Offaly vs Clare - Sid dropped

[Bord na Mona man]

http://www.hoganstand.com/Offaly/Articl ... x?ID=63347

Offaly omit Whelahan

06 July 2006

Offaly hurling boss John McIntyre has caused a sensation by leaving Brian Whelahan out of his side for Saturday’s crunch All-Ireland qualifier against Clare in Ennis.

If it’a case that the Birr legend has been dropped, it will be the first time in his 17-year inter-county career that this has happened.

Whelahan, who turns 35 next month, only returned to the starting line-up for the first round qualifier against Dublin and scored what proved to be the winning goal. He was also one of Offaly’s few notable performers in last weekend’s heavy defeat to Limerick.

Whelahan is replaced by Mick O’Hara, who comes in at wing forward, while Shane O’Connor makes his championship debut in goal to the exclusion of another Birr clubman, Brian Mullins.

Another talking point is the omission of top scorer Brian Carroll, who is replaced by Joe Brady at full forward with Joe Bergin moving out to the right corner.

Regular corner back Barry Teehan also drops to the bench with Michael Cordial returning at midfield. Declan Tanner moves to wing back, with Kevin Brady taking over from Teehan in the corner.

Offaly (SH v Clare): S O’Connor; K Brady, P Cleary, B O’Meara; D Tanner, R Hanniffy, G Oakley; M Cordial, D Hoctor; D Hayden, G Hanniffy, M O’Hara; J Bergin, J Brady, B Murphy.

[Treasurer]

The whole thing has become farcical. Last year we blamed being in Division 2 for not knowing what our best team was, what's the excuse this year?

[Lone Shark]

We never experimented at all during the league - understandable in the circumstances, however it meant that when cracks appeared, we were a bit short on potential solutions.

Interesting how it's the most physical team we could possibly have put out, more or less. Again, you can see where he's coming from.

I thought Franks was close to making the last game - surely he would have been okay for this one?

[Bord na Mona man]

I don't really see the point in a lot of those changes. I think the management are just taking very optimistic blind punts now.

Breeder dropped. He had a solid enough championship between the sticks. O'Connor has a much bigger puck out granted. Against Limerick, for the first time, Mullins played quick and short puck outs. To try and switch to that kind of game in 2 weeks is a huge ask. Cork have been practicing this for years. To expect Mullins to bullet them into the paw of the loose man was a big ask. It also highlighted how bad some of our players are at getting a moving ball into their hands.
I guess when Offaly hurling sages insist that every ball be swiped at first time, your catching and controlling skills are bound to be undeveloped.

Barry Teehan dropped. I can understand this, but it will hardly make a difference now. I was disappointed that Brendan O'Meara wasn't on the championship team all along. He is exactly what he says on the tin, a reliable corner back.
Teehan is a decent hurler. I've seen him do well at wing forward and wing back, but he's not suited to playing corner back.

Brian Carroll dropped. Hard to understand. By all means relieve him of the free taking duty, but he still remains one of our few hurlers that can produce an up to scratch performance. Unless there are other reasons.

Dropping Sid. Probably sacrilege. I would have kept him in, but there are valid arguments for and against playing him. For the sake of trying to minimise the chopping and changing, he should have left on to try and organise the team.

I've never been happy with Kevin Brady at corner back. His best asset is his aerial presence at high catching. He can be cumbersome to turn and doesn't have the best of touches off the deck.

I'm not sure what to expect this weekend and I'm not particularly looking forward to it.

[Bogman]

As a Gambler's Last Throw for this management team this is not too bad! Clare present a physical challenge which we haven't been able to match in our recent meetings. The likes of Diarmuid McMahon catch balls with impunity over our backs and clip them over the bar no problem!

We've picked a big team to fight fire with fire and it might work out. Sid and Brian Carroll are unlucky but I can see them both on by the end.

[Treasurer]

According to Aertel

"The Faithfuls need to beat the Banner and hope that the best Limerick can do against Dublin is defeat them by six points or less."

Surely we "just" have win by more than Limerick?

(I'm not giving up yet)

[azoffaly]

This is a joke. Absolute nonsense dropping the likes of Mullins, Teehan and Carroll. Placing Brady in there is ridiculous as well. And as for Sid, why would you even ask him back, if that's what you are going to do to him?

I'm raging with this, and expect Clare to gleefully hand us our arses before a big crowd in Ennis.

Clare by 10-15 points.

[As Such Ger]

it seems to me that we have put a full forward line there to try and stop the clare full back line, ie. a big man on frank lohan (Bergin, rather than Carroll), and someone with a bit more experience as well as being a big man on brian lohan (Brady). fairly negative if you ask me and a sign of insecurity in our ability to compete on our own terms.

really cant see this game making any difference to the outcome of the championship, as Clare will top the group anyway and Limerick will surely beat Dublin. Disappointed for Sid - is there any other reason for him being on the bench - niggly injury or the likes?

[Treasurer]

It's an absolute joke the way the team has been chopped and changed from one game to the next. There will always be a couple of changes to be made but your team should pretty much in place when you play your first championship game - it's not as if we've been hit a string of unexpected injuries.

[fatlad]

Rumour on the GAA website is that Clare are putting out a second string team

[azoffaly]

I would very much doubt that fatlad. In order of importance to Clare, it would be...

1) Anthony Daly is going to want his team playing together and improving all the time.
2) They always want to beat Offaly
3) They always want to win at home.
4) That wouldn't be fair to Limerick or Dublin.

At this point, a Clare reserve team would nearly beat us anyway.

[Lone Shark]

It's an absolute joke the way the team has been chopped and changed from one game to the next. There will always be a couple of changes to be made but your team should pretty much in place when you play your first championship game - it's not as if we've been hit a string of unexpected injuries.

I appreciate that, but I just think that the reasoning behind it is that we were starting from so far back - in January you could have counted on one hand the number of guaranteed starters in a particular position. (Offhand I can only think of Franks, Cleary and possibly Carroll) Due to our "making people fit" policy, we have about ten players that all play at least two of Mid/Forw/Back, so in comparison to other counties who always know 8 or nine positions, we had so much more to learn.

[Treasurer]

But that's exacly the point, we should have been further on in January than we were. Last year we said Division 2 was the problem, we weren't in Division 2 this year.

Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow's team IS the best we can do, but if it is, we should have been closer to it before now.

[Lone Shark]

I'm not sure how you expected the team to be closer to knowing themselves by January - we had played no games since the previous July, the last two being matches with Dublin and Antrim, not really the white heat we want to test our guys in.

Assume for a moment that the 15 for Saturday evening is our best team - how many of those players would you have picked in those positions back then?

[Treasurer]

Ok, ok, January was stretching it more than a bit

But we should have been much closer to having our team right before we played Wexford. The fact that we've made so many changes over the course of the championship suggests that management do not know what their best team is. Having played Cork, Wexford, Clare, Waterford and Tipperary in the league, I would have expected otherwise.