Offaly Hurling 2021

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Offaly Hurling 2021

Post by Bord na Mona man »

The manner in which the group has gone about their business in 2021 has been excellent.

A few observations.
- Offaly improvement. November vs. Down seems like years ago now. Fennelly has backed himself and has the trust of those at the top table. Bar a few protests that he was ignoring the 'Offaly way' of hitting away the ball as soon as humanly possible, his job never looked under threat.
The faster pitches have been a big help of course given that it's a younger group and the more expansive style they are trying to play.

The standard looks to have dropped in some counties and this is likely Covid related. For all our problems in Offaly I think we always try to give both senior teams the best support.

- Consistent performance levels. The usual caveats about opposition weakness, but this Offaly group plays consistently throughout the 70 minutes.
The old Offaly way against underdogs was to ease into a lead after 20 minutes, then pull the handbrake and allow the opposition recover. The kind of 'socialism' as POTH put it, has put Offaly teams into all sorts of sticky situations in the past. Sometimes we got away with it, other times we gifted breakthroughs to an array of underdogs by dropping down to their standard and making a contest.

I've no insight into the camp but I expect that Fennelly has corrected this mentality by setting out team and individual performance metrics to be hit throughout the game. Getting the group focussed on their own targets instead of players deciding what's enough to beat what's in front of them.

- Improved performance culture. There are a few lads dismissing stats, clipboards, GPS trackers etc as being snake oil but these are the kind of tools that help management monitor intensity levels and identify deficiencies in performance.

Thankfully quiet are the crows bemoaning that various club hurlers that should be on the panel and accommodated at all costs.
Perhaps there is growing recognition that county panels are increasingly elite performance bubbles and the players on them are the ones willing to put themselves through the heavy rigours to raise standards.

I believe in future years when we look back and assess this era, the genesis of 'Faithful Fields' will be seen as a key turning point. Whether success comes or not, I believe the 'big bellies and arses' culture that other counties mock Offaly about is in the past.

Kevin
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Re: Offaly Hurling 2020

Post by Kevin »

Kevin wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:53 pm Will take some heavy lifting to get us out of Division 2 (would be great if we could accomplish that though).
Was apprehensive enough coming into the campaign.

Hard to ask for more than what we got.

Well done to the the team and all involved.

Our reward is a move into a league environment that does nothing but serve the interests of the elite, but we all knew that.

Thank you for an outstanding 2021, may this build a basis for more progress.

UIBHFHAILI ABU!!!
Kevin Clancey. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

ah lethimoutwithit
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Re: Offaly Hurling 2021

Post by ah lethimoutwithit »

Great season from the lads and very difficult to get beyond the mindset that the heavy lifting was done after the league campaign and achieving promotion.
From the game itself that was evident, poor aul Clancy was cold in goals and was lax a couple of times, and lads like Duignan and Liam Langton struggle d to get into the game, (lot of lads played within themselves, even Oisin Kelly with man of the match was poor at times with ball control etc).
But still won by 21 points. Enough said.

GAA need to really look at what has happened here, complete joke of a competition with Offaly playing 1 group, semi, and final just to get back where they should be.

greenairfield
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Re: Offaly Hurling 2021

Post by greenairfield »

super win we really are above this level but my concern is the gap between that and where we will end up next year with some big teams coming up against us.

I hope we find a few more players who will make us that little bit stronger competing the elite.

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joe bloggs
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Re: Offaly Hurling 2021

Post by joe bloggs »

The league is obviously going to be very challenging, but going by the results in 2A this year the team will be more thsn capable of giving the Joe McDonagh cup a good rattle.
The team that started on Sunday has not one player who won't benefit from being a year older. The age profile is excellent and there may even be a couple more yong players ready to start pusing up ftom the u20s. If the nucleus of this group sticks at it there undoubtedly is some decent talent following up from the minor grade and in the next few years we really should be in a position to get back to McCarthy cup level.
'if your not part of the solution, your part of the problem' J. McClean

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