www.uibhfhaili.com

That's one way to look at a 16 point victory. Dublin are not your typical team they will not be happy with today and will view it as a rusty performance.

Kildare gave a Dublin a good game last year in the Leinster semi and were leading until the last 10 minutes, but Dublin eventually won by 2.
Louth felt the backlash the next day when Dublin won by 21 points.

Great to win that. Gives a boost to everything GAA in the county. So 'well done' to everyone involved.

Great to get to play in Croke Park. You can't play there often enough.

Obviously Dublin will provide huge challenges. It's been a while since Offaly played a division 1 team, so the step up will be huge. For me, it's not about the margin at the end - rather it's about what Offaly can take from this. Remember the hurlers running Clare to a point in a qualifier a mere 20 days after shipping 6-28 to Kilkenny.

Exciting indeed 2006/2007 was the last time we made back to back semis

Plain of the Herbs wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 10:17 pm Great to win that. Gives a boost to everything GAA in the county. So 'well done' to everyone involved.

Great to get to play in Croke Park. You can't play there often enough.

Obviously Dublin will provide huge challenges. It's been a while since Offaly played a division 1 team, so the step up will be huge. For me, it's not about the margin at the end - rather it's about what Offaly can take from this. Remember the hurlers running Clare to a point in a qualifier a mere 20 days after shipping 6-28 to Kilkenny.

I believe I am right in saying a 2017 All Ireland playoff against Relegated Cavan is the last time we facer division 1 opposition. We ran them close that day aswell. We havent bet Dublin since 1982 in championship.

So from Laois being a cut above us to putting it up to the Dubs. Granted Laois were a division 4 team but one thing that stood out was how tight we got to Laois lads and our intensity in the tackle and how in their face we were, they couldn't handle it.. this will stand to us in a game against Dublin and I
might stifle them for a while before they pull away from us.. playing against such opposition will help us and I think lads are smart enough to realise it's Dublin and not be demoralised by the heavy defeat. The best you can hope for from the game is that we are competitive for various parts of the game and that we can make life as difficult as possible for them while getting a few scores ourselves. It's not a day for throwing caution to the wind in any way. A slow burner that peters out to an 10/12 point defeat would be great, ever the optimist eh!

10 or 12 pints beforehand might help
Let's enjoy the day out going to be very tough
And the Dubs will gives us the patronising
Crap beforehand hopefully the team do themselves justice.
Stay dry

What’s the story with the limited sections available for thr Dublin game. Only 308 and 309 in the cusach and similar for rhr hogan.

Hardly sold out in the other sections already

Superhans75 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 6:11 pm 10 or 12 pints beforehand might help
Let's enjoy the day out going to be very tough
And the Dubs will gives us the patronising
Crap beforehand hopefully the team do themselves justice.
Stay dry

All very true Frank, patronising drivel, then an easy win. I don’t think many will travel for a predictable game. I hope we put on a good show.

Doon Exile wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 12:51 pm What’s the story with the limited sections available for thr Dublin game. Only 308 and 309 in the cusach and similar for rhr hogan.

Hardly sold out in the other sections already

They tend to do that alright for a lot of games that won’t be full.
Sell specific sections first and sell them out before releasing more.
Helps to keep people in a concentrated area and make it look fuller.

There's a good chance, you'll be able to move to a better seat if the crowd is sparce.
Look out for Louth and Kildare ones leaving after their game too. Diesel to be laundered and stables to be mucked out.

Remember Offaly will be warming up at the Canal End, as they always do. Croke Park use an alphabetal order system to ensure Dublin get the Railway End, but Uibh Fhaili is 32nd and last alphabetically so will always have the Canal End side.

Even with it being double header, I'd see no reason to open either canal end or upper decks. About 40,000 at very outside of it between Dublin Kildare Louth and Offaly crowds I'd imagine.

Good luck to the boys on Sunday, il be travelling up to support them as I hope many more will also.

The build up has been nice and low key. The main chatter has been about Leinster being a dead duck and Dublin ruining it.
There is no great motivation for Dublin to go out and play like lunatics. Dublin certainly have no point to prove after an easy game against Meath. Every bit helps.

Offaly can learn from Meath's mistakes for starters. Colm O'Rourke and Meath probably felt compelled to go kamikaze, and then could whine afterwards from the high moral ground about the impossible task they had.
As opposed to trying to be pragmatic and frustrating Dublin more. They could have kept it tighter, but then every caveman in Meath would have claimed they had spurned an opportunity to ambush Dublin.

Offaly need to at the very least defend in numbers and not be so open at the back like Meath were.
We do have pacy players who can carry the ball quickly on the counter attack. Let's use them.
Offaly should be willing to take shots from distance and accept that a percentage will go wide. It's much easier to make space for a speculative 40 metre shot, than work it in through a swarm of bodies for a 25 metre shot.
There is the chance for some advance marks too on the fringes. This may entice Dublin to push out a bit more and maybe create space closer in.

At the other end, we just have to accept that Dublin will create plenty of chances and have the ability to go on scoring bursts. It's about everyone sticking to their task and not losing focus. The team and each individual player has the chance to give a good account of themselves against a highly ranked opposition. Every one of them should relish this.