Limerick vs Offaly

[Dinny Breen]

Sin é

Star man was Ian Ryan 1-07 all from play, his best performance since his demolition of Meath a few years ago.

Limerick very dependent on their full forward line 3-09 today, need a better spread to progress next week but that's 6 goals in 2 championship games.

Offaly though were the architects of their own downfall, 14 wides is lilyitis but without the possession.

Is this the end of Tom Cribben?

[ross4life]

That's a bad beating for the Offaly men.

[Dinny Breen]

Offaly are a very inconsistent side and tend to choose their battles, like most midland counties (Offaly, Laois and Westmeath) they struggle to put in back to back performances on a consistent basis. Kildare would have been part of that group 4 years ago but have moved on (as they get beat out the gate tonight).

A Leinster for this counties is massive, so much energy goes into the Leinster championship that mentally these counties find it hard to focus on the qualifiers and believe a An-Ireland through the qualifiers is out of their grasp.

At the moment the road for Offaly football is a long one but I'm sure the Biffos the board have a far greater insight to that than us casual observers.

[spectator]

Offaly though were the architects of their own downfall, 14 wides is lilyitis but without the possession.

In a nutshell, that's the story of the game.

Offaly had the majority of the possession but wasted a huge amount of attacking possession and scoring opportunities throughout. Limerick had a lot to prove after their debacle against Kerry and were game this time around, making the most of their possession esp early on. Their FF line looked dangerous and had the measure of the Offaly FB line anytime they got the ball, with Ger Collins & Ian Ryan having fine games and causing havoc whenever they ran at Offaly. Despite getting their noses in front early on, Limerick could never put The Faithful away and only wrapped the game up with Collin's late goal. Deserved win for the Treatymen, but stilll not looking like they're anywhere near the standards of previous years. Offaly don't ever seem to embrace the qualifiers with any great enthuasiasm, so while they know they probably left it behind today, they'll also be the first to admit they didn't deserve it due to their misfiring attack.

[Offalylad]

Disgusted. Was at the game today and was extremely frustrated at the shooting from Offaly. Niall Darby kicked 5 on his own. Ross Brady should never be given an Offaly jersey again. With 14 wides, we didn't deserve to win even if we did leave it behind us. I was sure we had it when it was 2-11 to 0-15, but then Joe Quinn lost the ball in front of his own goal and we conceded the killer third goal.

As for Cribben: Nice, honest man who is genuine but he is clueless enough. He has his pets on the team.

[Farrandeelin]

Disgusted. Was at the game today and was extremely frustrated at the shooting from Offaly. Niall Darby kicked 5 on his own. Ross Brady should never be given an Offaly jersey again. With 14 wides, we didn't deserve to win even if we did leave it behind us. I was sure we had it when it was 2-11 to 0-15, but then Joe Quinn lost the ball in front of his own goal and we conceded the killer third goal.

As for Cribben: Nice, honest man who is genuine but he is clueless enough. He has his pets on the team.

That first paragraph could be written by us Mayo supporters down through the years.

[ExcellentDriver]

That's a bad beating for the Offaly men.

Especially against a County that normally couldn't buy a Goal.

[johnpower]

great day for Limerick, They were really flat against Kerry . Horrible no of wides for Offaly . Was it a case of Offaly players kicking from bad positions and angles ?

[Offalylad]

To an extent yes but also due to one player alone contributing 5 of them.

[johnpower]

To an extent yes but also due to one player alone contributing 5 of them.

I have seen some very good underage club teams from Offaly recently . I think that they need a really high profile outside manager to lift the effort and application .

[AZOffaly]

We probably do John, but it would be hypocritical of me to urge us getting one, as we all know what that means.

As for yesterday, I'm too disappointed to go into much detail. I'm more sad than angry, which was my reaction after Wexford, Down in 2009, Westmeath in 2009 etc. I feel sad because I do believe most of the lads tried hard on the day but we were just clueless when it came to getting the ball into the FF line.

In fairness our FF line's movement was chronic, and that is a problem. Only Ken Casey really made any decent runs.

Our half forward line and half back line had 5 half backs out of the six positions in my opinion. The decision to play Scott Brady as a nominal centre forward, but withdraw him to 'sweep' in front of the full back line was ridiculous. Niall Darby's wides have been discussed here, and are not a rare occurence in fairness.

The withdrawal of Brady meant that Limerick just deployed Lavin as a sweeper themselves, and Offaly were too daft in their delivery to bypass him, which meant that they started to keep the ball longer, doing that idiotic handpass from side to side to side before turning it over or kicking a useless wide.

OK. Getting angry now. Calm. Zen. Be the Longford.

Phew. OK.

Limerick, in contrast, were clinical and if I wasn't on the receiving end I'd have been delighted to witness Ian Ryan's display. A great forward at this level anyway.

All that being said, our lads did try hard, and because of Ciaran McManus' frees we were well in the game, only 2 points down, when the game was entering the denouement, but when Joe Quinn mis-soloed the ball straight to a Limerick man and it ended up in the back of the net, it summed it up for me again.

For the future, there are a few reasons to be cheerful/optimistic, which is a stupid thing in Offaly. There are footballers there, but I do think that tactically and gameplan wise, we need to be much better if we are going to get the best out of what's there. We're not Kerry or Dublin or Tyrone that can still compete and win most games if we are not set up properly and playing to our strengths. To have a chance, we need to do that.

Well done Limerick though, and at least it was a nice day inside in the Gaelic Grounds

[Offalylad]

To an extent yes but also due to one player alone contributing 5 of them.

I have seen some very good underage club teams from Offaly recently . I think that they need a really high profile outside manager to lift the effort and application .

4 Leinster minor finals since 2005, yet only one senior final in the same period.

[Bord na Mona man]

Unfortunately Offaly were stitched up like a kipper tactically.
Limerick played the 2 man full forward line to perfection and also everything else required to make a 2 man full forward line.
They cleared out a massive space in front of them and played in decent low ball into this vast open space.
When Limerick withdrew forwards, the Offaly's backs followed them into the crowded middle of the field, just as Limerick hoped.

At the other end Limerick, played the sweeper to double up on the likes of Niall Mac when they got a sniff of the ball and again Offaly's deliveries were to often high, hanging ball on top of the target, instead of teasing ball into space.

As stated Offaly continually overplayed the ball in the attack, threw around bundles of square passes to static players before eventually shooting from difficult positions or turning it over. They really needed to switch to a shoot on sight gameplan when it was clear what was happening.

The lack of any Plan B was frustrating. With Limerick got 12 or 13 behind the ball and Offaly playing themselves into dead ends, there should have been a change in tactics. Like perhaps a target man on edge of the square and deliveries being hit in over Limericks' swarm defence. Perhaps Ross Brady or John Coughlan might have caught ball, broke ball or won frees? It might at least have caused Limerick to have to adjust their defensive system. It never happened though and Offaly spent the whole match playing like moths flinging themselves against a lightbulb.

Also with Limerick dropping back a sweeper, surely Offaly should have used their own spare man to try and disrupt the ball into Ryan and Collins? How many other Limerick forwards could have taken up the scoring burden, if Offaly had goen all out to shut off their supply?

For Limerick to score 3-12 and having almost zero ability to win any primary possession is fairly damning for Offaly. Limerick practically created a scoring chance every time they managed to cross the Offaly '45.

Unfortunately, until we develop to cuteness to cope with teams who don't line up and play conventionally, then I can't see any progress being made.

[Bord na Mona man]

The withdrawal of Brady meant that Limerick just deployed Lavin as a sweeper themselves, and Offaly were too daft in their delivery to bypass him, which meant that they started to keep the ball longer, doing that idiotic handpass from side to side to side before turning it over or kicking a useless wide.

I think the difference was that Scott more or less operated as a centre back and played just behind the midfield. Whereas Lavin stayed back around the house where he could double up on the nearest Offaly forward to the Limerick goal.

[Offalylad]

End of the road for Mac? He was fairly disgusted in the Cat and Bag last night I hear.