Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
Fairplayalways
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by Fairplayalways »

Well its official John Maughan is gone now..so where do we turn next do we do a Laois and Westmeath over the years and have a sort of "hybrid" model of who was with John Maughan (Tomas O'Se) and maybe someone then sort of working with him..not that I think that these things are great to be honest, do they ever really work out, I cannot remember most of these combinations over the years, Declan Kelly apparently cannot commit so who then, do we go outside again like Maughan...

pigeon house biffo
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by pigeon house biffo »

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biffinbanner
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by biffinbanner »

facts dont lie. he didnt advance offaly football one bit. personally i wouldnt have o se either. looking at the westmeath game it was very embarrassing. im sure the westmeath lads were laughing after it. did maughan or o se never hear about o toole? he had the freedom of croke park.id leave him in kerry. but id say he will prob get it.

pigeon house biffo
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by pigeon house biffo »

While i wouldn’t know anything about the inner machinations, and know less about O Se’s credentials, its hard to see how he is so favoured. Performances let alone results have gone backwards since he came in. While all the players liking him is a bonus, it seems to be the only positive I’ve heard about him since joining.

Personally I think we should be looking at managers who are pulling up trees at club level. Manager of portarlington wad mentioned here previous. County board have a few pound now and while thats a bonus, we’ll need to be wary of lads who’s only interest is in lining there own pockets.

Regarding westmeath and the recent game in croke park, cooney has to be commended for the job hes done there. 5 schools in the county playing senior leinster colleges is a real bonus. Dual county competing in both codes, the occasional leinster final and good performances against established hurling counties. Our lads looked so physically off it from a size and power perspective it looked like they were athletes from a different sport. Hands down we were the weakest of the 4 semi final teams. Would we have given cavan the game sligo did? Would we have even beaten sligo? We don’t at all look like a croke park standard team, even amongst the teams in tailteann cup level.

Big off season now for a lot of lads, the changing of the guard is taking place and hopefully whoever is appointed gets full buy in from players. Division 3 will be a bear pit and we’ll need everyone if we are to be competitive.

SearingDrive
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by SearingDrive »

pigeon house biffo wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 12:37 pm While i wouldn’t know anything about the inner machinations, and know less about O Se’s credentials, its hard to see how he is so favoured. Performances let alone results have gone backwards since he came in. While all the players liking him is a bonus, it seems to be the only positive I’ve heard about him since joining.

Personally I think we should be looking at managers who are pulling up trees at club level. Manager of portarlington wad mentioned here previous. County board have a few pound now and while thats a bonus, we’ll need to be wary of lads who’s only interest is in lining there own pockets.

Regarding westmeath and the recent game in croke park, cooney has to be commended for the job hes done there. 5 schools in the county playing senior leinster colleges is a real bonus. Dual county competing in both codes, the occasional leinster final and good performances against established hurling counties. Our lads looked so physically off it from a size and power perspective it looked like they were athletes from a different sport. Hands down we were the weakest of the 4 semi final teams. Would we have given cavan the game sligo did? Would we have even beaten sligo? We don’t at all look like a croke park standard team, even amongst the teams in tailteann cup level.

Big off season now for a lot of lads, the changing of the guard is taking place and hopefully whoever is appointed gets full buy in from players. Division 3 will be a bear pit and we’ll need everyone if we are to be competitive.
I don’t know if O’Se is interested, or is the right fit for Offaly. Certainly promotion will be a big challenge next year. Westmeath and Cavan look like favourites. Offaly are trying to blend in the U20 players, but they lacked strength v Westmeath. If the two Cians, Johnston and Farrell return to the team, it benefits Offaly.
The SF championships is starting, maybe some talent will emerge there.

timber
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by timber »

Thanks to the outgoing manager for his time and dedication. Its not an easy job. I certainly believe a completely new management team should come in. Whoever gets the job I would imagine will propose the package he is offering including his full backroom team.

Wont dwell on 2022 season. For me, poor overall. League performances very disappointing. I would be less concerned with losing games in league but the manner of defeats was worrying. Id be expecting a lot more competitiveness. It all started off very bleakly in Ennis.
Wexford game was atrocious. One of the worst displays in a long time. 2nd Wexford game was an opportunity to redeem themselves and go give wexford a decent beating. Instead they fell over the line. Wicklow and New York are as weak teams as we could play. So beating them well and thinking we were back in business was a bit delusional.

Westmeath performance was terrible. Look I can handle losing. This is overall a very young inexperienced team who are only starting out. But what I cannot accept is this zonal approach when we dont have the ball. nobody is taking responsibility to mark a man. We made westmeath look good and gave them lots of confidence by playing with this approach and nobody getting stuck in one on one. Westmeath had runners coming through and nobody bothering to pick them up. It was shown in the analysis on sunday game from behind the goal and it looked dreadful. I dont know if it comes down to management giving instructions to defend like that or laziness.The crucial league game v cork had similar issues. Look at corks equalising score. It was so avoidable if players just went man on man. Offaly had numbers back but nobody laid a hand on the attacker. Cork equalised and the resulting kick out led to the losing of it. All because of the tactical approach to defending. That lost them the game.

Its a good opportunity now to get in a strong management team. Not high profile names who bring more attention than anything on the group and give opponent managers an opportunity to use it against you in motivating teams.

One thing I will add. The management probably were forced to use players this year possibly a year or two too soon because of the large number of injuries to first team players. If it was any other county the young talent we do have, would of at best been part of extending training panel but not thrown in just yet. The hand was forced a bit unfortunately in that regard.

The journey is only beginning for a lot of lads and the right the direction is now critical.

jimbob17
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by jimbob17 »

Maughan improved things from when he went in if Wallaces reign is your barometer. If you only go back 6 months before that to Flanagan reign where we were mid div 3 team, I'd say we have been static for last 4 years. We fluked it into Div 2 in my opinion with draw we got. Derry showed us exactly how close we were to top of Div 3 last year in Croke Park.

Injuries curtailed progress this year to be fair but with decent underage teams over last 10 years, we should be well able to compete in Div 2 level. I'd say Maughan had close to his best available 15 on panel but I'd also say he probably had only maybe 15 of his best available 30 on the panel - and with little genuine competition for places until this year, this is why we remained static over the first few years of his reign. Seemed harder for some lads to get off the team than get on it at times. Any good competitive team has a panel now where your second string really play large role in raising standards of the starters. Could we honestly say we had that in Maughans reign? Not so sure. 20s came into squad this year, many of whom won't be ready for another 2 years.....

Either way, likely it is O'Se's reign coming, so it is important that he surrounds himself with solid local football people who know the lie of the land of the talent within the county to develop best available panel and back this up with the science / physios etc that is needed within a modern set up.
jimbob

Fairplayalways
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by Fairplayalways »

cannot accept this "minding" players if they were U20 last year, and not eligible this year, then senior it is, its not as if we are playing Dublin/Kerry/Mayo in the league week in week out, if they cannot be got up and running against Division 2 (and now division 3 teams) then I dont know, too much molly coddling of players in this county, Kerry, Mayo and Tyrone hit on a star player in he goes, we are protecting them from this that and the other and in 5 or 6 years time its "whatever became of so and so?"...the league is where they cut their teeth and then ready for championship...I appreciate some of our players were injured and couldnt feature but Ime talkiing about in the main...

ah lethimoutwithit
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by ah lethimoutwithit »

Fair play,

It generally even happens at club level that you gradually introduce minors etc and that lads are developing into their early 20's. So it stands to reason that lads need time to adapt to the physicality of Senior Intercounty football. You need 12 to 13 between the age profile of 23 to 30.
Basically , if our system is working, lads who have 3 years of senior intercounty training should be ahead of the 19 or 20 year olds coming in.

We will need the travellers back and in shape for next and hopefully Cian Farrell, Eoin Rigney come back into the panel after lengthy injuries.

Don't put the mortgage on Cian Johnson, he has a fair bit to go to be considered for the panel.

Fairplayalways
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by Fairplayalways »

as mentioned previously, if Oisin Mullen and Patrick Conroy (Mayo) and David Clifford were playing with Offaly all would be making the inter county debuts now or even later..I hear what your saying but if talent is that good, as we are led to believe it is, the step up much quicker in other counties to senior level, in Offaly its minding them for this that and the other and the next thing they are gone off the scene altogether..not all make it I know too or have the commitment maybe, but we appear to be losinng more than we are gaining...

private joker
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by private joker »

What you are forgetting is the those players you mentioned from mayo kerry etc are going into incredible strong teams and are very very good players. David Clifford will win a lot of all irelands. Offaly young lad going into an average team , very hard to get going and confidence can go very quickly.

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by Bord na Mona man »

Throw in the young lads sounds great. But I've seen enough young Offaly lads thrown in and then discarded twice as quick to know this isn't always a winner.
I don't believe you can put a 19 year old stick insect into a league match, and conclude whether he is future championship material.
For a small county with a small pick, we've burned through a lot of players over the last couple of decades in both hurling and football.

The cliché about it being a young man's game might have distracted people from the reality.
TJ Reid was ready to quit Kilkenny 10 years ago, aged 24 because he was often a fringe player. He realised himself at that point that he didn't have the fitness and strength to cope with the demands of the sport. At 34 he is now considered the GOAT by some analysts.

Look at the average age of the Limerick players that won last week's All Ireland.
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic ... yer-guide/

This suggests that reaching peak performance levels takes several years of development.
People in Offaly will soon start noticing that a poor underage pipeline was not the only problem dogging Offaly GAA this millennium.
The weak pathway from underage to senior is also a trouble area.

ah lethimoutwithit
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by ah lethimoutwithit »

thank you BNM , much more eloquently put.

Behindthegoal
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by Behindthegoal »

Not sure what your issue is with Cian Johnson. Won every underage medal in Offaly won all player of the year awards has received motm in all Ireland schools minor u20 and senior finals clutch player who always delivers on the big day. As good a finisher as I’ve seen in Offaly including Niall McNamee (he has his fair share of wides) I was at league game v furrow recently he kicked 0-7 from 7 shots his accuracy is off the charts. The year he single handedly won Ferbane’s first county title in over 20 years he scored 2-14 in three knockout games from 16 shots. Tough time with injury the last year and a half yes but that’s not his fault if you can’t hang your hat on him then I’m not sure who else in Offalys forwards we can.

frankthetank
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Re: Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2022

Post by frankthetank »

When fit I’d take Cian Farrell over Cian Johnson.

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