Div 3 South predictions & general comment

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ryot
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by ryot »

Disappointed with the showing but at least they got to the Final and an outing in Croker=

Younger lads have a lot to learn and a lot of growing up into bigger stronger men to do===

Will take another 3 years...... I just hope to be still around and able to get to games them========

SearingDrive
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by SearingDrive »

ryot wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:50 am Disappointed with the showing but at least they got to the Final and an outing in Croker=

Younger lads have a lot to learn and a lot of growing up into bigger stronger men to do===

Will take another 3 years...... I just hope to be still around and able to get to games them========
Hard lesson yesterday, Offaly have a lot to do for the Louth game.

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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by boomcha »

Niall McNamee was electric yesterday, brilliant to watch. We wouldn't have scored from play at Croker yesterday without him around. The other McNamee was very close to scoring.

BiffoInThurso
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by BiffoInThurso »

If offaly don’t get themselves a bona fide goal scorer this group won’t reach its potential

jimbob17
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by jimbob17 »

Think we have goal scorers. Problem last day was creating chances. We couldnt when we didnt have the ball. Niall Mc is a recognised goal scorer and I think Cian Farrell will be one of our best forwards in a long time when he matures. The lad is still only 20 and is a proven goal scorer. Louth will be a tough game. If we win that we are back on track and looking forward again after a great start to the year.
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mynamesjeff
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by mynamesjeff »

jimbob17 wrote: Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:23 am Think we have goal scorers. Problem last day was creating chances. We couldnt when we didnt have the ball. Niall Mc is a recognised goal scorer and I think Cian Farrell will be one of our best forwards in a long time when he matures. The lad is still only 20 and is a proven goal scorer. Louth will be a tough game. If we win that we are back on track and looking forward again after a great start to the year.
Cian Farrell is 21 at the very least, if not 22. Might be splitting hairs but a lot of people think some of our players are 2/3 years younger than they are.

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by Bord na Mona man »

People might crib about playing the fixture, but it was definitely worthwhile.
Obviously it highlighted problems. The ease at which Derry cut through Offaly with their direct running is a concern.
Offaly's high foul count when defending is another. Nearly all of Derry's first half scores came from placed balls.
Offaly were also slow to react when it was clear that not pushing up for Derry's kickouts was giving them easy attack building opportunities.
Also, when Offaly struggled to move the ball through the Derry cover, the direct ball into Niall McNamee should have been tried more often. Of the few balls that went in to him, he won a mark and scored, had a fisted goal chance and made a good lay off.

The pace of the game was a step up to what we're used to. Louth have been playing Div 4 standard teams, so every game Offaly get against stronger opposition is an advantage.
Louth is going to be a real indicator of where Offaly stand. When a team brings in a Celebrity Bainisteoir there will be a short term boost in performance for a year or two before they go back to their old ways. Players that weren't bothered before this are committed this year. This will be Louth with an extra 20% on top of their normal selves.

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bracknaghboy
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by bracknaghboy »

Bord na Mona man wrote: Mon Jun 21, 2021 10:34 am People might crib about playing the fixture, but it was definitely worthwhile.
Obviously it highlighted problems. The ease at which Derry cut through Offaly with their direct running is a concern.
Offaly's high foul count when defending is another. Nearly all of Derry's first half scores came from placed balls.
Offaly were also slow to react when it was clear that not pushing up for Derry's kickouts was giving them easy attack building opportunities.
Also, when Offaly struggled to move the ball through the Derry cover, the direct ball into Niall McNamee should have been tried more often. Of the few balls that went in to him, he won a mark and scored, had a fisted goal chance and made a good lay off.

The pace of the game was a step up to what we're used to. Louth have been playing Div 4 standard teams, so every game Offaly get against stronger opposition is an advantage.
Louth is going to be a real indicator of where Offaly stand. When a team brings in a Celebrity Bainisteoir there will be a short term boost in performance for a year or two before they go back to their old ways. Players that weren't bothered before this are committed this year. This will be Louth with an extra 20% on top of their normal selves.
Excellent synopsis of Saturdays game.
I'm not convinced it was totally worthwhile however.
Lot of tired sore bodies on Sunday morning and next Sunday is the 6th game in 7 weeks followed by the 7th in 8 weeks should they progress to meet Kildare.
Remember we were the ones complaining in 2018 (and rightly so) when our senior hurlers were the only team asked to take to the pitch 4 straight weeks in a row in Leinster. I remember Kevin Martin claiming after the Wexford game that there was nothing in the tank and he knew the writing was on the wall very early on. 7 days later in Parnell Park they were lifeless again......I'll never forget the lethargic warm up from Offaly that day. I wasn't the only one that year that suggested putting the u 20's out against Wexford and let the seniors focus on the straight relegation shootout with Dublin.

These players are only human and if the tanks are empty after 60mins in Navan on Sunday we can have no complaints this time around as it was our own making.

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Lone Shark
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by Lone Shark »

Saturday didn't turn out the way I thought it would, but I still drove home from Croke Park feeling like it was better to play the game than not. It's not accurate to say that I felt better about our chances of beating Louth than I did at 4.30pm, but I would be fairly convinced that we're better for having Derry expose the weaknesses we showed than not. Maybe Louth would have been good enough to do the same, maybe they wouldn't - but at least now we can try and fix things up.

Yes, fatigue might be an issue - but to be honest, chances are we would have played a challenge match anyway. More's to the point, fatigue shouldn't be an issue. This isn't like Kevin Martin's hurlers, where the players hadn't stopped going for months on end. Players should be getting better and better now, as they effectively had five months off to rest and get their energy levels back up to full speed. Obviously players would have been training away and looking after their fitness, but they would have been going at their own pace, minding their strains and bumps, rather than trying to keep pace with an intercounty group at times when they weren't fully fit to do so.

Finally, it's worth saying here that Derry were a lot better than a normal Division Three team - and much better than normal Division Three winners. Obviously they were in the Division on merit, that's how leagues work, but we had no answer for Conor Glass, a man who was playing Aussie Rules the last couple of years. Gareth McKinless was centre back and he ran riot against us in the first half, he was next on the pecking order for man of the match - and he wasn't there the last couple of years either. Add in Shane McGuigan getting better with every performance (to put that in context, there's less than a year between him and Cian Farrell) and this Derry side are a world better than where they were in 2019 or 2020. They're far more likely to contend for promotion than to be battling relegation next year and while Offaly have a lot of work to do as that's the standard of division we're moving up into, games like this are a necessary experience that we need to work through.

On an individual level, there are players who will be happy with their performance and their form - Eoin Rigney and Cian Farrell the two most obvious ones - and there are more that probably had their limitations exposed a wee bit on Saturday. Again, I don't see that as a bad thing at all. Far better it happened there than in Navan.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

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bracknaghboy
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by bracknaghboy »

Lone Shark wrote: Mon Jun 21, 2021 6:23 pm Yes, fatigue might be an issue - but to be honest, chances are we would have played a challenge match anyway.
Mental fatigue should be factored in as well here.
This Derry game was hyped up like no other Offaly football game since the 2006 Leinster final.
Lots of media talk about how Maughan has Offaly ticking again, talk of "sleeping giants" and reminiscing about the glory days etc.
It all fell flat by about 6pm on Saturday.
The players had invested in it and were fairly devastated after the match.
A challenge match against Clare or Carlow would have passed by unnoticed with real no consequences either away.
But it is what it is now.

Derry exposed how the sideline had little in the way of ideas on how to turn the tide. Niall Mc on after 25mins and that was it really.
No effort was made to prevent Derry going short and winning nearly every one of their own kickouts whilst at the other end pressuring the Offaly kickouts. In the previous games this year most of the 4 teams surrendered the Offaly kickouts.
No attempts to get regular quick ball into McNamee when he clearly had the beatings of McKaigue on the 3 occasions they did.

I wonder how Mickey Hartes plans have been altered by what he watched in Croke Park? Will he try and exploit the frailties or will he expect Offaly to have corrected them? Will he want to deviate from Louths original game plan?
Whatever way you look at this the game in Navan is shaping up to be a fascinating encounter.

BiffoInThurso
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by BiffoInThurso »

The smaller ground will suit Offaly.

The legs will be heavy sunday morning but hopefully they can regain focus for louth.

Lets not big them up too much either, they’ve looked ok against worse opposition than what we’ve beaten this year. Would you back louth against tipp or Fermanagh? I’m not sure I’d back louth over limerick for what its worth but its circumstantial in any case.

Rigney SHOULD be able to put the reigns on Mulroy their no.14 and if he can keep him quiet from play that’ll go a long way to winning the game.

Hopefully we can take the learnings from the derry game and sort the kickouts. It went into complete and utter meltdown on saturday. Not blessed with height so maybe playing it out from the back with runners like dempsey doyle and hayes providing an outlet.

If panda is injured it would be nice to see jack bryant get a game. Theres a couple of positions where we are reliant on older heads ie darby and mcnamee so it would be good to see a few lads get a run there should the opportunity arise. Ciaran donnelly would be the obvious successor to darby at 4.

Maloney being back adds another option and having him in the middle 3rd could help our kickouts.

Cian Farrell got a bit of change out of one of the elite defenders in chrissy mckeigue on Saturday. If his head and body is right he should have an easier assignment on sunday.

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mynamesjeff
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by mynamesjeff »

Panda isn’t injured.
McNamee was being brought on regardless.

Fairplayalways
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by Fairplayalways »

mynamesjeff wrote: Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:49 am
jimbob17 wrote: Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:23 am Think we have goal scorers. Problem last day was creating chances. We couldnt when we didnt have the ball. Niall Mc is a recognised goal scorer and I think Cian Farrell will be one of our best forwards in a long time when he matures. The lad is still only 20 and is a proven goal scorer. Louth will be a tough game. If we win that we are back on track and looking forward again after a great start to the year.
Cian Farrell is 21 at the very least, if not 22. Might be splitting hairs but a lot of people think some of our players are 2/3 years younger than they are.
I agree completely, this ould lark of lads are young at 21 and 22 etc..yes they are, but other counties have lads playing in All Ireland finals at 19, Limerick hurlers played a Colm Coughlan in a recent league game and he is sitting his leaving cert now...we are mentioning age about lads playing in the third tier of our National football competition where all the really strong teams are in Division 1 and Division 2 is strong also. Division 3 is what it is, competitive but not top notch..we play the age card alot...

Fairplayalways
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by Fairplayalways »

we loooked very out of our depth on Saturday, Croke Park was huge, we could have got a bus to travel around it looked so huge and the space in it. Offaly and Derry were right to play though, it makes me wonder if Dublin and Kerry and Mayo had to play all their big games outside Croke Park how good would they be..yes they are good sides no doubt and would win most games outside of Croker but put them into Navan or Nebridge for example and see how they do with home support etc. in normal circumstances...Offaly got a good reality check on Saturday, yes Louth will be a different game for sure, and more winnable given Louth are not a million mile off Offalys standard and Mickey Harte will have them in championship shape and up and ready for this game..put this game in Croke Park Saturday and it would be totally different game from the one differnt game in everyway to the game we will see in paric tailtean...It will be very interesting to see how Offaly play and react to last Saturdays display...1-06 is a shocking poor tally...

private joker
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Re: Div 3 South predictions & general comment

Post by private joker »

You can play dublin anywhere and they would win. Big or small crowd or no. Dublin would win.

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