Offaly Team to face Wexford in Leinster Football Championshi

[DAF]

Without a doubt the most humiliating Offaly performance I have seen , no heart, commitment,lack of fitness and lack of skill from most players.Without Niall McNamee I shudder to think how much worse it could have been.We were in a decent position at half time 6 points down with a gale of a wind behind us in teh second half but we played worse in the second half and seemed to run out of steam very quickly,Tom Cribbben shoudl dio the decent thing and resign the team were totally unprepared our fitness levels are appalling players were runnning out of steam 10 minutes into teh second half and the least you can expect from any trainer is to have the team fit.I honestly dont think Wexford have much more raw talent than ourselves bit the difference is that they are a well coached side and have a good managers.Scott Brady a player i was worried about was one fo teh few Offaly players to come out if this game with any credit he never gave up and Niall Smith was excellent as always in midfield and won a huge amount of ball, those 2 and Niall McNamee were the only players who looked like county footballers this evening.The county board have to take a look at themselves and start spending some monmey on developing the game in Offaly also Cribben was picked as manager because he is cheap and doesnt cost anything however a good manger would certainly improve that team and I think it may be worse tomorrow unfortunately.Depressing is what tonight was for followers of Offaly football.

[faithfullad]

Disgraceful, especially the second half. Niall Smith(and even he disappeared a little bit) and Niall McNamee are the only ones that can come out of this with their heads held high. Contrary to what DAF said, I believe Scott Brady got a bit of a chasing but at least he kept trying. The whole back-line was ripped to shreads but of course Cribbin kept looking at the likes of Ross Brady for the whole game(Lonergan was taken off 1st and he wasn't the worst of them)

The forward line was poor outside of McNamee: Dunne was very quiet, Allen had his worst performance in an Offal shirt, Ryan and McManus were poor. Anton was going well until the injury, hopefully his shoulder isn't too bad. Honestly don't know where Offaly go from here.

[DAF]

Disgraceful, especially the second half. Niall Smith(and even he disappeared a little bit) and Niall McNamee are the only ones that can come out of this with their heads held high. Contrary to what DAF said, I believe Scott Brady got a bit of a chasing but at least he kept trying. The whole back-line was ripped to shreads but of course Cribbin kept looking at the likes of Ross Brady for the whole game(Lonergan was taken off 1st and he wasn't the worst of them)

The forward line was poor outside of McNamee: Dunne was very quiet, Allen had his worst performance in an Offal shirt, Ryan and McManus were poor. Anton was going well until the injury, hopefully his shoulder isn't too bad. Honestly don't know where Offaly go from here.

Scott Brady tried and gave his all unlike alot of the others.He may not have played well but he did give his all and you cant fault his effort although as expected he didnt have the pace to keep up but for his committment he comes out witha bit of credit Smith and McNamee were about the only 2 who played well

[townman]

Taxi for Cribbin and quick

[Fullbull]

Dreadfull, dreadfull, dreadfull.

Only positives were Niall Mac, class act as always, Scott Brady battled very well, Niall Smith had his moments.

Cribben hadnt them physically prepared, maybe too much gym work and not enough field based training. Tactically terrible again.

Positioning of some players totally off. Ciaran Mac was very poor today, leave him Midfield and dont be shoving him around the place.
Picking Nigel Dunne didnt work out, he was terrible. An average club footballer. Ross Brady is just terrible, not even an average club footballer. He shouldnt be near a county panel. Darby and Pender were very bad.

I just dont know where they go from here.

Another thing, everybody in the county knows Niall Mac is not a free taker or penalty taker. He is uncomfortable at these, anybody can see that. The lad is a class act and he shouldnt be expected to take these. Will they please let a player who is full of confidence for spotkicks to kick them.

[Bord na Mona man]

The 2nd half meltdown is hard to explain and hard to stomach as well.
There is no use naming names, but across the team too many players gave up the ghost entirely around the time of the 2nd Wexford goal.
Wexford were able to rack the scores up far too easily after that. They looked likely winners from early on, but there is no way the scoreboard should have ended up the way it did.
When the Wexford goalie takes the mick by hanging around the 45 for a while, giving and receiving passes, you know you've been beaten up a stick.

The biggest problem with the Offaly football is a lack of onfield leadership and too many players who seem mentally brittle when it comes to the crunch.
Deep down you know that there aren't many players on the team who are really capable of pulling a tight championship game of out the fire.
Instead of bringing the best out of them, the mistakes and howlers multiply once the squeeze comes on.

An example of Offaly not being clear headed - Within the first 60 seconds when he already blown for 3 fouls, it was clear that the ref was going to penalise anything resembling a hand on the player in possession.
Yet Offaly seem to make no adjustment to how they shadowed or tackled Wexford players. All too often a Wexford player who had run into trouble was bailed out by an Offaly player needlessly touching him on the back. Wexford lead by 1-9 to 6 at the break having only scored maybe 2 of those points from anything resembling a cohesive attack. Most of rest of their scores came with significant assistance from Offaly players.

Unless Offaly pull off some sort of miracle run in the qualifiers, Tom Cribben will be moving on. Blaming him might be convenient, but realistically there is only so much management can do in this situation. You can train, drill and set out tactics all you want. but its far harder to invade a player's head to instil the ability to do the right thing at the right time.

[How ya now]

[quote="Fullbull"]Dreadfull, dreadfull, dreadfull.

Darby and Pender were very bad.



Have to Disagree with ya fullbull think Pender and darby both had decent games .. for the battering offaly took especially pender stood out on the Offaly side

[black and red exile]

Losing matches is a situation that Offaly people are used to over the years and it's part of life as an Offaly supporter but one thing we won't tolerate is fellas throwing in the towel and jacking it in as we witnessed last night when the second goal went in, totally unforgiveable

[darknight]

i thought offalys full back line was the best line we had on the pitch yesterday...

[sean1976]

Last night's defeat for Offaly was biggest margin since Laois beat them 5-11 to 0-4 in Portlaoise on July 6th 1947. im embarased, genuibely believed we would win this one

[offalyman08]

[quote="Fullbull"] Ross Brady is just terrible, not even an average club footballer. He shouldnt be near a county panel. Darby and Pender were very bad. quote]

I agree with the first statement & how he is getting away with it is beyond me... But i don't agree about Pender. I thought he was Offaly's best back. His pace was unbelievable and under the circumstances he done very well in my opinion

[red exile]

an embarassment, is all i can say. to see the wexford keeper passing the ball around on the 40m line in a championship game is unbelievable

[the bare biffo]

The first game I remember seeing Offaly in the flesh was the 1974 Leinster Qtr final against Dublin when an ageing Offaly narrowly lost to what would turn out to be Heffos Army.
Since then I have seen Offaly lose many games some close and some not so close. But holy jebus i never watched anything as bad as that shambles on Saturday evening. It was nothing to do with disappearing in the second half. From the throw in everything Offaly did looked in slow motion compared to Wexford. Poor skills poor decision making no urgency, the only reason we were anyway in touch at half time is that Wexford are no great shakes either. But at least they played with purpose passion and a bleached blond half forward that tore Offaly apart.

I think the players are capable of much more but if this is best Cribben can do for an opening championship tie then he should step down now.

[atomic]

ah lads fair enough brady tried hard but surely that is the minimum expected

[DAF]

ah lads fair enough brady tried hard but surely that is the minimum expected

It was a good deal more than most of the other players.