Limerick vs Offaly

[AZOffaly]

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.

True BnM man, we couldn't even use the sweeper correctly when we had it. Painful to watch.

I do think our forwards movement is a problem as well, and possibly because we just don't practice playing against sweepers or whatever. However, the amount of times that Niall McNamee made his run into an area covered by the sweeper was criminal. And then our sweeper was never in position to cut off ball coming in.

[Burner]

 a great win for Limerick, With Ian Ryan having a super game. I think Offaly only scored 7 points from play compared to Limericks 3-11. That statistic is actually quite baffling given the amount of ball Offaly had. Limericks tactic was simple. keep what little possession they had, work it up to midfield and then get it in long to Ian Ryan and Ger Collins who were destroying the Offaly full back line. I thought Stephen Kelly had a huge game for us. He would be an asset for any half forward line. Works hard, Fast and is as strong as a horse. its just a pity we are so decimated by Injuries, id fancy us to get to a quarter final if we had everyone available. Missing Lucey, O Riordan and Ryan due to hurling Commitments and John Galvin and Jim Donovan due to injury, as well as Eoin joy. We are down to the bare bones in the middle of the field in particular. Still with the hurlers winning as well a great day for Limerick

[Offalylad]

Was at the match (was on before the Cork hurlers).Have to say, Offaly destroyed Limerick in midfield, they missed John Galvin bad.McNamee was the only Offaly forward who could shoot.Limerick on the other hand had a lot of forwards who could.Ian Ryan had a very good game I thought Ger Collins played well.There centre forward (can't remember his name) was alright too.With the amount Offaly put wide it could have easily gone the other way.I think Limerick got a fairly good draw in the qualifiers and could imo make the quarter finals

I think some of that was down to tactics. Limerick played the spare man in front of the full back line and swarmed McNamee and co. at all times(Leading to bad shots), whereas Limerick's forwards had a great amount of open space. Throw in the fact that Ryan was on fire and Offaly always seemed likely to concede too much.