You seriously think "showing ambition and matching it with application to fulfill their potential" is the solution to all of our problems? Jeez why didn't anybody else think of this?jimbob17 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 31, 2023 8:25 pmCouldnt disagree anymore with this sentiment. This isn't about management or their success. This is about players showing ambition and matching it with application to fulfill their potential. It hasnt been happening. Way too many stories of players drinking and 'inappropriately preparing' for way too long.Anonymous1 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 31, 2023 5:54 pmWeren't we in the top 4 in Leinster last year and a kick of a ball from being in the top two?Bord na Mona man wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 7:29 pm Fully agree with Jimbob. There have been lots of years in the last 15 years where Offaly have been in the top 3 or 4 teams in Leinster at minor and U20/21.
Dublin are the only county significantly better than us in that time. Kildare and Meath a fraction better, but always beatable by a strong Offaly team.
Leix, Louth, Westmeath, Longford, Carlow, Wexford, Wicklow etc have produced less than Offaly at underage in that era.
Yet at senior level these are all counties that we play against with very little confidence and are delighted to scrape any sort of win.
Didn't we beat Meath en route to that top 4?
Didn't we get out of division 3 in 2021, come within a whisker of staying in division 2 in 2022 and go into the final day last year with a chance of promotion?
It's not like we've been a million miles away from what ye have been describing, those results at senior fairly match what was achieved by those same groups of players at underage.
That's our level, a top half division 3 team that may or may not win a game or two in Leinster in a given year depending on the draw.
To suggest that we've been vastly underachieving our talent pool is patently false and the truth is that a lot of stalwarts from this group of players have brought us as far as they can go. To think that rehashing the same players with a handful of U20s thrown in is going to have us competing to win Leinster and a solid division 2 team is nonsense.
What's needed is a route and branch clear out with only the best players from past panels kept on and an injection of young players. Sure there'll be short term pain and we may even face the prospect of relegation this coming year but to continue flogging the same 15-20 players is to repeat the same mistakes of the past. It's nothing short of a sticking plaster that never leads us where we want to go while simultaneously denying young players game time, having them lose interest and ultimately give up. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
And in order for this to succeed, Kelly needs to be giving assurance that regardless of results this year, the county will stick by him to see this project out.
The truth is we can't get much worse than we have been for the last 20 years but we can get a hell of a lot better.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
In Div 2, we drew with a poor Meath team by their standards and beat a weak Down team that was short any amount of players and who were well beaten in all of their games. Most of the other games, apart from maybe Cork, we were not competitive. Granted, we got there but we should not be getting hammered by likes of Roscommon and Clare. Derry were the best team in it to be fair going as they did afterwards.
Short term pain for long term gain as far as I am concerned is absolute horsesh*t. You pick your best team now for now. To win now. Why would we be waiting for U20s to come through? They are 23 next year. We shouldnt be waiting. Like we said before, they are not the only group that showed promise. We have had plenty of teams over last 10 years and all we need is the best 3 or 4 players from each team to form a really strong panel. We shouldnt be clearing out lads for sake of it. Hogan took while to adjust to senior but is now one of our key defenders and captain last year. Anton Sullivan, Peter Cunningham, Eoin Rigney, Dylan Hyland, Jordan Hayes, David Dempsey, Bernard Allen, Ruairi McNamee, Ian Duffy, Cian Farrell and possibly couple more, are all in the 25 - 31 age bracket and in their prime. They are 10 or 11 lads that will likely contribute 8 or so to start on a given day. Flood in a few 20 - 25 year olds and sure thats our best 15. 2 of them in Pearson and Ruairi Egan are also surely part of a starting 15, all things being right. A number of the All Ireland U20 team will never be good enough for senior football no matter how long you wait or talk about them - that is a simple fact. Some have gone off the boil already due to unhelpful extra curricular activities. That success was of its time and it was great but lets have some perspective here - it was an age grade team that happened to win. When other counties win these things (Down Derry Dublin Kildare for example), only a couple from each make it up to senior grade. How many have Roscommon brought up to senior may I ask. I don't know but Id imagine no more than 6 or 7 to the senior panel at the most. Why should we be any different.
Some of those older lads listed above were also prodigious at underage too and are possibly more talented than most of that U20 team. I'll be honest, the best of that U20 All Ireland winning team, excluding Ruairi Egan, Cathal Donoghue and Pearson were probably the minor lads who are still U20 in 2023 and they'd have won nothing without likes of Cormac Egan, John Furlong, Keith O Neill and one or two more coming into the team after minors were beaten.
There is also a core of lads at 23-25 or so also that Kelly would have had at U20 level in previous years that may also be as good or better than some of the U20 winning team - thinking of lads like Jack O'Brien and Shane Tierney who both played in a Sigerson final only 2 years ago and have since featured at senior level for the county. There are others too in this age cohort I cant just think of at the minute.
For too long, various managers threw out the baby with the bathwater and tried to start from scratch. It failed every time, going one step forwards and two steps backwards. We cant keep making the same mistakes as you are suggesting and rehashing and blending in the best young players with some experienced and physically imposing seniors is exactly what we need. There is a level of strength and fitness needed that most of that U20 team are not even close to from what I saw in club championship. Will they ever get there? I don't know to be honest but they need to apply themselves and most havent been doing it or showing it at club level.
In fact, I struggle to see any of that U20 team that stood out in club senior championship since, aside from John Furlong this year and possibly Pearson and Egan in other years. We need to firstly know our best 25 or 30 players at senior level and then use our best 20 consistently in an organised set up. I'd be confident Kelly knows the lads to pick and the ones to leave at home from the older experienced group. And if he does, and the players apply themselves as a squad (when they havent in the past to level required), then we will make progress.
To suggest that top of Div 3 is our level is simply showing a gross lack of ambition and makes excuses for lads before we even start. If likes of Louth, Limerick Roscommon, Clare and Monaghan .can go and further themselves at a higher level by simply buying into a process of application and improvement with less or similar levels of talent, then so should we expect more from our players. To even countenance relegation as means of short term gain is absolutely ridiculous and taking the mickey in my opinion. I think and hope at least that Kelly and his management team would also be of the same opinion.
The players are in Offaly to compete at least mid div 2. The very least we should be in Div 3 is top 4 in my opinion. To be fair we've been doing that to large degree for last 2 or 3 years (under Maughan's last 2 years) when there were significant issues that went mostly unreported and brushed under the carpet and also with Kearns in what was a decent league display - so top 4 is just break even point as far as i'd be concerned.
So to the players and followers, the groundwork and base of underage success has never been as rich in the last 20 years. We have had a good base of S&C through underage programmes through Dave Hare and his replacements over last 10 years so that base has been mostly covered! So its time to stop making excuses and go and maximise the capability of senior team. You only get so long in that jersey and deselection and injury may only be just around the corner for some, so its in your interest to give it everything and see where it goes.
I'm quietly confident that if this happens that we will be in for a good couple of years ahead and much needed progress will be made at senior level.
I don't know of any player in recent times who has been drinking, that seems like a rather lazy attempt at having a pop at the team.
In Div 2, Meath needed a last second hail mary goal to steal a draw against us and we had a brilliant win up in Newry while we led Cork by 2 points deep into injury time on the final day.
"We should not be getting hammered by the likes of Roscommon and Clare" Two teams that have been consistently in DIv 2 and even in and out of Div 1 and have made All Ireland QF's? I don't know where your arrogance is coming from but Offaly haven't been on that level for 20 years.
"You pick your best team now for now. To win now." Haven't we been doing exactly this for the past number of years? How's that worked out? "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"
Who said we should be waiting for U20's to come through? We need to start blooding them right now or as I said they'll lose interest and throw in the towel, it's happened too often in the past, we can all name players who should've, could've or would've been good players for us but were held back and then we never hear of them again. We have a once in a generation group of players and if we let them go to waste we'll be down in Division 4 for the foreseeable future.
You named 10 of our best players there, we need every one of them but it's the other 20 spots on the panel that shouldn't be going to lads who've already had two or three chances under previous managers and either fallen out or walked away nor should they be going to lads who are just happy to be there to make up the numbers. We need to give as many young players as possible the chance and they'll either sink or swim on their merits but blocking their development has been proven to be a losing strategy.
I agree a number of the U20 All Ireland won't be good enough to make it but how on earth are we supposed to tell which ones will and which ones won't if they don't get given a chance?
Could you clarify who and what you mean by "extra curricular activities" Again this seems like you're having an unnecessary pop at players.
Roscommon have brought a good few more of their 2021 U20s through than we have and that was into a team with a lot more talent at their disposal than we have.
I don't think there are that many in the 23-25 age group but that's exactly my point, why should we give those a second or third crack at the whip instead of a first chance to an All Ireland winner?
"For too long, various managers threw out the baby with the bathwater and tried to start from scratch." Name me one manager who did that?
"Rehashing and blending in the best young players with some experienced and physically imposing seniors" This is precisely what I'm advocating for.
"We need to firstly know our best 25 or 30 players at senior level", why do you think it is that we don't know our best 25 or 30? Hardly because we haven't seen most of the younger ones play yet? You've totally contradicted yourself there.
"I'd be confident Kelly knows the lads to pick and the ones to leave at home" I'd be confident he doesn't have a clue until he sees them in action at a level they've not played at before and with teammates they've never played with before.
"To suggest that top of Div 3 is our level is simply showing a gross lack of ambition and makes excuses for lads before we even start." Actually it's a dose of reality given we've only been higher for a brief period in the last 20 years and have been a lot lower... To say the likes of Monaghan have less or similar levels of talent than Offaly is laughable, when was the last time we made an All Ireland semi final?
On the one hand you're saying we've not been good enough in recent years and on the other you're advocating for us to keep the exact same players but just "buy into the process" and that'll deliver us to Division 1 and All Ireland semis? Give me a break.
"To even countenance relegation as means of short term gain is absolutely ridiculous" Kelly himself has said Division 3 will be a dogfight and if one or two results go against them they could be in relegation and that's the same way it's been for a number of years and I'm not sure why you think we have some sort of divine right not to be in a relegation scrap?
"Under Maughan's last 2 years when there were significant issues that went mostly unreported and brushed under the carpet" What exactly were those?
"The groundwork and base of underage success has never been as rich in the last 20 years." One minute most of the U20's aren't good enough and the next we have the richest underage we've had in 20 years? Your views change quicker than the weather. I'd argue the 20 years before this 20 were better and the 20 before that even better again.
I'm quietly confident that if this happens that we will be in for a good couple of years ahead and much needed progress will be made at senior level.
