Offaly Senior Hurling Club Championship 2011

[keenonsport]

Haven't seen Townamn this quiet in a long time!!

[southoffaly]

the big fear birr all this year manifested on sunday , lost this match on the sideline . everyone knew the problems coming in to this match but no planing at all but pure panick came into the way this team was set up ,to start barry whelehan at wing forward was lunacy he kept going back to his natural position of midfield which brady cleaned up on puck outs .why wasnt he started centre forward ,would have given joe b a more torrid time than hayden , would have freed up hayden .when the balance of the team was right in second half hurled coolderry out of it , lucky they werent bet out the gate in the first .they wouldnt give barry more game time in challanges for the last month ,or simon for that matter and birr paid the price on the day for their lack of brains on that sideline .they were obsested with lonergan thinking he was going to make this great hurler and ignored everyone when told otherwise , the lad has done nothing in the last 2 years ,fear for birr now as when you look at it when garry hannify goes reliaing on lonergan , , murphy and bolger that forward line wont break eggs in the future , nothing coming behind . coolderry on the other hand were never going to suffer from that problem and to their credit kept their shape even under extreme pressure and used their heads to win .
kevin brady or damien murray should never have been let go off the county panel and for all the giving out by the coolderry crowd our the last few years about murray he was always one of the best forwards in offaly .

[townman]

Haven't seen Townamn this quiet in a long time!!

first of all keenonsport yes disappointed about sundays defeat but we can hold our heads up after the final whistle
we gave it our all in the second half and if we never win another one i think i never will see our record of 4 club all irelands
and 7 leinster titles over took by a offaly club well which ever club your from i think you and your club are always quiet.


anyway let me say Congratulations to Coolderry on winning a great sporting final played by two great teams and the best team won
Birrs slow start and the starting of Barry Whelehan in midfield plus Coolderrys great forward play in which Birr should have been two
or three goals down at half time was to much to over come.

from a Birr view point as i knew our forward line has been our weak point the last two years and was to be our undoing again on sunday
but great games from Paul Cleary Brian Watkins i read here where some gobshit said he wouldn't make a county half back i don't know
what offaly team he has been watching for the last 7 years anyway also Barry Harding another good showing from him.

Rory Hanniffy never got going untill the last 20 minutes Dylan Hayden and Gary Hanniffy were the best of a poor forward line in which Sean Ryan flop big time
Lonergan won alot of ball after he came on and should have started ahead of Barry Whelehan who had about 20 minutes of championship hurling this year madness.

as for the winners Coolderry well the two Bradys who never let Coolderry down and didn't again on sunday, Trevor Corcoran who proved again this year he is one of
the best fullbacks in offaly, Eoin Ryan what a game after been took off again K/K in the semil well he came good on sunday and this lad proved in college with Roscrea
last year he is one for the future.

Damien Murray great display again but i though Brian Carroll for a county man was not at the races for long parts of sundays game and if Coolderry were to have lost
the finger would point at Ken Hogan as why he left him on for the whole second half as most Coolderry fans were saying standing with his hand on his ....s
there was a number of times he just watched Barry Harding run up the field with the ball maybe he was hurt.....

Coolderry now march on into the club scene in leinster and a date with most likely the Dublin winners in Parnell park in a few weeks time
the thing that i cant get me head around is why Coolderry don't hurl in leinster the way they have in offaly over the years.
i was in Mullingar last year and it went badly wrong that day and they never got going.

if Coolderry hurl like they did last sunday or like last year county final theres not a club team in Dublin that will keep it puck out to them
or they will give who comes out of kilkenny a head ache or two. Coolderry yea have the hurlers to do it the best of luck and go and do it
i hope to get to parnell park to give ye a shout as i had meet many a Coolderry man at Birrs big games down the year best of luck....

[townman]

the big fear birr all this year manifested on sunday , lost this match on the sideline . everyone knew the problems coming in to this match but no planing at all but pure panick came into the way this team was set up ,to start barry whelehan at wing forward was lunacy he kept going back to his natural position of midfield which brady cleaned up on puck outs .why wasnt he started centre forward ,would have given joe b a more torrid time than hayden , would have freed up hayden .when the balance of the team was right in second half hurled coolderry out of it , lucky they werent bet out the gate in the first .they wouldnt give barry more game time in challanges for the last month ,or simon for that matter and birr paid the price on the day for their lack of brains on that sideline .they were obsested with lonergan thinking he was going to make this great hurler and ignored everyone when told otherwise , the lad has done nothing in the last 2 years ,fear for birr now as when you look at it when garry hannify goes reliaing on lonergan , , murphy and bolger that forward line wont break eggs in the future , nothing coming behind . coolderry on the other hand were never going to suffer from that problem and to their credit kept their shape even under extreme pressure and used their heads to win .
kevin brady or damien murray should never have been let go off the county panel and for all the giving out by the coolderry crowd our the last few years about murray he was always one of the best forwards in offaly .

have to say if your a Birrman great man to kick a club when they are down i suppose your the answer to Birrs Problems why didn't you play sunday if you know so much
as for looking for Simon Whelehan to play who at 35 was going to win the county final with two minutes of hurling shows how much you know
you have it in for Bryan Lonergan whats wrong did he take your woman or something.

Birr have gave us a great 22 years or so and alot playing sunday have won the lot you can't win forever, as for Damien Murray who was good sunday and kevin Brady also good
you say should have not been let go off the panel how many chances or times have they played and took off they got many chances just not inter county hurlers.

[southoffaly]

obviously know more than you seen as you live in another county , if you read my piece properly ,barry whelahan looked to play more game time in challanges but the manager refused and then turn around and play him completely out of position on the county final and people are runing him down in the stand .which is the point of simon they should have been thinking ahead and got him more fit ,some of them forwards wouldnt tie the shoe laces of a half fit whelahan . you can be smart arse about lonergan but doesnt hide the fact he cant hurl , if pat joe trained that team sunday he would have got some amount abuse from alot of ye ;
that match townman was lost from the sideline , ya cant win forever but should have won sunday .and the point is god knows when birr will be back in final again
im not runing down birr , those players that brought great glory to birr over those 22 years how many times have they been savaged by people and it has happened a number of times on this website ( johnny pilkington and wheleahns and a few others as examples ) , you have a short memory regarding that .

[townman]

obviously know more than you seen as you live in another county , if you read my piece properly ,barry whelahan looked to play more game time in challanges but the manager refused and then turn around and play him completely out of position on the county final and people are runing him down in the stand .which is the point of simon they should have been thinking ahead and got him more fit ,some of them forwards wouldnt tie the shoe laces of a half fit whelahan . you can be smart arse about lonergan but doesnt hide the fact he cant hurl , if pat joe trained that team sunday he would have got some amount abuse from alot of ye ;
that match townman was lost from the sideline , ya cant win forever but should have won sunday .and the point is god knows when birr will be back in final again
im not runing down birr , those players that brought great glory to birr over those 22 years how many times have they been savaged by people and it has happened a number of times on this website ( johnny pilkington and wheleahns and a few others as examples ) , you have a short memory regarding that .

look southoffaly what has pa joe got to do with it, as for your running down of Bryan Lonergan the last final we won was 2008 who was over them Pa Joe who got the winning
goal yes Lonergan, look you won't get it right on the sideline every year even Pa joe made mistakes like the year he took gary Hanniffy off again tullamore after getting 3 points and Pa Joe took him off in 2009 tullamore came back and won it.

[Long John]

I hope Coolderry have a some of their Management team in Parnell park tonight to check out their potential opponents in Leinster.

O' Tooles face off against St Brigids. Both teams have made alot of progress this year.
Ballyboden face Lucan Sarsfields. Boden chasing a five in a row. Lucan have been at this stage in recent years and now looking to make the breakthrough.

Of the four Boden are the favourites.

Coolderry have to make up for last years poor display against Raharney. They are well capable of beating the Dublin champions but they will have to be up for it.

[beirut]

When are Coolderry out and will it be home or away?

Hopefully they'll give it a good shot now, wasn't at the final but by all accounts seems like it was a good match with little in it, which you would hope will put them in good stead for their Leinster opener.

[Lone Shark]

Far be it from me to get stuck into a hurling debate with contributors who probably see a lot more Birr and Coolderry hurling than I do, however I'm hugely surprised by a couple of the player specific views on this thread.

(1) I think the excessive criticism of Bryan Lonergan is very harsh. He's not a stylish, wristy hurler in the mould of some of the Birr players from years gone by, but I would say that he's still quite effective and his all action style does tend to yield results. He gets on a lot of ball and can finish goals when the opportunities arise. Above all he pressurises opposition defenders - one crucial Birr second half point on Sunday came from him hooking a Coolderry defender on the way out - and he would probably have been very useful in the first half when what little ball was going into the Birr forward line was coming straight out.

(2) I can't see how Seán Ryan was a "huge flop" as Townman puts it, at all. He took one good score, he set up two more with excellent passes, won two frees that were converted and he generally won the vast majority of ball that came his way. The problem was that he got no good ball sent his way at all. For this I would look at players operating in the middle sector of the field for the blame. The standard of ball into the Birr forward line was very poor and they were heavily dependent on winning frees.

(3) Brian Carroll did fade out of the game, but I didn't feel that Barry Harding was that prominent. I thought Brian Watkins was outstanding yet again and he could have been a better option to stay in the half back line, but I thought Carroll generally did a good job of competing for ball that came his way.

With regard to the Whelahans, I won't even begin to speculate on what happened before Sunday in terms of playing time and preparation, but based on what we saw from Barry, he just wasn't ready. He lost two good possessions carrying them into traffic and I never saw any of the sharp, clever hurling that you'd usually expect from him. He is young enough to contribute plenty to the Birr cause yet, but picking him to start on Sunday was a big and costly mistake.


I would certainly agree that overall, the game was lost on the line on Sunday. Birr spent ages getting into the game up front and at midfield, the changes came too late to undo the damage.

Of course none of this takes away from the Coolderry hurlers who delivered an excellent performance and could have won either way, but it's a pity Birr didn't force them to look for another level of performance.

[kinnittyman]

Here's my two cents worth regarding the county final for what its worth-

Firstly, marginally the better team on the day, prevailed. Birr's second half domination wasn't as profound as Coolderry's in the first so on that basis you had to say Coolderry deserved it. Birr's inability to create goal chances killed them and Coolderry should have had two more in the first half only for their usual over-elaboration to prove their undoing.

Birr's full back line was taken to the absloute cleaners in the first half- O'Meara was the scapegoat, Verney could have easily been replaced. Interesting to note that of the four starting corner backs Verney was the only one to last the full game. The poor performances by Corcoran and Kelly will surely worry Ken Hogan.

Eoin Ryan is a great prospect. Under utilised by his fellow forwards on the team.

Barry Whelehan is shipping a lot of undeserved criticism here I feel. Got on a huge amount of ball in the second half and even in the first half when Coolderry were well on top it seemed to be Joe Brady and his two midfielders who were the stand out performers. Kevin Brady won his duel with Rory Hanniffy hands down and those two points must have came as a shock to everyone.

Barry Harding is definitley a county hurler in the making. He absolutley cleaned Brian Carroll in the second half.

Brian Watkins is not a county hurler in the making. His total inability to tackle makes him a liability to any defence. The two frees he gave away in the second half were criminal and were lunges not tackles. Being sticky will go a long way at club level but not at county.

Brian Carrolls days as a county hurler are probably numbered. He contributed practially nothing to Coolderrys knock out game successess.

Going to be hugley interesting to see if Coolderry make an impression in Leinster. They haven't so far (UCD in 04, Raharney last year) but surely winning the second title in a row will be of huge benefit to them going froward. I fear the Dublin team will have too much for them.

[backofthenet]

Just getting around to reading this now.

It was a fantastic win last sunday, it went down to a nail biting finish and Birr really went on the charge for the last 20 minutes of the game and really could have snook it at the end.

There are some people being critical of Brian Carroll, he set up two superb points in the first half and worked hard, he definately faded in the second half but in fairness there was more than him that did that!

We got away with Joe Brady at centre back, he was only out of hospital a few days before the final and when hanniffy ran at him in the second half you could see he was struggling, but finished well catching some great ball. I really feel Birr missed a trick by not running at him earlier as he was naturally struggling for fitness. Hopefully he can recover fully before Coolderrys next outit

Coolderry have bucket loads of forwards. Kevin Connolly took his chance well when he came on & Martin Corcoran will be fighting to keep his place.

There is an awful lot on here talking about Coolderry throwing it away against Raharney last year. The simple fact is Raharney were at home in a tight pitch, They had great support on the day, Coolderry missed about 3-4 gilt edged goal chances in the first half and simply got caught at the end of the game. But One major point that needs to be made is that Raharney are better than a ot of senior club teams in Offaly. There is an awful lot of stereotyping on here about the so called weaker counties, I gurantee you the likes of Ballyboden will be extremely hard to beat if they get to the semi final, dont forget they lost narrowly to birr in the leinster final a few years ago. oolderry will be more up for Leinster this year and beating Birr in a final gave the club a massive boost and hopefully we can kick on from here

[Lone Shark]

..... Martin Corcoran will be fighting to keep his place.

Maybe he will and you'd obviously know better, but my feeling is that he shouldn't be. I though with Coolderry hanging on to a narrow lead and the Birr backs starting to get on top, taking him off made no sense. Eoin Ryan and Brian Carroll had both played their part, but they had faded out and would have been more obvious players to take off for me - at least to bring on someone like Connolly.

If Coolderry pick a forward line with Ryan, Connolly, Carroll, and Murray all starting, I'd call that a little unbalanced. Corcoran isn't exactly Bonner Maher, but you still need someone playing that kind of role.

[backofthenet]

..... Martin Corcoran will be fighting to keep his place.

Maybe he will and you'd obviously know better, but my feeling is that he shouldn't be. I though with Coolderry hanging on to a narrow lead and the Birr backs starting to get on top, taking him off made no sense. Eoin Ryan and Brian Carroll had both played their part, but they had faded out and would have been more obvious players to take off for me - at least to bring on someone like Connolly.

If Coolderry pick a forward line with Ryan, Connolly, Carroll, and Murray all starting, I'd call that a little unbalanced. Corcoran isn't exactly Bonner Maher, but you still need someone playing that kind of role.

Yeah I can see where youre coming from with this argument, but in fairness Connolly works extremely hard on the field as does Ryan & Murray. I think there is a massive difference in the work rate of the forward line since Ken Hogan took over and that has made a huge difference. The one problem with starting Connolly is that you would only have one player over 6 ft in Cathal Parlon and that could pose a serious problem up against a more physically agressive team on a tight pitch ala Raharney last year.

[Plain of the Herbs]

It's all down to Coolderry. I was wondering what would happen in the wake of them winning two in a row. The last time they retained the title (1963) JFK was shot.
Someone shudda warned Ghaddafi . . .

[tacmot]

Hey POTH sssshhh, alot of lads 'nearly' got shot in coolderry in the years since 1
1963 when they didnt win the chqampionship.
Just on another topic that was on the boards last weekend re "why coolderry got a walkover in the 1961 co final, a story i was told was that earlier that year coolderry were to play "the sash" in the league final, Coolderry looked for a postponment but wasnt granted by drumcullen. therefore when the oppisite was requested by drumcullen for the co final, due to injuries in their camp, Coolderry refused to allow it. NO love lost between them two teams then and now.