Offaly v Longford National League 5th February 2012

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Summer in Dublin, thats a little over the top, but I agree on some fronts.
1) We have a number of young players making their debuts, Anton coming back from a long lay off, and also a new management
2) Longford are a 4 years into a management team, and have a cohesive structure in the background, we dont have a structure.

What we need is to give these lads some time, and look also to next year. When we exit the championship and lets face it, it could be fairly early, then a plan must be put in place to give this panel a programme to work on, plus the management will have a real chance to look at players in our club championship, and add a few more to this programme.
Our real concern in this county is the lack of options of physically strong 24 to 26 year olds on the club scene who can come in and add to the squad. Similarly we have too many lads who if they dont make it when they are young are lost to county level.
Our club champioship is too dragged out, with not enough core and physical work being done to provide players with the right physique to come into county football, and there are too many journey men coaches out there who are not coaching or developing players in clubs in order to improve standards.
Our schools are improving, but the adult club scene is really bad.

The answer is not more senior teams in the county, but a template to follow in order to improve the fitness levels across the board, and to rise standards overall. There are very few minor club teams in the county being introduced to a proper weights training programme to help them develop, and this needs to be done, it is being done across the board in Dublin, and many other counties.
I know weights alone are not the solution, but without it our players wont have the power to compete at intercounty, as it is often too late to develop properly after the teen years.

Ultimately when you look at it, we have not had a decent free taker, full back line, centre forward in years. We need to identify and develop players for positions and thats why this management team need to be given time to focus on this, and encouraged down this route.

[summerindublin]

) We have a number of young players making their debuts, Anton coming back from a long lay off, and also a new management
2) Longford are a 4 years into a management team, and have a cohesive structure in the background, we dont have a structure.

don't agree with this at all, what the hell have we been doing for the last 4 years, the one thing you expect from any management team is that the team you put on the field are fit, other teams have young inexperienced players, look at Tyrone, Kerry, Galway, we can't be blaming the same thing year in year out, new management me arse, you have a manager who goes off to Asia or some place like that when you are playing your first games, what we need is 'bachbone' and not many have that at present in Offaly football or management. We are a laughing stock at present having to watch the historical channels for the last time we saw a decent Offaly side.

[Lone Shark]

Loneshark, who do you propose at midfield then? In fairness to Smith, he is a great fielder and breaker of the ball, and is also a fela that needs games to improve.

Just to pick up on this, I guess I'm using a betting way of thinking here and people are misunderstanding me. Richie Dalton is our most likely player to start at midfield, and Niall Smith is the next most likely option after that. However that doesn't mean that he has a 70% chance or better. Brian Hanamy is an option, Stephen Guing is an option and that's before you think about doing something like playing a forager/workhorse in that sector, somebody like Aidan Keenaghan or Derek Kelly. That's also before you allow for the possibility of a recall for someone like Brian Connor.

My point was not that it's impossible to pick potential starters in any of the spinal positions - it's that with the exception of Dalton, I wouldn't predict any of them with confidence.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

As I said, I agree to a degree with you Summer in dublin, we should be fitter starting off the year, but as I pointed out we have a deficit in training levels right across the spectrum. A lot of the lads that played on Sunday were not on the panel last year, the manager was leaving anyway, so there was no plan in place over the winter,( no need to explain to you the debacle over hiring a new manager?). Also in fairness to him, he had his plans in place to travel, (he aint gettin McGeaney type money).
You also use the comparison with new young players coming in to teams like Tyrone, Dublin , Kerry, hardly like with like?

Lets get real here, we have a serious issue with lads coming back in january in brutal shape, (we were a laughing stock this time last year in both the hurling and football as regards fitness levels). Its the same in many club teams, there is just not the same work ethic to keep in shape that there is in many counties.
We are in the bottom 6 or 7 at the moment. Accept it and move on, things can only get better, and hopefully the u21s can get the ball rolling, and lets wait a few weeks and see how Cooney gets on. We are hardly in a position to start criticising already? He has done what many of us has said he should do and cleared out the guys who have seen better days, plus the guys who are not fully committed. He is starting from scratch and I for one am not too surprised at what happened yesterday, but it will get better, I am fairly sure of that.

As regards midfield, you may have a point Loneshark, but I would like to see Smith in there, when he plays well he has a lot too offer. I think a half forward line that wins the breaks that these 2 together could deliver, works hard and deliver top quality ball into Mullhall, Nialler, and prob B Allen could get us a lot of success. We will need these 2 guys against Kildare I think come June!

[GreatDayForTheParish]

Granted, I'm by no means as familiar with the football scene as others on this board but the instability of the Senior Football team has been baffling for some time now. And just before I start this is by no means a criticism of the current management who are far too early into their brief to be judged, rather it is a general opinion of the state of flux that currently exists in Offaly football.

The team that took to the field yesterday, I have no issue with. Rather it was the acceptance of it and it's difference to last year's championship teams I found remarkable. For right or for wrong, the sheer volume of personell that have have been tried in the Offaly jersey in recent years must be nothing short of astonishing. And worst of all? It all seems to have been for nothing as neither management or fans seem to have a clue as to what the best starting 15 is or who should man key positions. Just from gauging the responses on this board, I would imagine that only Sean Pender at corner back, Anton Sullivan at wing forward and Niall McNamee at corner forward are the only three players that can be said will certainly start in those positions come summer. After that, it's a complete free for all with no semblance of even the slightest consensus as to who should man any of the remaining positions. It truly is an incredible situation to be in.

Contrast this with the hurlers who also have a new management yet have a relatively stable panel. Completely unscientifically, I'd guess that at least 90% of hurling supporters could agree on at least 10 hurlers to comprise the starting 15. The remaining disagreement is only natural and to be welcomed.

Anybody care to shed any light on the reasons for this lack of stability?

[manfromdelmonte]

any thoughts on the next game?

Roscommon would be there for the taking imho
no St Brigids players and missing a few others through injury.

[bracknaghboy]

any thoughts on the next game?

Roscommon would be there for the taking imho
no St Brigids players and missing a few others through injury.

I'd say only Kilkenny would be "there for the taking" at the moment! In terms of Leinster we are probably down at the bottiom with Carlow. I'd say Offaly will be hoping to be competitive and Roscommon will travel fully expecting to collect the points. Shine and Heneghan are playing with them so theres 2 recognised scorers verses our 0 scorers. If Niall Mc is back then that'll even things up a bit, assuming he is physically and mentally focussed on it. We need to be realistic here lads, the standard of our senior championship is fairly dire. There simply isn't many standout players on show. The fact that its dragged out over 7 months and the vast majority of the group games are utterly points is making matters worse. In terms of the county team theres no magic wand going to turn things around and at this stage avoiding a double digit hammering by Kildare is the best we can hope for.

[clubman]

have to agree with bracknaghboy we are way down in the pecking order,no point in making excuses were just not good enough. watched the game yesterday and honestly cant see much improvement even with niall mac comming back. alan mullhall is not our answere full forward ,he should be in goals,new man brian in midfeild is to slow,problem in the back ,not enough scoring forwards,too many problems to be fixed.will be luckly to stay in division 3. hope im wrong but not holding my breath.

[Lone Shark]

On next week, if we fail to beat Roscommon we can hang our hat at it. They are the most over-rated county in Ireland and unlike Westmeath, who are whinging about missing Garrycastle players even though their only two Garrycastle starters would be James Dolan and Doran Harte who are ordinary enough at county level, Roscommon will be missing their best defender (Domican) their best forward (Kilbride) and several others.

I know we were stone cold useless in Longford, but there was a degree of bad day against a good, well prepared and settled team. That will be a wake up call for a lot of Offaly players. Roscommon are the only team in the league as unsettled as we are, and though they have a few nice players still there - I've great time for Cregg in particular - at home and with so much on the line, we need to win. Win, and we have maybe a 50/50 chance of avoiding the drop. Lose, and we are long odds on to go down.

Just to pick up on a few points from recent posts:

new man brian in midfeild is to slow

Funnily enough you look at him and you think he looks slow - but on two separate occasions yesterday I saw him outpace a guy to get in and win a ball. He's not a speedster by any stretch of the imagination, but he's not slow. The fact is that based on yesterday alone, I thought he contributed much more than Smith. Granted that's one day, and Smith has real track record at county level.

the standard of our senior championship is fairly dire. There simply isn't many standout players on show.

I disagree with this. Our senior championship is poor when compared with Kerry's or Dublin's, but in terms of small counties, it's pretty good. Our county champions are always competitive, we've had four different winners in five years, and there usually aren't too many hidings. I agree that the current structure is poor and leads to a lot of low quality group games, but that's a fact of life when you play round robin groups. It's unavoidable, and nobody wants straight knockout any more. In terms of players, we have plenty of good players at club level. The problem is that too few of them play county year in year out and push themselves on. Being a good club player is seen as good enough.

Anybody care to shed any light on the reasons for this lack of stability?

Everyone would have a different view on this, but here is mine, and I'm aware that I run the risk of controversy here.

Generally speaking, the Offaly county board do their best to promote both sports, albeit we all have our own views on things that could be done differently. However as a rule, it's widely accepted that those in charge have the right motivation. Certainly I know for a fact that even though our chairman is from a hurling club, he supports both codes equally and was there in Longford on Sunday. However outside, the perception is that the hurlers are the priority and that football is the secondary sport. Some will disagree with me on this, but I've heard it from a good few places, and it stems from a few things: (1) At management level, we are perceived as spending big money on hurling management but not on football. Think of the respective profile of our current managers for example. Think of the widely held view of the previous guys - that one guy was drawing huge money, while the other was subsidising the job and going out of pocket to do it. Now there's more to that than meets the eye, but that's how it was seen. (2) How often was there disquiet in the football camp, with players complaining of being mistreated? It seems like every few years there was unrest. Granted some of the players did not come across in a good light, but equally people wonder - surely there must be fire somewhere to cause the smoke? (3) Again this is very much perception, but the main positions on the management committee are perceived to be dominated by hurling clubs. Even look at the people from dual clubs - Andy Gallagher was known as a man who hurled for the county and with distinction for Tullamore, Tommy Byrne is at the forefront of driving hurling in Gracefield, while Padraig Boland is connected by marriage to the Dooley family. I stress here that these two individuals and all others do their best for Offaly in both sports, but this is not about the truth, it's about the perception, and that's how it is seen by many, both within and outside the county.

Where this manifests itself is that playing for Offaly in hurling is seen as a relatively big deal, while playing for Offaly in football isn't. For the last few years, there have been plenty of players that have turned down the option to come into the panel, as many as a dozen every year. The hurlers rarely have more than one or two who pass up the chance, and so we have a vicious circle. A call up to the somewhat settled hurling panel is an honour, a call up to the football panel often means that five lads before you have said no thanks. Hence you have the chopping and changing of the panel. By my reckoning, seven of last Sunday's starting fifteen have either made themselves unavailable or walked off an Offaly senior panel at some point. Often for good reasons, but that's still the truth. So when lads are coming and going like that, what chance have you of continuity?

[townman]

On next week, if we fail to beat Roscommon we can hang our hat at it. They are the most over-rated county in Ireland and unlike Westmeath, who are whinging about missing Garrycastle players even though their only two Garrycastle starters would be James Dolan and Doran Harte who are ordinary enough at county level, Roscommon will be missing their best defender (Domican) their best forward (Kilbride) and several others.

I know we were stone cold useless in Longford, but there was a degree of bad day against a good, well prepared and settled team. That will be a wake up call for a lot of Offaly players. Roscommon are the only team in the league as unsettled as we are, and though they have a few nice players still there - I've great time for Cregg in particular - at home and with so much on the line, we need to win. Win, and we have maybe a 50/50 chance of avoiding the drop. Lose, and we are long odds on to go down.

Just to pick up on a few points from recent posts:

new man brian in midfeild is to slow

Funnily enough you look at him and you think he looks slow - but on two separate occasions yesterday I saw him outpace a guy to get in and win a ball. He's not a speedster by any stretch of the imagination, but he's not slow. The fact is that based on yesterday alone, I thought he contributed much more than Smith. Granted that's one day, and Smith has real track record at county level.

the standard of our senior championship is fairly dire. There simply isn't many standout players on show.

I disagree with this. Our senior championship is poor when compared with Kerry's or Dublin's, but in terms of small counties, it's pretty good. Our county champions are always competitive, we've had four different winners in five years, and there usually aren't too many hidings. I agree that the current structure is poor and leads to a lot of low quality group games, but that's a fact of life when you play round robin groups. It's unavoidable, and nobody wants straight knockout any more. In terms of players, we have plenty of good players at club level. The problem is that too few of them play county year in year out and push themselves on. Being a good club player is seen as good enough.

Anybody care to shed any light on the reasons for this lack of stability?

Everyone would have a different view on this, but here is mine, and I'm aware that I run the risk of controversy here.

Generally speaking, the Offaly county board do their best to promote both sports, albeit we all have our own views on things that could be done differently. However as a rule, it's widely accepted that those in charge have the right motivation. Certainly I know for a fact that even though our chairman is from a hurling club, he supports both codes equally and was there in Longford on Sunday. However outside, the perception is that the hurlers are the priority and that football is the secondary sport. Some will disagree with me on this, but I've heard it from a good few places, and it stems from a few things: (1) At management level, we are perceived as spending big money on hurling management but not on football. Think of the respective profile of our current managers for example. Think of the widely held view of the previous guys - that one guy was drawing huge money, while the other was subsidising the job and going out of pocket to do it. Now there's more to that than meets the eye, but that's how it was seen. (2) How often was there disquiet in the football camp, with players complaining of being mistreated? It seems like every few years there was unrest. Granted some of the players did not come across in a good light, but equally people wonder - surely there must be fire somewhere to cause the smoke? (3) Again this is very much perception, but the main positions on the management committee are perceived to be dominated by hurling clubs. Even look at the people from dual clubs - Andy Gallagher was known as a man who hurled for the county and with distinction for Tullamore, Tommy Byrne is at the forefront of driving hurling in Gracefield, while Padraig Boland is connected by marriage to the Dooley family. I stress here that these two individuals and all others do their best for Offaly in both sports, but this is not about the truth, it's about the perception, and that's how it is seen by many, both within and outside the county.

Where this manifests itself is that playing for Offaly in hurling is seen as a relatively big deal, while playing for Offaly in football isn't. For the last few years, there have been plenty of players that have turned down the option to come into the panel, as many as a dozen every year. The hurlers rarely have more than one or two who pass up the chance, and so we have a vicious circle. A call up to the somewhat settled hurling panel is an honour, a call up to the football panel often means that five lads before you have said no thanks. Hence you have the chopping and changing of the panel. By my reckoning, seven of last Sunday's starting fifteen have either made themselves unavailable or walked off an Offaly senior panel at some point. Often for good reasons, but that's still the truth. So when lads are coming and going like that, what chance have you of continuity?

Roscommon are a better run football county than offaly loan shark they have won minor all irelands and good underage teams for the last few years, they also won the
connacht final in 210 and unlucky to lose in 2011 plus they have a good record again offaly down through the year's.

so if they should hang there hat on it as you said if they can't beat Roscommon i think it should be hung up already when longford give you fair bad beating
Roscommon will well should come out of division 3 this year they had a good win over tipp last sunday a team offaly have struggle to beat over the year's.

[Lone Shark]

Roscommon are a better run football county than offaly loan shark they have won minor all irelands and good underage teams for the last few years, they also won the
connacht final in 210 and unlucky to lose in 2011 plus they have a good record again offaly down through the year's.

so if they should hang there hat on it as you said if they can't beat Roscommon i think it should be hung up already when longford give you fair bad beating
Roscommon will well should come out of division 3 this year they had a good win over tipp last sunday a team offaly have struggle to beat over the year's.

They won one minor All Ireland, not All Irelands plural, and that's six years ago now. Yes they got to two Connacht finals, but they key is in the word Connacht. Ros got to the last eight and last twelve of the All Ireland in the last two years - but in all that time, the only non-Division Four county they beat in league and championship was Sligo. They've been handed ridiculously soft runs, and that alone is why they went so far in the championship.

I know Roscommon football quite well and trust me, without the Brigids players, they are by far the most beatable opponents we'll play all year. I'm not saying it'll be a cakewalk - far from it, we are underdogs with the bookies and rightly so. Sunday's was the worst performance by any team in a division 3 league match for about four years, since our debacle against the Rossies in Kiltoom that precipitated the heave against Richie Connor. But if we can't beat these, we've no chance of beating anyone else. Even if we do beat them, we still have our work cut out for us to avoid relegation, but we need to take that step to give ourselves a chance.

[townman]

i see your point loneshark but lets be honest offaly football as Kevin McStay would say is in a dark place at the moment
and Rossies will have no fear coming to tullamore much will depend if offaly can get Niall Mac back and in form .

wasn't at the game last sunday but i think offaly might have missed Richie Dalton say what you like about him but he is offaly
footballer of the year 2011 he might not get on Kerry or Dublins first 15 but he is as good as whats in offaly at this moment.

hope your right and they get a result against Roscommon but they need a lot to go right for them and a few players to step to to the mark
on sunday. it will be a derby for our friends down Shannonbridge way

[kingscounty]

any thoughts on the next game?

Roscommon would be there for the taking imho
no St Brigids players and missing a few others through injury.

I'd say only Kilkenny would be "there for the taking" at the moment! In terms of Leinster we are probably down at the bottiom with Carlow. I'd say Offaly will be hoping to be competitive and Roscommon will travel fully expecting to collect the points. Shine and Heneghan are playing with them so theres 2 recognised scorers verses our 0 scorers. If Niall Mc is back then that'll even things up a bit, assuming he is physically and mentally focussed on it. We need to be realistic here lads, the standard of our senior championship is fairly dire. There simply isn't many standout players on show. The fact that its dragged out over 7 months and the vast majority of the group games are utterly points is making matters worse. In terms of the county team theres no magic wand going to turn things around and at this stage avoiding a double digit hammering by Kildare is the best we can hope for.

i have to agree with bracknaghboy the senior club football chamionship is very poor in offaly. edenderry won it last year and fair play to them but along the way they lost to erin rovers,rhode, beat tullamores second team by a point and got it hard to beat tubber. in the good old days of the knock out championship if you lost one thats it, now you can be bet in 3 or 4 games and still end up in a quarter final. take the group this year that has 5 teams , win one game and your nearly in a quarter final that to me is just stupid. we dont have the quality of footballer we used to have, claffey,brady,cullen,weir,daly,kenny,mcmanus to name but a few from the last team that we had that won a leinster. midfield is a big problem for us right now, we miss the likes of the 2 grennans ,hard men that could also play ball. the club championship was way ahead of what it is now back in the 90s early 00s, clara,ferbane,edenderry,rhode,tullamore and the rest were all in with a shout of winning the championship , now really rhode top the bill with clara and once in a blue moon a team will come along and sneak one in between. if naill mc gets back to full health then its hard to look past rhode for the championship again this year. kildare v offaly was always a game that stirred the pot but unless something major happens between now and then it will be a one sided affair.

[bracknaghboy]

Just to pick up on a few points from recent posts:

the standard of our senior championship is fairly dire. There simply isn't many standout players on show.

I agree that the current structure is poor and leads to a lot of low quality group games, but that's a fact of life when you play round robin groups. It's unavoidable, and nobody wants straight knockout any more.

"Its unavoidable" Is it? Surely 3 groups of 4 is better. Let the top team in each group go straight into the semis and let the 3 second place teams play for the remaining semi final spot (Perhaps the 2nd place team with the most points and or best scoring difference would go into a 1/4 final and await the winner of the other 2 second placed teams). When I say the championship is dire I mean the standard of games themselves. The majority of games are meaningless and lads simply are not pushing themselves to the limit as they should be. As a conseqence generally nobody really stands out. God help us with the 5 team group this year and 4 teams coming out of it, can't see too many being arsed to go out of their way to attend these games. Intensity at senior club level is the key to seeing who may be up to the intercounty task and intensity is the key to keeping the current county panalists as sharp as possible. Guess what the Offaly championship lacks? Yes you've guessed it.......INTENSITY. This intensity cannot be acheived over a 7 month championship where the vast majority of games are all but meaningless.

[Thereorthereabouts]

Totally new structure for championship...........

2 random open rounds ---- all twelve teams involved....

Base it on a league format then....

After two random (no seeding) games, the bottom team is outed out of the championship based on wins / score difference.
That leaves 11 teams...

Top team gets a bye.

Team 2 v Team 11
Team 3 v Team 10

The team on the bottom with lowest points / scoring difference is out.

Team 1 is now back in and the average winning margin is added to their total points difference.
Alternatively they automatically remain top of the league on same points as Team 2.....

And the 3rd round starts ---- Team 1 v Team 10......

Then it plays down all the way to the quarter / semi final stage...

It means an 11 week competition but each game is vital and even each point scored for / against is crucial...

Would make exciting games and a lot of text messaging between games and at the end of games to see who is still in.
Downside would be that games would have to be played off at the same time.... (and probably many more)

Just a thought to try and intensify all games from number 1 to the final....