that 3 years. Our objective needs to be getting out of Div3 and level par for me given our talent would be 3rd or 4th in Div 3. With the talent we've had gone through we should be at least a div 2 team at this stage! We have been wasting talent for years - sometimes ignoring lads if they are not from the more fashionable clubs!

There will be change from previous years in terms of personnel as is natural but there needs to be some expectation too to match the talent pool that we have produced over last 10-12 years. I'm really sick of hearing lads making up excuses about being in 'transition' and we dont have the players as it only makes excuses for players if they hear that type of rhetoric and its gone on way too long now.

The players are there to go and properly compete in Leinster and in top two divisions if they are prepared properly. Time to either sh*t or get off the pot.

[Kevin]

We'd be better off in Portlaoise. They have a dreadful home record but never too bad in Tullamore.
We should be a good bit better than them.

WTF??? We should be a good bit better than them?

We need to prove it sure enough.

[GreatDayForTheParish]

What would the expectations be for next year?

For what its worth here is what I think. For too long now we have been making up excuses that we are in transition and I'm hearing it again these days. That's absolute rubbish. We are not in transition or at least should not be.

Unlike underage hurling, our minor and u21 / u20 footballers have been very competitive for last 10-15 years. We were in two minor finals in late naughties and most of lads from these teams never appeared to do anything at senior level. Paschal Kellaghan had a very competitive team that should have made a leinster final about 10 years ago that included likes of Eoin Carroll, Peter Cunningham and Anton Sullivan among others. Others a little bit younger or around same age would have played in minor final losing to Longford, having been very hot favourites - same day as Joe Sheridan incident in CP. Included likes of Cian Donoghue and plenty more that played senior since.

Another wraft of younger players were very competitive with a Con O Callaghan led Dublin in Leinster u21 final in 2017 - including likes of Ruairi McNamee, Jordan Hayes, Colm Doyle, David Dempsey, and few more. Most of them Dublin lads have All Ireland senior medals - incl likes of Comerford, Murchan, Howard, O'Callaghan, Basquel, Paddy Small, Aaron Byrne and im sure im leaving out a few too, Offaly would have been lot stronger and closer too if they had a few more that were not available at the time - ie Dylan Hyland and Cathal Mangan among others at the time. They'd all be around 26 mark now.

In 2021 next years U21 group lost a Leinster minor final to Meath after replay and same year, next years u23s won All Ireland u20 championship. We know the names but Furlong, O Toole, Keith O Neill, Jack Bryant, Cathal Donoghue, Dolan, Pearson, Ruairi and Cormac Egan, Morgan Tynan, and Harry Plunkett being just some of more prominent names in these teams. They are all old enough to be playing senior football now.

At younger ages, we have been winning through dev ages and played in a number of Fr Manning Cup finals at u16 level, winning at least one - with Fr Manning being at least an equivalent of a provincial championship with somewhere between 12 and 16 counties involved.

That is a production line plenty of counties would be envious of. So please don't come out and say we are young, we are this that and the other and that they need time. The talent pool is there and needs to be harnessed. The excuses need to stop! The time is now.

Look what Louth did by just getting house in order, picking best players and applying themselves - and they did that with lesser talent pool than us. They went from Div4 to Div2 and were very close to getting to Div1 in that 3 years. Our objective needs to be getting out of Div3 and level par for me given our talent would be 3rd or 4th in Div 3. With the talent we've had gone through we should be at least a div 2 team at this stage! We have been wasting talent for years - sometimes ignoring lads if they are not from the more fashionable clubs!

There will be change from previous years in terms of personnel as is natural but there needs to be some expectation too to match the talent pool that we have produced over last 10-12 years. I'm really sick of hearing lads making up excuses about being in 'transition' and we dont have the players as it only makes excuses for players if they hear that type of rhetoric and its gone on way too long now.

The players are there to go and properly compete in Leinster and in top two divisions if they are prepared properly. Time to either sh*t or get off the pot.

Agreed.

[Bord na Mona man]

Fully agree with Jimbob. There have been lots of years in the last 15 years where Offaly have been in the top 3 or 4 teams in Leinster at minor and U20/21.

Dublin are the only county significantly better than us in that time. Kildare and Meath a fraction better, but always beatable by a strong Offaly team.

Leix, Louth, Westmeath, Longford, Carlow, Wexford, Wicklow etc have produced less than Offaly at underage in that era.

Yet at senior level these are all counties that we play against with very little confidence and are delighted to scrape any sort of win.

[ah lethimoutwithit]

I think there are a few things that need to happen this year. Mindset is a big thing. I think that we have to achieve a consistency of performance, and be able to interchange between attack and defence more seamlessly and adapt within games.
For mindset, I think that discipline on the field has been an issue, lazy tackling, taking respnsibility. There are too many days where we have not shown up at all.
I think that we were on a reasonbly good path until the loss of Liam Kearns. However I do think that there has been a certain amount of short term perspective and not taking a punt on players. Players need time to bed in. Declan Kelly, in order to harness the talent that may be coming through, will need to take a calculated punt on certain players.
There are certain players constantly referenced from the U20 winning squad that are routinely thrown out in these forums but they have not matured and kicked on. He will need to look at those he has onboard and see how he canbuild a group that can turn in that level of consistency but that will need time to transform. I'm good with that, Div 3 will be a dogfight, Tailteann cup and buyin until the end of the 2024 season to build a base to kick on the following season. He needs the support of all to have the comfort to allow players to settle in and get used to a style of play. We need stability and hopefully he settles into the role and gets comfortable quickly. i believe the buy in has been good so far but we will see what gives come February.

[Fairplayalways]

Hopefully we wont be "minding" players who are now early to md 20s...ime well rehearsed here on my views on that ould mullarkey..other counties have landed their prodigy's in All Ireland's and provincial finals the year they sit their leaving certs...Offaly upto now is "protecting" their best talents playing in Division 3 and 4..at best they make the first 15 if its a relegation play off or similar when our backs are to the wall..hopefuly that mindset is changed and we either step up now or forget about it..players injured fair enough but not not all..come 25 or 26 then we are all wondering "what became of that player"and we hear he was on a league panel a few years ago but didn't feature..anyway interesting to see the complaceny against Lapis, the must be terrified of playing us..

[timber]

What would the expectations be for next year?

For what its worth here is what I think. For too long now we have been making up excuses that we are in transition and I'm hearing it again these days. That's absolute rubbish. We are not in transition or at least should not be.

Unlike underage hurling, our minor and u21 / u20 footballers have been very competitive for last 10-15 years. We were in two minor finals in late naughties and most of lads from these teams never appeared to do anything at senior level. Paschal Kellaghan had a very competitive team that should have made a leinster final about 10 years ago that included likes of Eoin Carroll, Peter Cunningham and Anton Sullivan among others. Others a little bit younger or around same age would have played in minor final losing to Longford, having been very hot favourites - same day as Joe Sheridan incident in CP. Included likes of Cian Donoghue and plenty more that played senior since.

Another wraft of younger players were very competitive with a Con O Callaghan led Dublin in Leinster u21 final in 2017 - including likes of Ruairi McNamee, Jordan Hayes, Colm Doyle, David Dempsey, and few more. Most of them Dublin lads have All Ireland senior medals - incl likes of Comerford, Murchan, Howard, O'Callaghan, Basquel, Paddy Small, Aaron Byrne and im sure im leaving out a few too, Offaly would have been lot stronger and closer too if they had a few more that were not available at the time - ie Dylan Hyland and Cathal Mangan among others at the time. They'd all be around 26 mark now.

In 2021 next years U21 group lost a Leinster minor final to Meath after replay and same year, next years u23s won All Ireland u20 championship. We know the names but Furlong, O Toole, Keith O Neill, Jack Bryant, Cathal Donoghue, Dolan, Pearson, Ruairi and Cormac Egan, Morgan Tynan, and Harry Plunkett being just some of more prominent names in these teams. They are all old enough to be playing senior football now.

At younger ages, we have been winning through dev ages and played in a number of Fr Manning Cup finals at u16 level, winning at least one - with Fr Manning being at least an equivalent of a provincial championship with somewhere between 12 and 16 counties involved.

That is a production line plenty of counties would be envious of. So please don't come out and say we are young, we are this that and the other and that they need time. The talent pool is there and needs to be harnessed. The excuses need to stop! The time is now.

Look what Louth did by just getting house in order, picking best players and applying themselves - and they did that with lesser talent pool than us. They went from Div4 to Div2 and were very close to getting to Div1 in that 3 years. Our objective needs to be getting out of Div3 and level par for me given our talent would be 3rd or 4th in Div 3. With the talent we've had gone through we should be at least a div 2 team at this stage! We have been wasting talent for years - sometimes ignoring lads if they are not from the more fashionable clubs!

There will be change from previous years in terms of personnel as is natural but there needs to be some expectation too to match the talent pool that we have produced over last 10-12 years. I'm really sick of hearing lads making up excuses about being in 'transition' and we dont have the players as it only makes excuses for players if they hear that type of rhetoric and its gone on way too long now.

The players are there to go and properly compete in Leinster and in top two divisions if they are prepared properly. Time to either sh*t or get off the pot.

Fair comments here. Have to start having some sort of standards and accountability. Fluting around for years now without any consistent improvement.

[Anonymous1]

Fully agree with Jimbob. There have been lots of years in the last 15 years where Offaly have been in the top 3 or 4 teams in Leinster at minor and U20/21.

Dublin are the only county significantly better than us in that time. Kildare and Meath a fraction better, but always beatable by a strong Offaly team.

Leix, Louth, Westmeath, Longford, Carlow, Wexford, Wicklow etc have produced less than Offaly at underage in that era.

Yet at senior level these are all counties that we play against with very little confidence and are delighted to scrape any sort of win.

Weren't we in the top 4 in Leinster last year and a kick of a ball from being in the top two?

Didn't we beat Meath en route to that top 4?

Didn't we get out of division 3 in 2021, come within a whisker of staying in division 2 in 2022 and go into the final day last year with a chance of promotion?

It's not like we've been a million miles away from what ye have been describing, those results at senior fairly match what was achieved by those same groups of players at underage.

That's our level, a top half division 3 team that may or may not win a game or two in Leinster in a given year depending on the draw.

To suggest that we've been vastly underachieving our talent pool is patently false and the truth is that a lot of stalwarts from this group of players have brought us as far as they can go. To think that rehashing the same players with a handful of U20s thrown in is going to have us competing to win Leinster and a solid division 2 team is nonsense.

What's needed is a route and branch clear out with only the best players from past panels kept on and an injection of young players. Sure there'll be short term pain and we may even face the prospect of relegation this coming year but to continue flogging the same 15-20 players is to repeat the same mistakes of the past. It's nothing short of a sticking plaster that never leads us where we want to go while simultaneously denying young players game time, having them lose interest and ultimately give up. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

And in order for this to succeed, Kelly needs to be giving assurance that regardless of results this year, the county will stick by him to see this project out.

The truth is we can't get much worse than we have been for the last 20 years but we can get a hell of a lot better.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

[jimbob17]

Fully agree with Jimbob. There have been lots of years in the last 15 years where Offaly have been in the top 3 or 4 teams in Leinster at minor and U20/21.

Dublin are the only county significantly better than us in that time. Kildare and Meath a fraction better, but always beatable by a strong Offaly team.

Leix, Louth, Westmeath, Longford, Carlow, Wexford, Wicklow etc have produced less than Offaly at underage in that era.

Yet at senior level these are all counties that we play against with very little confidence and are delighted to scrape any sort of win.

Weren't we in the top 4 in Leinster last year and a kick of a ball from being in the top two?

Didn't we beat Meath en route to that top 4?

Didn't we get out of division 3 in 2021, come within a whisker of staying in division 2 in 2022 and go into the final day last year with a chance of promotion?

It's not like we've been a million miles away from what ye have been describing, those results at senior fairly match what was achieved by those same groups of players at underage.

That's our level, a top half division 3 team that may or may not win a game or two in Leinster in a given year depending on the draw.

To suggest that we've been vastly underachieving our talent pool is patently false and the truth is that a lot of stalwarts from this group of players have brought us as far as they can go. To think that rehashing the same players with a handful of U20s thrown in is going to have us competing to win Leinster and a solid division 2 team is nonsense.

What's needed is a route and branch clear out with only the best players from past panels kept on and an injection of young players. Sure there'll be short term pain and we may even face the prospect of relegation this coming year but to continue flogging the same 15-20 players is to repeat the same mistakes of the past. It's nothing short of a sticking plaster that never leads us where we want to go while simultaneously denying young players game time, having them lose interest and ultimately give up. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

And in order for this to succeed, Kelly needs to be giving assurance that regardless of results this year, the county will stick by him to see this project out.

The truth is we can't get much worse than we have been for the last 20 years but we can get a hell of a lot better.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Couldnt disagree anymore with this sentiment. This isn't about management or their success. This is about players showing ambition and matching it with application to fulfill their potential. It hasnt been happening. Way too many stories of players drinking and 'inappropriately preparing' for way too long.

In Div 2, we drew with a poor Meath team by their standards and beat a weak Down team that was short any amount of players and who were well beaten in all of their games. Most of the other games, apart from maybe Cork, we were not competitive. Granted, we got there but we should not be getting hammered by likes of Roscommon and Clare. Derry were the best team in it to be fair going as they did afterwards.

Short term pain for long term gain as far as I am concerned is absolute horsesh*t. You pick your best team now for now. To win now. Why would we be waiting for U20s to come through? They are 23 next year. We shouldnt be waiting. Like we said before, they are not the only group that showed promise. We have had plenty of teams over last 10 years and all we need is the best 3 or 4 players from each team to form a really strong panel. We shouldnt be clearing out lads for sake of it. Hogan took while to adjust to senior but is now one of our key defenders and captain last year. Anton Sullivan, Peter Cunningham, Eoin Rigney, Dylan Hyland, Jordan Hayes, David Dempsey, Bernard Allen, Ruairi McNamee, Ian Duffy, Cian Farrell and possibly couple more, are all in the 25 - 31 age bracket and in their prime. They are 10 or 11 lads that will likely contribute 8 or so to start on a given day. Flood in a few 20 - 25 year olds and sure thats our best 15. 2 of them in Pearson and Ruairi Egan are also surely part of a starting 15, all things being right. A number of the All Ireland U20 team will never be good enough for senior football no matter how long you wait or talk about them - that is a simple fact. Some have gone off the boil already due to unhelpful extra curricular activities. That success was of its time and it was great but lets have some perspective here - it was an age grade team that happened to win. When other counties win these things (Down Derry Dublin Kildare for example), only a couple from each make it up to senior grade. How many have Roscommon brought up to senior may I ask. I don't know but Id imagine no more than 6 or 7 to the senior panel at the most. Why should we be any different.

Some of those older lads listed above were also prodigious at underage too and are possibly more talented than most of that U20 team. I'll be honest, the best of that U20 All Ireland winning team, excluding Ruairi Egan, Cathal Donoghue and Pearson were probably the minor lads who are still U20 in 2023 and they'd have won nothing without likes of Cormac Egan, John Furlong, Keith O Neill and one or two more coming into the team after minors were beaten.

There is also a core of lads at 23-25 or so also that Kelly would have had at U20 level in previous years that may also be as good or better than some of the U20 winning team - thinking of lads like Jack O'Brien and Shane Tierney who both played in a Sigerson final only 2 years ago and have since featured at senior level for the county. There are others too in this age cohort I cant just think of at the minute.

For too long, various managers threw out the baby with the bathwater and tried to start from scratch. It failed every time, going one step forwards and two steps backwards. We cant keep making the same mistakes as you are suggesting and rehashing and blending in the best young players with some experienced and physically imposing seniors is exactly what we need. There is a level of strength and fitness needed that most of that U20 team are not even close to from what I saw in club championship. Will they ever get there? I don't know to be honest but they need to apply themselves and most havent been doing it or showing it at club level.

In fact, I struggle to see any of that U20 team that stood out in club senior championship since, aside from John Furlong this year and possibly Pearson and Egan in other years. We need to firstly know our best 25 or 30 players at senior level and then use our best 20 consistently in an organised set up. I'd be confident Kelly knows the lads to pick and the ones to leave at home from the older experienced group. And if he does, and the players apply themselves as a squad (when they havent in the past to level required), then we will make progress.

To suggest that top of Div 3 is our level is simply showing a gross lack of ambition and makes excuses for lads before we even start. If likes of Louth, Limerick Roscommon, Clare and Monaghan .can go and further themselves at a higher level by simply buying into a process of application and improvement with less or similar levels of talent, then so should we expect more from our players. To even countenance relegation as means of short term gain is absolutely ridiculous and taking the mickey in my opinion. I think and hope at least that Kelly and his management team would also be of the same opinion.

The players are in Offaly to compete at least mid div 2. The very least we should be in Div 3 is top 4 in my opinion. To be fair we've been doing that to large degree for last 2 or 3 years (under Maughan's last 2 years) when there were significant issues that went mostly unreported and brushed under the carpet and also with Kearns in what was a decent league display - so top 4 is just break even point as far as i'd be concerned.

So to the players and followers, the groundwork and base of underage success has never been as rich in the last 20 years. We have had a good base of S&C through underage programmes through Dave Hare and his replacements over last 10 years so that base has been mostly covered! So its time to stop making excuses and go and maximise the capability of senior team. You only get so long in that jersey and deselection and injury may only be just around the corner for some, so its in your interest to give it everything and see where it goes.

I'm quietly confident that if this happens that we will be in for a good couple of years ahead and much needed progress will be made at senior level.