Offaly Senior Hurlers 2024

[JimBwobb]

Was at the game today, and was behind the goals for the last free and the few who were there were convinced it was wide?

Any other views on same from someone who was there?

[Anonymous1]

Very positive result in Birr, heartbreaking not to get the win.
Clare had to go to the big guns after half time (Reidy, Cleary, Shanagher) to bring them back into the game with the wind.

Only time Clare led was in the 75th minute when they scored the winner from a very soft free against David Nally.
Offaly without Cillian Kiely, Ciaran Burke, Charlie Mitchell and all of the u20s. The commenters that love to criticise Offaly and will talk about Clare having a changed side out always neglect to mention Offaly are missing plenty of key players.
Very impressed by Sam Bourke, very physical and popped up with 2 points.
Jack Clancy brings great athleticism and did well to score the goal.
Mark Troy looks so composed in the goals and a good save.
Padraig Cantwell did well for a while but looked leggy in the last 20 mins which is understandable on a heavy pitch and after a long layoff. Surprised he wasn’t taken off, management were slow to make any switch and it seemed like they didn’t want to change the back line.
Killian Sampson looked far more comfortable back in the backs, such a gifted and natural hurler.
David King and Leon Fox brought much needed physicality around the middle.
David Nally hurled very well and looks to have put on some size.
Eimhin Kelly was very good, set up the goal and a few points and won 2-3 scorable frees.
Great to have Oisin Kelly back, always a danger and the sharpness will come.
Eoghan Cahill did well but it still feels we should be getting more out of him. 2 missed frees in the second half proved costly (into a very tough breeze I must add).
That battle today will stand to lads, a far better place to be than last year.
Some of the negativity on here lately is shocking, you’d swear Offaly were back in the Christy ring struggling against Derry and Sligo with some of the comments being made, the progress is clear to see.
Cork are always liable to hammer a team and they love to keep going for goals when they get their tails up.

And commenters today saying that we will come straight back down if we go up.
What makes you think that? Either Carlow or Antrim would still be there, and we aren’t a million miles off of Dublin or Wexford (Wexford also shipped a heavy defeat to Cork today).
Comments above also saying that they haven’t heard of too many of the Clare team, so they mustn’t be great. That’s far more a reflection of your limited hurling knowledge than anything else.

Offaly are improving the whole time and I’d wonder if all of the complainers here even attend the games to support the lads.
Keep the Faith.

Conversely I could say if you were only going by some posters here you’d swear we had topped the league.

Nobody has mentioned it yet so I will incase you didn’t know we were actually relegated today with no wins from 5.

The only proof of whether there’s been progress or not will be if we win the Joe Mcdonagh. Anything short of that and one could only conclude that there hasn’t been progress.

[joey1001]

Very positive result in Birr, heartbreaking not to get the win.
Clare had to go to the big guns after half time (Reidy, Cleary, Shanagher) to bring them back into the game with the wind.

Only time Clare led was in the 75th minute when they scored the winner from a very soft free against David Nally.
Offaly without Cillian Kiely, Ciaran Burke, Charlie Mitchell and all of the u20s. The commenters that love to criticise Offaly and will talk about Clare having a changed side out always neglect to mention Offaly are missing plenty of key players.
Very impressed by Sam Bourke, very physical and popped up with 2 points.
Jack Clancy brings great athleticism and did well to score the goal.
Mark Troy looks so composed in the goals and a good save.
Padraig Cantwell did well for a while but looked leggy in the last 20 mins which is understandable on a heavy pitch and after a long layoff. Surprised he wasn’t taken off, management were slow to make any switch and it seemed like they didn’t want to change the back line.
Killian Sampson looked far more comfortable back in the backs, such a gifted and natural hurler.
David King and Leon Fox brought much needed physicality around the middle.
David Nally hurled very well and looks to have put on some size.
Eimhin Kelly was very good, set up the goal and a few points and won 2-3 scorable frees.
Great to have Oisin Kelly back, always a danger and the sharpness will come.
Eoghan Cahill did well but it still feels we should be getting more out of him. 2 missed frees in the second half proved costly (into a very tough breeze I must add).
That battle today will stand to lads, a far better place to be than last year.
Some of the negativity on here lately is shocking, you’d swear Offaly were back in the Christy ring struggling against Derry and Sligo with some of the comments being made, the progress is clear to see.
Cork are always liable to hammer a team and they love to keep going for goals when they get their tails up.

And commenters today saying that we will come straight back down if we go up.
What makes you think that? Either Carlow or Antrim would still be there, and we aren’t a million miles off of Dublin or Wexford (Wexford also shipped a heavy defeat to Cork today).
Comments above also saying that they haven’t heard of too many of the Clare team, so they mustn’t be great. That’s far more a reflection of your limited hurling knowledge than anything else.

Offaly are improving the whole time and I’d wonder if all of the complainers here even attend the games to support the lads.
Keep the Faith.

Conversely I could say if you were only going by some posters here you’d swear we had topped the league.

Nobody has mentioned it yet so I will incase you didn’t know we were actually relegated today with no wins from 5.

The only proof of whether there’s been progress or not will be if we win the Joe Mcdonagh. Anything short of that and one could only conclude that there hasn’t been progress.

You are just an ass to be honest! Beaten by last puck of ball by Clare, 7 points up on Kilkenny at one stage and were competitive against them and Waterford and drew with Wexford.. having been beaten in a Christy ring cup semi final couple years ago and you're telling me we've not made progress, you clearly don't go to/watch the games, disregarding the results you can see the improvements, your comments are just horrendously stupid. We'll now be overwhelming favourites for the McDonagh and I'd be confident after the league campaign we will justify the favourites tag . What were you expecting a win against one of the top 8?

[private joker]

The leagues have been reformatted. Offaly were always going to be relegated as you put it. From were Offaly were 30 years ago, no progress has been made. From where Offaly were 3 years ago, huge progress has been made. If Offaly can get to play in the liam mcarthy, that's will be the height of it. The liklihood of Offaly winning or even getting to a leinster final is highly unlikely staying in the liam mcarthy for 2 or 3 years would be the height of it.

[Anonymous1]

Very positive result in Birr, heartbreaking not to get the win.
Clare had to go to the big guns after half time (Reidy, Cleary, Shanagher) to bring them back into the game with the wind.

Only time Clare led was in the 75th minute when they scored the winner from a very soft free against David Nally.
Offaly without Cillian Kiely, Ciaran Burke, Charlie Mitchell and all of the u20s. The commenters that love to criticise Offaly and will talk about Clare having a changed side out always neglect to mention Offaly are missing plenty of key players.
Very impressed by Sam Bourke, very physical and popped up with 2 points.
Jack Clancy brings great athleticism and did well to score the goal.
Mark Troy looks so composed in the goals and a good save.
Padraig Cantwell did well for a while but looked leggy in the last 20 mins which is understandable on a heavy pitch and after a long layoff. Surprised he wasn’t taken off, management were slow to make any switch and it seemed like they didn’t want to change the back line.
Killian Sampson looked far more comfortable back in the backs, such a gifted and natural hurler.
David King and Leon Fox brought much needed physicality around the middle.
David Nally hurled very well and looks to have put on some size.
Eimhin Kelly was very good, set up the goal and a few points and won 2-3 scorable frees.
Great to have Oisin Kelly back, always a danger and the sharpness will come.
Eoghan Cahill did well but it still feels we should be getting more out of him. 2 missed frees in the second half proved costly (into a very tough breeze I must add).
That battle today will stand to lads, a far better place to be than last year.
Some of the negativity on here lately is shocking, you’d swear Offaly were back in the Christy ring struggling against Derry and Sligo with some of the comments being made, the progress is clear to see.
Cork are always liable to hammer a team and they love to keep going for goals when they get their tails up.

And commenters today saying that we will come straight back down if we go up.
What makes you think that? Either Carlow or Antrim would still be there, and we aren’t a million miles off of Dublin or Wexford (Wexford also shipped a heavy defeat to Cork today).
Comments above also saying that they haven’t heard of too many of the Clare team, so they mustn’t be great. That’s far more a reflection of your limited hurling knowledge than anything else.

Offaly are improving the whole time and I’d wonder if all of the complainers here even attend the games to support the lads.
Keep the Faith.

Conversely I could say if you were only going by some posters here you’d swear we had topped the league.

Nobody has mentioned it yet so I will incase you didn’t know we were actually relegated today with no wins from 5.

The only proof of whether there’s been progress or not will be if we win the Joe Mcdonagh. Anything short of that and one could only conclude that there hasn’t been progress.

You are just an ass to be honest! Beaten by last puck of ball by Clare, 7 points up on Kilkenny at one stage and were competitive against them and Waterford and drew with Wexford.. having been beaten in a Christy ring cup semi final couple years ago and you're telling me we've not made progress, you clearly don't go to/watch the games, disregarding the results you can see the improvements, your comments are just horrendously stupid. We'll now be overwhelming favourites for the McDonagh and I'd be confident after the league campaign we will justify the favourites tag . What were you expecting a win against one of the top 8?

Beaten by a second/third string Clare team, beaten by a second/third string Kilkenny despite holding big leads, couldn’t beat a 13 man Wexford and were beaten by the worst Waterford team there’s ever been.

Shouldn’t be benchmarking this team against the worst Offaly team ever, impossible not to improve on a team that couldn’t get to the Christy Ring final.

Why not compare us to ten years ago when we’d regularly stick it up to Galway in the Leinster Championship? Would it be because that would be to admit how far we’ve fallen and how far we still have to go to get back to that level?

Back when we were drawing with Galway in Leinster we were being derided as having “Fat legs, bellies and arses” yet any criticism of this team which is miles off that team is a no go area for some…

We are not “Overwhelming favourites” for the Joe McDonagh. We’re 13/8, Westmeath are 15/8 and Laois are 3/1.

To borrow a phrase from your good self “You might ask Loneshark to explain those odds to you”

And yeah I would expect a team that’s “making progress” to beat a very poor Wexford side with 13 men but maybe I’m too ambitious for people like you who want to bask in the glory of mediocrity for life. No wonder we are where we are with a mindset like that.

[Anonymous1]

The leagues have been reformatted. Offaly were always going to be relegated as you put it. From were Offaly were 30 years ago, no progress has been made. From where Offaly were 3 years ago, huge progress has been made. If Offaly can get to play in the liam mcarthy, that's will be the height of it. The liklihood of Offaly winning or even getting to a leinster final is highly unlikely staying in the liam mcarthy for 2 or 3 years would be the height of it.

There’s been progress if you compare this team to our worst team ever. Compare us to literally any other Offaly team pre 2020 and we have gone backwards, no ifs ands or buts.

I’ll accept we’ve made progress when we get back into Liam and stay there as you’ve said but there’s no guarantee of that happening based on a few league performances against second and third string sides. It’s the same few getting carried away as usual.

[Doon Exile]

Couldn’t make the game today but it certainly sounds of another positive performance. Was following scores on line and gutted that we didn’t get something out of it.

But that’s the league out of the way and I think we’d have taken the outcome beforehand. Cork aside we were very competitive.

Need to get ready for JMD now.

[G91]

Kilkenny had to bring on some of there key players to beat offaly but unless you don't consider Walter walsh and Micheal butler 1st team players, clare the same cork also a strong team ,. Any day your competitive against these teams is good , back 10 years ago we weren't beating these teams either
Our last spell in the top division we got destroyed.

Ultimately its joe mcdonagh is the goal I'm not trying to sugar coat things but this kinda horseshit slating the team why would any lad want to play for his county better to be dissatisfied with not winning then getting the absolute crap beating out of the team

[JimBwobb]

Kilkenny had to bring on some of there key players to beat offaly but unless you don't consider Walter walsh and Micheal butler 1st team players, clare the same cork also a strong team ,. Any day your competitive against these teams is good , back 10 years ago we weren't beating these teams either
Our last spell in the top division we got destroyed.

Ultimately its joe mcdonagh is the goal I'm not trying to sugar coat things but this kinda horseshit slating the team why would any lad want to play for his county better to be dissatisfied with not winning then getting the absolute crap beating out of the team

Agree,

There is some absolute clowns on here who probably don't even go to games and spouting shite, get behind the team or jog on.

[joey1001]

Conversely I could say if you were only going by some posters here you’d swear we had topped the league.

Nobody has mentioned it yet so I will incase you didn’t know we were actually relegated today with no wins from 5.

The only proof of whether there’s been progress or not will be if we win the Joe Mcdonagh. Anything short of that and one could only conclude that there hasn’t been progress.

You are just an ass to be honest! Beaten by last puck of ball by Clare, 7 points up on Kilkenny at one stage and were competitive against them and Waterford and drew with Wexford.. having been beaten in a Christy ring cup semi final couple years ago and you're telling me we've not made progress, you clearly don't go to/watch the games, disregarding the results you can see the improvements, your comments are just horrendously stupid. We'll now be overwhelming favourites for the McDonagh and I'd be confident after the league campaign we will justify the favourites tag . What were you expecting a win against one of the top 8?

Beaten by a second/third string Clare team, beaten by a second/third string Kilkenny despite holding big leads, couldn’t beat a 13 man Wexford and were beaten by the worst Waterford team there’s ever been.

Shouldn’t be benchmarking this team against the worst Offaly team ever, impossible not to improve on a team that couldn’t get to the Christy Ring final.

Why not compare us to ten years ago when we’d regularly stick it up to Galway in the Leinster Championship? Would it be because that would be to admit how far we’ve fallen and how far we still have to go to get back to that level?

Back when we were drawing with Galway in Leinster we were being derided as having “Fat legs, bellies and arses” yet any criticism of this team which is miles off that team is a no go area for some…

We are not “Overwhelming favourites” for the Joe McDonagh. We’re 13/8, Westmeath are 15/8 and Laois are 3/1.

To borrow a phrase from your good self “You might ask Loneshark to explain those odds to you”

And yeah I would expect a team that’s “making progress” to beat a very poor Wexford side with 13 men but maybe I’m too ambitious for people like you who want to bask in the glory of mediocrity for life. No wonder we are where we are with a mindset like that.

Sweet Jesus! Yes we have fallen millions of miles ( no one ever said we hadn't) and yes we have a good bit to go (no one ever said we hadn't) but HUGE progress has been made.

Of course you benchmark against where you're coming from and for us that is Christy Ring and we're basing it off that , what else would you base it off, how else would you measure our improvment? You think we should just turn up this year and start beating Limerick.

We're overwhelming favourites in my eyes or am I being too ambitious?? And news flash 13/8 makes us favourites!!!

No one's basking in mediocrity, we are improving, we're not going to turn up our of nowhere and start winning all Irelands beat Clare and Kilkenny etc.

Ten years ago we were awful, Kilkenny beat us by 26 points in Leinster, in 2015 laois beat us by 8 , in 2016 Westmeath hammered is and Galway beat us comfortably.. are we really any worse now than we were then? Maybe you're talking about 20 years ago?

What were you expecting? What was your measure of progress this year?

And also they weren't second/third string teams at all!! Lot of clarea starters playing at some stage today, same with Kilkenny and no mention of the players Offaly are missing

[Anonymous1]

You are just an ass to be honest! Beaten by last puck of ball by Clare, 7 points up on Kilkenny at one stage and were competitive against them and Waterford and drew with Wexford.. having been beaten in a Christy ring cup semi final couple years ago and you're telling me we've not made progress, you clearly don't go to/watch the games, disregarding the results you can see the improvements, your comments are just horrendously stupid. We'll now be overwhelming favourites for the McDonagh and I'd be confident after the league campaign we will justify the favourites tag . What were you expecting a win against one of the top 8?

Beaten by a second/third string Clare team, beaten by a second/third string Kilkenny despite holding big leads, couldn’t beat a 13 man Wexford and were beaten by the worst Waterford team there’s ever been.

Shouldn’t be benchmarking this team against the worst Offaly team ever, impossible not to improve on a team that couldn’t get to the Christy Ring final.

Why not compare us to ten years ago when we’d regularly stick it up to Galway in the Leinster Championship? Would it be because that would be to admit how far we’ve fallen and how far we still have to go to get back to that level?

Back when we were drawing with Galway in Leinster we were being derided as having “Fat legs, bellies and arses” yet any criticism of this team which is miles off that team is a no go area for some…

We are not “Overwhelming favourites” for the Joe McDonagh. We’re 13/8, Westmeath are 15/8 and Laois are 3/1.

To borrow a phrase from your good self “You might ask Loneshark to explain those odds to you”

And yeah I would expect a team that’s “making progress” to beat a very poor Wexford side with 13 men but maybe I’m too ambitious for people like you who want to bask in the glory of mediocrity for life. No wonder we are where we are with a mindset like that.

Sweet Jesus! Yes we have fallen millions of miles ( no one ever said we hadn't) and yes we have a good bit to go (no one ever said we hadn't) but HUGE progress has been made.

Of course you benchmark against where you're coming from and for us that is Christy Ring and we're basing it off that , what else would you base it off, how else would you measure our improvment? You think we should just turn up this year and start beating Limerick.

We're overwhelming favourites in my eyes or am I being too ambitious?? And news flash 13/8 makes us favourites!!!

No one's basking in mediocrity, we are improving, we're not going to turn up our of nowhere and start winning all Irelands beat Clare and Kilkenny etc.

Ten years ago we were awful, Kilkenny beat us by 26 points in Leinster, in 2015 laois beat us by 8 , in 2016 Westmeath hammered is and Galway beat us comfortably.. are we really any worse now than we were then? Maybe you're talking about 20 years ago?

What were you expecting? What was your measure of progress this year?

And also they weren't second/third string teams at all!! Lot of clarea starters playing at some stage today, same with Kilkenny and no mention of the players Offaly are missing

You can’t keep wheeling out the “We were in the Christy Ring” excuse every time. That was three years ago, we’ve been in the Joe McDonagh for the last two years so maybe we should benchmark ourselves against last years finalists thus why I say if we don’t win it this year then how can you honestly say we’ve made progress?

Yes we’re favourites but 13/8 vs 15/8 is hardly “overwhelming” is it?

We were “overwhelming” favourites last year against Carlow and look how that turned out…

You do remember Tipperary inflicting a record defeat on Offaly in 2023 of 32 points and a 26 point defeat to Cork last week or have you selective memory?

We were drawing with Galway in the Leinster Championship a decade ago, now we can’t even get into the same competition as them…

Those were largely second string Clare and Kilkenny teams. Had both had their first strings out it would’ve been ballpark 20+ point defeats too which is why I ask where is the progress?

[Hasselhoff]

can we stop with the multiple quotes .

It's getting impossible to read it all.

We might be favourites with the bookies , but that counts for nothing on the field. We didn't go to well against laois in walsh cup and westmeath were doing OK in the other side of the league. The first two matches of the joe McDonagh will be crucial -laois and westmeath.
Getting the win against laois is crucial and hopefully playing good quality opposition in the league will stand to us. I'd rather be playing waterford , Wexford ,Cork etc than kerry, down and meath.
Next year's league should be good with a good mix of teams in it.

I think we have improved a bit and we are going to improve more with the younger players. At least we have blooded a few younger players.

I'm concerned about our strength and conditioning. As we saw against waterford, Cork, Clare,the Liam Mccarthy teams players are bigger and stronger. We need to work on this in next year's off season if we have genuine hopes of playing in the Liam Mccarthy.

The last 10 minutes of our games we also seem to fade out. Maybe bring in the subs earlier?? or else our fitness needs improvement.

When they brought on the subs today ,they made a big difference .

I think for the first time in a while, there is competition for places.

Todays match is a game we should have won and with a small bit more cuteness could have got us over the line. One free or shot we hit near the end went straight into their keepers hands.

I thought a point they got near the end was wide as well.

Look, fair play to all those lads for putting in a commitment to train and play for the county.
I hope we win the joe McDonagh -we have a good chance but it's not won until its won as we found out last year.

[private joker]

Brian lohan said after the match that offalys conditioning was much improved on the last time offaly were up in division one.

[joey1001]

We weren't drawing with Galway a decade ago, were were hammered by Kilkenny and Galway and Westmeath and Laois a decade ago

[greenairfield]

Liam hoare needs to go in goals his puck outs would make a huge difference