For what it's worth, this is my take on it, that I posted on the gaaboard. Good to meet up with some of the uibh Fhaili.com lads again, and great to see the Shark doing a Lazarus, although I think we need a jersey for him. He got very bored at the Westmeath game
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Hmmmmm. Not too sure about yesterday at all. Obviously we are not going to turn up our nose at winning any championship game, but I feel the mistakes and weaknesses we've had this past 3 or 4 years are still there, but the innate hurling some of the lads have is still far too much for an injury depleted Laois team, Westmeath and the like. Laois' handling and striking were very poor, and where Kilkenny would bury you, Laois just give the ball back.
For Offaly, the main concerns I would have are
a: Winning clean ball in the air, or at least breaking it intelligently with the hurl. The likes of Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Tipp etc etc have all made a building block around their abilities to win primary possession from puck outs, and long deliveries, especially in the half back, half forward and midfield lines. Offaly have been unable to compete with those teams in this area, and yesterday, apart from a couple of catches by Mahon, Oakley and Kevin Brady, we won nothing again. At one stage a puckout hopped, TWICE, before a Laois man gathered it. That will never happen against Kilkenny, and we will have to improve on that, or we are without hope.
b: First touch. It improved as the game went on, and I'll try and convince myself it was championship nerves with 5 debutants which caused it, but really, for Offaly to need 3 or 4 attempts to pick up the ball, or strike it on the ground, is just unforgiveable. If we don't have hurling, we have nothing offensively, and with our relative lack of size, apart from a few lads, we need to be quick, and sharp in controlling, lifting and striking. If we get into one of those '5 men digging a hole' scenarios against the bigger teams, we'll just be blown off the ball.
c: Size. Not much we can do about this, but we need to bear it in mind and hurl to our strengths. We have big men at full back (although I'd prefer him to be at centre back), 1 midfielder (although he might be dropped the next day, very raw), centre forward, 1 wing forward and full forward (although our full forward is chronically slow, and has the turning circle of an oil frigate). Everyone else is fairly small, and even our tall lads, apart from 2 or 3, are light. Rory Hanniffy and Joe Bergin should return, and will help in terms of adding bulk, but they'll probably return at the expense of 2 of those already big lads.
d: Aggression. I think Offaly are trying, and they are hassling lads, hooking, blocking, etc etc, but they are still a long way off the level of intensity that Kilkenny will bring. We will have to match them there. Hurling has changed in the past 10 years from being all wrists, vision and striking, to a game of intensity, physical battles and power. You have to win those areas before you can let your hurling win you games, and we are still off the pace, I fear.
Now for the good parts.
a: Youth. We have a young team, and they are promising, once the central issues of physique and mentality are addressed. Diarmuid Horan had a promising debut yesterday, as did James Rigney. Conor Mahon, Paul Cleary, David Kenny, Michael Verney, Dylan Hayden, Alan Egan, Shane Dooley etc etc are all young, and talented.
b: Effort. We may be small, and we may need to tune our agression levels up a notch or two, but they still try. I love seeing forwards hooking and blocking, and I love seeing backs getting a stick in, disrupting, etc etc. All of this is central to Offaly style hurling, and we will need to keep it going, and even up it again.
c: Skill. We still have it, although this team is obviously a mile away from the wrists of the Pilkingtons, Troys, Whelehens, Dooleys, Keeshams, Coughlans and Kellys of old. However, when Offaly are going well, some of the play is lovely to look at. Brian Carroll, Diarmuid Horan, James Rigney, David Kenny, Ger Oakley, Kevin Brady, Brendan Murphy, Shane Dooley, Alan Egan and Dylan Hayden are all well able to control a ball, pick it, strike cleanly and accurately. Some of our forwards are very 'tidy'. Obviously, doing all of that under intense pressure is a different matter, and that's let us down recently (see bad things b: above) but after a dodgy start yesterday, the quality improved. We need to step it up further again, but the good news is I think there is raw material to build on.
Anyway, onwards and upwards. We should have no chance against Kilkenny, but sure we'll turn up anyhow