Wexford v Offaly NHL 11.03.2012

[Bord na Mona man]

Talk about throwing it away!
That said, maybe an 8 or 9 point for Offaly win would have been dangerous.
Putting Wexford away next June in Tullamore is all that counts. This should help focus the minds.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Fair point BNM, but this team would have really laid down a marker against Wexford, and show we are ready to move on to the next level. I think its a run of results that these lads need to bring them on. Antrim next is vital and two tough games, away to Limerick and home to Clare.
If this a a lesson well and good, if it festers in the mind of players and kills the momentum from the performance, which for 63 mins appeared to be very good.
We are conceding huge scores now against all teams and this needs to be addressed as we seem to have good backs, but the system is not working.
Will leave to more knowledgeable hurling people to debate the ins and outs of why?

[Deadandgone]

Our mid field needs to work harder along with half foward line. Even v laois they were able to get points un contested around 50 r 60 yards out. Need to work on this.

[Bord na Mona man]

Some Wexford views on the game:

http://www.thefreekick.com/board/topic/ ... ntry598940

[uibhfhailiabu]

Some Wexford views on the game:

http://www.thefreekick.com/board/topic/ ... ntry598940

I won't be lowering myself to look at their views anymore!

Couldn't believe we managed to throw away the game today although at least we are still in promotion shake up. Although I fully agree with BNM - the important thing is making sure we beat them in OCP in June. Hopefully we can bounce back with a win against Antrim next weekend, certainly won't be an easy task though.

[Over The Black Spot]

Pity we couldn't hang on for the win yesterday as we done all the good hurling and looked more of a team with a plan. A win in Wexford Park would also have been very welcome as, yesterday proved, they're never easily gotten. As BnM says, this will be quickly forgotten if the championship result is right so here's hoping.

[My Left Foot]

was following the aertel scores all the way through and stopped checking with 10 minutes left as we were so far ahead
perhaps symptomatic of what actually happened.

I will in future constantly check until 5 minutes after the final whistle to ensure victory !

Fair play to Wexford - they never give in to us so we have to remember this ( yet again ) harsh lesson.They are doing to us what we used to do to them in the 80's and nineties so its up to our current team to make sure we win this summer and stop the rot.

From comments of attendees it sounds like we have a lot of tightening up to do around the middle third

Comments on other link mentioned earlier a disgrace - theres always one !

[llkj]

What a horrible contribution from the one guy on the Wexford discussion forum. I would like to think that if anyone came on here and used language like that, they would either be removed or have at least someone stand up to him and ask him to stop posting such things. It kinds of taints a lot of his other comments.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Some disgraceful stuff on there alright. I have never liked them much to be honest, will be vengence sworn on them for June! Sad reality is though that there may be more of them than us at it!

Seems like we could have really put them to the sword, and we should have. Game away v Limerick is now vital!

[Bord na Mona man]

Ha ha, I knew those comments would rile a few people. I doubt the sentiments are representative of the more moderate Wexford GAA fan.

That said, purely on my own random or unlucky experiences, I've found the Wexford support base seems to have a slightly larger primate per capita ratio than the average GAA county. Obviously every county has a sprinkling of them and they embarrass the genuine supporter.

[bracknaghboy]

That said, maybe an 8 or 9 point for Offaly win would have been dangerous.
Putting Wexford away next June in Tullamore is all that counts. This should help focus the minds.

So I guess it'll be best if Antrim, Limerick and Clare all beat us as well so it will focus the lads minds should we meet any of them in the qualifiers?

[Bord na Mona man]

That said, maybe an 8 or 9 point for Offaly win would have been dangerous.
Putting Wexford away next June in Tullamore is all that counts. This should help focus the minds.

So I guess it'll be best if Antrim, Limerick and Clare all beat us as well so it will focus the lads minds should we meet any of them in the qualifiers?

Not really. Which would you rather have?
An Offaly team going to play in championship mistakenly thinking they might be 8 or 9 points better than Wexford, or an Offaly team thinking that Wexford need to be ruthlessly put away and not given a sniff.
Which manager has the stronger hand to play after yesterday, Liam Dunne, or Ollie Baker?

[bracknaghboy]

That said, maybe an 8 or 9 point for Offaly win would have been dangerous.
Putting Wexford away next June in Tullamore is all that counts. This should help focus the minds.

So I guess it'll be best if Antrim, Limerick and Clare all beat us as well so it will focus the lads minds should we meet any of them in the qualifiers?

Not really. Which would you rather have?
An Offaly team going to play in championship mistakenly thinking they might be 8 or 9 points better than Wexford, or an Offaly team thinking that Wexford need to be ruthlessly put away and not given a sniff.
Which manager has the stronger hand to play after yesterday, Liam Dunne, or Ollie Baker?

Neither should have the stronger hand. If both sets of players are not going to go out the and give 100% in June regardless of previous results and perceptions then as supporters we should keep our money in our pockets.
You can't dismiss yesterdays defeat by saying "sure we'll beat then in June and thats all that matters". Its far from all that matters. Why? Well this team has struggled and struggled hard to get any sort of momentum going over the last few years so if they could win 4 of the 5 games in this years league and at least get a shot a D1 proper hurling for next year and a shot at a league semi this year then that would be real progress and give confidence going into the championship. If you want to get psychological about the whole thing then what is to say Offaly will not doubt their ability to close out the game in June......Wexford could feel they have the upper hand going into the last 15 minutes if its tight?? The bottom line is taking yesterdays game as yesterdays game alone we lost the chance to gather momentum, lost 2 league points and upset our promotion hopes. To divert attention away from these facts by pointing to a game in 3 months time is illogical in my opinion.

[kinnittyman]

Fair point BNM, but this team would have really laid down a marker against Wexford, and show we are ready to move on to the next level. I think its a run of results that these lads need to bring them on. Antrim next is vital and two tough games, away to Limerick and home to Clare.
If this a a lesson well and good, if it festers in the mind of players and kills the momentum from the performance, which for 63 mins appeared to be very good.
We are conceding huge scores now against all teams and this needs to be addressed as we seem to have good backs, but the system is not working.
Will leave to more knowledgeable hurling people to debate the ins and outs of why?

There was some huge scores put up all around Division 1 over the weekend so it's not as if conceding big scores is the sole preserve of Offaly at the moment. Off the top of my head the following teams conceded these significant scores:

Wexford 2-20
Waterford 2-21
Galway 2-20
Tipperary 2-18
Antrim 0-20
Laois 1-24
Dublin 2-18
Cork 2-17

Some big teams conceded big scores so there may be more to it than saying we are too loose around the middle third of the pitch.

Personally I feel there are a few reasons for this. For example the big wide spaces of Croke Park lead themselves to the proliferation of scores in games there,so added to the excellent quality of the field that could go someway to explaining the high score there yesterday and other games played there. Also with all the strength and conditioning work that players do nowadays they are stronger than ever before. Years ago a player knocking a ball over the bar from midfield from a standing position was seen as a mammoth score whereas now players can easily manage this while even on the run. Factor in the weight of the modern ball and players can score from further out than ever before.

Player's fitness also lends itself to big scores in matches as players are operating at full tilt for 70 minutes now and allowing 5 pairs of fresh legs to be added per team during the course of the game also sees more scoring chances being created during the entire course of a game.

Having said all this it is possible that the art of defending is slowly being diluted and wing backs etc would rather hit 15 clearances in a game and concede 0-04 to their direct opponent than only hit 5 clearances but concede nothing.

It is a great debate to get into though... Why are Offaly (and other teams) conceding such huge scores? Only adults need reply!!

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Good post Bracknaghboy, I was thinking along the same lines myself, this was a great chance to build some momentum. As they say ya cant beat winning!