But all these contingency plans should have been in place at this stage, duigan was out on his feet with 10mins or so left left it far too late to make changesfaithfulfanatic wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 11:56 am Avoided commenting in the immediate aftermath of Sunday's crushing defeat.
Having got a chance to rewatch the game on Clubber last night (brilliant service), I said I'd comment.
Ultimately, Offaly's inaccuracy combined with Laois' subs and their running from deep won them the game.
Mark Troy did well in the goals. Offaly worked a few great puckouts, with Eimhin Kelly or Brian Duignan creating space for the rapid Dan Bourke to latch on to bouncing ball. Although a couple of puckouts did go astray and there was little option at times in the first half when Offaly retreated our half forward line into midfield for puckouts, looking to play it short before giving in long ball to the inside line. This worked at times, but more often than not, the balls in weren't good enough. Cillian Kiely pucked away far too much ball (high balls to Screeney) and had a mountain of wides.
Adam Screeney was unmarkable, scoring 4 from play in 50 minutes and winning a couple of frees. Left one free short from all of 30 yards, before nailing one from 90.
Cathal King had an excellent game at corner back in my opinion and popped up with a point.
Conneely, Burke, the 2 Sampsons and Kiely were often caught out waiting for a short pass to bounce up into their hand or onto the hurl. The pitch was very sandy and played havoc. Although the ball wasn't lost every time, it created rucks and stopped us from letting in quick, accurate ball.
Killian Sampson scored 2 excellent points from long range.
Jason Sampson had his worst game in a good while.
Unfortunate to see Ravenhill and Cahill depart. David King brought much needed physicality and composure at a time when Offaly needed it in a first-half rut.
I was surprised Offaly waited until the 66th minute to introduce Jack Clancy. We very rarely ran at Laois and when we did Eimhin Kelly created 2 goal chances which should have been taken. I was also surprised to see him give way for Fox after 55 minutes. He had just won a scorable free and his running was causing havoc. Offaly scored 3 points from this point to the end of the game.
Leon Fox took a great score on the sideline, but squandered 2 massive opportunities near the end.
Nally was doing well in the halfback line but went out of the game completely when pushed up to the half forward line.
Dan Bourke had a fantastic game.
Charlie Mitchell was non-existent for a long time and I don't know how he lasted 70 minutes.
Oisin Kelly brought a focal point for the final couple of minutes and it was clear Laois were wary of him. With time almost up he was fed in a perfect ball which was fumbled and lost before Laois scored their goal at the other end.
The Laois crowd were very quiet until the first goal went in.
This brought it back to 3 but you could feel the change in momentum throughout the ground.
With goalies no longer able to slow down the ensuing puckout by faking an injury/removing the helmet as they will have to go off for 30 seconds, there needs to be another plan in place.
Whether this is making a sub and drawing time out doing so, or a corner forward taking the helmet off and spending 30 seconds on the sideline or even just someone starting a bit of pushing and shoving to delay the game. A contingency must be in place to halt a decisive change in momentum, as it was.
We must pick ourselves off and go again.
Massive game against Westmeath next Saturday.
I think their u20s face Dublin Sunday, so it will be interesting to see how much they play. A few of their key players are u20, no more than ourselves.
If Cahill and Ravenhill are ruled out, I'd expect Screeney and King to come in.
The winning goal was soft beaten too easy in the back line there was enough players too deal with it and there was few times that happened
Was no instructions given to players when we isolated screeny by hitting high balls
. That 6 point swing was huge and we could have won the game comfortably otherwise.. I'm predicting a comfortable win tomorrow again and we'll account for Laois in the final when the time comes. Bring young lads through and we'll cement our place in Leinster again where we belong. Hon offaly !!