Offaly Hurlers Loss to Carlow!!

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Bogman
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Offaly Hurlers Loss to Carlow!!

Post by Bogman »

I expect there will be the predictable cries and moans from the usual suspects about the end of the world for Offaly hurling.

I was at the match and Offaly were pretty poor but Carlow were also pretty good. This was a big step-up from playing Kildare and Roscommon. Carlow owned the ball for most of the second half and the ball came back from our forwards as if the backs were clearing it in a handball alley. It would be great to get another crack at them if we were to recover the situation by annihilating Meath & Kerry with other results going our way.

Niall Claffey had a stormer, Cass played well and Brendan Murphy made a promising re-appearance for the whole of the second half. Aidan Hanrahan had a few clever touches and showed his usual fighting spirit. Kevin Brady did well when he came on and showed sharpness in getting a goal and a point. Stephen Browne was unlucky to be substituted. Joe Brady was put back to full back near the end and played o.k.

The worst part was giving away the goal near the end after getting within
a point. All the Offaly backs came out to the 65 to follow their men to the area around a throw-in by the referee and when the ball broke from the scrum to a Carlow man a few quick transfers put them in with three or four of their forwards making it to the fringe of the Offaly square to queue up unmarked to apply the finish. Our full backs aren't the quickest in a foot race.

I'd say that St. Brendan's CS encouraging run to the Colleges All-Ireland semi-final culminating in a fighting loss to St. Flannan's on Saturday might be more significant in the long run.
BOGMAN

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Lone Shark
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Losing to Carlow.

Post by Lone Shark »

To be fair, we're too far gone if we start making excuses for this. I don't care how much Carlow have come on, this game should have been won with 10 points to spare.

Now I'll acknowledge that I was at club games at home all day, so I didn't see the game, but if the players can't grasp how important it is that we get out of this God forsaken league then we need to make it pretty clear to them sharpish.

Though there is a serious danger it's too late now.

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Post by oscar »

The worst thing about this was I walked into work today to find the match report from the Irish Indo propped up on my keyboard and the headline highlighted in orange. There's nothing worse than a gloating Carlowman (or two gloating Carlowmen in my case)

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Bord na Mona man
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Post by Bord na Mona man »

When all is said and and done we should be beating Carlow. I suspected we'd have a tough time in this game, but didn't think we'd lose. Carlow might be improving, but they still lost to Laois by 23 points in last year's championship.

Fair enough, back in the 90s we would often lose to the likes of Meath and Down in the league.
Those were different times, we knew that come championship we'd be one of the main contenders.
Now we are building from a much lower base.
We need to take these games seriously, win them handsomely and try and work our way back to the top.

We'll struggle to bridge the gap in standard against Kilkenny in a few weeks.
The cats will be going all out to hammer us and keep us down.

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Lone Shark
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Horrible feeling.

Post by Lone Shark »

It's not something I ever thought I'd say regarding an Offaly team, but right now I'd say if you were to offer me a moderate defeat against Kilkenny I think I'd take it.

I don't care how unmotivated you are, or how much Carlow are improving, this shouldn't happen.

We'll be allright now as long as Carlow don't start thinking outside the box. Westmeath will beat Meath, Carlow will beat Derry.

What price a Carlow Westmeath draw to make sure we can't reach the final?

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Turfbag
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Post by Turfbag »

The worst thing about this was I walked into work today to find the match report from the Irish Indo propped up on my keyboard and the headline highlighted in orange. There's nothing worse than a gloating Carlowman (or two gloating Carlowmen in my case)
I can empathise with you oscar I’ve taken a right pasting today from the traffic light’s :oops:

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Loughers
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Carlow v Westmeath

Post by Loughers »

Lone Shark, the same thing occurred to me. If we do get to the final, I'd expectt us to win. I'm glad I decided against going to Carlow. We must beat Kerry and Meath out the gate. Does anyone know the definitive rules should we not get promoted? Are we out of the Liam McCarthy next year? A current player reckons that ex-All-Ireland winners have a 10 year exemption, leaving us ok until 2008. We should get promoted by then. :roll:

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Lone Shark
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Potential Final

Post by Lone Shark »

I'm pretty sure championship participation is safe - there are separate championship relegation playoffs, the league has nothing to do with it. Not that there's any guarantee we won't get relegated that way either. :roll:

I've no doubt we'll beat the daylights out of the other two, but the more I think about it the more I worry about the disaster scenario above. I mean in all honesty, why wouldn't you??

Anyone remember Doon and Edenderry in a group C game two years ago? :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

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TheManFromFerbane
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Post by TheManFromFerbane »

Oh yes I do! It was my first year playing senior and it was then that I realised just how cruel the game could be!!

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Post by Doon Massive »

That was a wondeful day :D

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Lone Shark
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Hmmm....

Post by Lone Shark »

......yes.

Wallow in your own crapulence there lads.

Germany and Austria 1982 how are ya.

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Bord na Mona man
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Post by Bord na Mona man »

It looks like Doon were at it again yesterday - Getting Clara to give them a draw.
I think Carlow will be buoyed up by this result and will want to keep winning btw.

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Lone Shark
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Post by Lone Shark »

Bord na Mona man wrote:I think Carlow will be buoyed up by this result and will want to keep winning btw.
I don't think it'll be an issue if they're 6 points ahead of Westmeath with ten minutes to go in the last game. On the other hand if you were Westmeath or Carlow and you were a point or two up or level with that time left - you can't tell me it won't cross their minds.

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'Follow me up to Caar-low'

Post by Plain of the Herbs »

I wouldn't be getting worked up about losing this match. After all, tis 51 weeks since the infamous day in Portlaoise when Dublin beat us by 21, with Digdy applauding the last Dublin score. The tables were turned 2 months later.
I always felt that they needed to lose a match along the line for the annual wake-up call. However, its vital we win Div 2 to get the promotion, and as the lads have outlined above, its possible for WH & CW to do a bit of a hokey-cokey on us.
Congrats to Carlow though. I wasn't aware they'd won a number of minor B titles. What I was aware of though was that they beat Laois and drew with Dublin in the MHC a few years back and were beaten By Dublin by 1 in a play-off, also that Bagnelstown have had a few good runs in the B colleges in recent times. And more luck to them. They suffer from having a small population (much smaller than us) and the county split between hurling and football.
What drove me mad yesterday was the performance of G Russell on the wireless. I don't think he got that excited when his beloved Laois won their Leinster 2 years ago. And another thing. He had O'Hara getting a red card. According to my paper this morning, O'Hara was first man off, and had long since departed before he 'saw red' and that Oakley and Mulhare saw yellow. Can someone clarify?

Where to now. Surely Franks and Murph will start against Kerry, Gary will revert to the forwards and Joe will go to full back. Hopefully we'll see a backlash. And there'll be fewer frees given away (ie lads will get to the ball FIRST). A big win is now needed to restore the scoring difference.

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O'Hara Got Red!

Post by Bogman »

Just to clarify as requested - Mick O'Hara got a deserved Red card near the end. It might have had something to do with O'Hara doing a Robbie Keane ten minutes earlier when soloing clean through one on one in twenty yards of space and hitting the goalie from two yards out. Fair play though - he kept trying until he got sent off.

Not making excuses but the ref was the worst I have ever seen. Any hint of a flick of a hurl at the ball and it was a free to Carlow. It helped them build up momentum.

I have to agree with the conspiracy theorists, I was worried Sunday night about Carlow's state of mind versus Westmeath. Carlow don't want to meet us again! Either they could be over-confident after beating us or they could start getting too cute about the permutations. But, looking on the bright side, if they don't lose their heads totally they should be good enough to be leading Westmeath comfortably at the business end. They were running up huge scores against Kerry, Meath etc.

The tier arrangement in the Championship is totally separate from the League so no immediate worries on that score! There are a few worse teams than us in the top tier. How did Dublin lose to Down?

Was anybody in Nenagh to see Birr in the Colleges All-Ireland semi-final against Jamesie O'Connor's Flannans? Some of those young players look good - Brian Nolan, Dermot Horan, Brian Watkins, Colm Coughlan, Joe Bergin. They'll be out again against the Dubs in Birr on Saturday (Dublin drew with Wexford last day).
BOGMAN

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