Is this the lowest ever for the faithful?

[faithful7]

Has Offaly GAA ambitions for a championship season ever been so low? Beaten in almost every competition going and slipping into lower divisions in leagues. How the mighty have fallen? Any spark in the county to give some hope to the exiled fans?
County Board must not be doing it's job. Some talent must be there. I dispair!

[Bord na Mona man]

The footballers have been unlucky this year. Two games were lost to last minute points. Another league point lost in the committee room.

Today the team actually played very well for a lot of the game. Roscommon got two gifted goals that emanated from the usual haphazard refereeing of Michael Collins. When the scores were 0-14 to 2-6 in the second half, you can see the value of those scores. As what happens so often, Offaly hadn't built up a sufficient lead from their early dominance. The Rossies then hit a purple patch and took control in the second half. The Offaly goal did put Offaly back in the lead by a point, but Roscommon closed out the better team while Offaly lost their composure, got very ragged and started to concede scores.

However the groundwork for Offaly problems were the poor results early in the campaign. The team selections were off the mark especially with some lop sided forward formations.
A new outside manager having only one selector seemed to be a big problem. The obvious example is selecting Niall McNamee as free taker. Anyone who has watched McNamee will know he is a genius forward, but not a prolific free taker. Yet that role has been given to him all year. Ciaran McManus was also stood down as long range free taker this year. Selecting Shane Sullivan at centre back didn't work out either. Today, he was again called ashore very early.

A more stable team selection would have seen us beat Longford and Leitrim in the early rounds and perhaps Offaly would have gotten better results again Monaghan and Roscommon without the noose of relegation on the team's neck.

Hurling is far more difficult problem. Today again showed that Offaly need to move with the times and play a more physical brand of hurling in order to reduce the gap with the elite. Limerick are a prime example of the new style of hard hitting, possession oriented hurling teams that Offaly don't cope well with.

Offaly competed well for most of the game in most areas, but Limerick eventually triumphed through a combination of attrition, poor Offaly defending and Offaly not converting their own goal chances. Offaly missed a penalty and had two 20 metre frees deflected over.

Offaly's "tippy" style hurlers are fine in most league games, but once the intensity is ratcheted up, as in today's game, they really don't have the aggression to compete.
Offaly are still playing old style hurling while the Brian Cody's and the John Allen's have been perfecting their power, running and possession hurling. Offaly are still picking and pucking while the big guns are hitting us with runners, game breakers, holding possession and using formulated passing routines – Ironically the kind of stuff that had the Clares and Galway of other years looked down on by the elite.

Limerick are a bit less refined and more agricultural than the big two, but once the gaps started to appear in the Offaly defence, they had the fast runners and big men to take advantage.
The goals that made the difference came from difficulties Offaly had in the full back line dealing with the dropping ball.

With height, pace and physique now being so important, it means the counties with greater resources can cherry pick to suit their chosen style. Offaly managed to compete when hurling was usually the 15 best stick men from every county.
The problem is, down in Kilkenny there are enough hurlers for Brian Cody to pick two county teams of 6 foot 2 bruisers, Offaly simply don't have the reserves to cobble together a more formulated unit.

In Offaly there are those who still preach the mantra of ground hurling. Whether it is the way the go, is neither here nor there. For it too work, you'd need extremely skilful players and nowadays with far less possession turnover in a game it mightn't be the wisest.
But it is symptomatic of the problem, no one seems particularly sure what style of hurling Offaly need to play. John McIntyre has done plenty in terms of trying lots of different players in lots of different positions and to be fair has culled a few players who weren't delivering on their promise.
What he didn't succeed on implementing is any noticeable alteration to Offaly's playing style.

[Rossie11]

Bord Na Mona man I agree with you. The penalty was turning point in game and it was never one. A fair shoulder by the goalie then our forward fell on the ball. Honestly I would have given a free out for handling on the ground. The penalty was even saved and trickled across the line.
Collins again had a poor game. Offaly had us ran ragged at half time and had kicked lovely points from all angles. McNamee and the Coughlans were causing us endless trouble.
You also smacked the post for a certain goal in 2nd half and had few chances at the end to draw closer. A 4 point victory flattered us in my book.
No way are ye are Div 4 team. Put another way no way are Ross 2 divisions above Offaly. Its a long way back from there but hopefully ye can drag yourselves back.. in both codes.

[Bord na Mona man]

The Roscommon forward actually thought he had been penalised and straight away remonstrated with the Collins, only then realising he had been given a penalty.

Overall, Offaly lost it themselves and can't lay the blame squarely on the ref, but these kind of decisions can frustrate a team. With less pressure on Roscommon, they were able to be patient and wait for the game to turn in their favour. Offaly had to take the game to Roscommon from the start and to be fair, did very well for most of it.

[faithful7]

Thanks for the analysis. Will those problems be rectified before the championship? Looking at the situation from a distance it seems the old Faithful Spirit of 'never say die' has deserted our present crop of county representatives. Appreciate the positive nature of the replies. I suppose there is only one direction one can go from rock bottom!

[Lone Shark]

Thanks for the analysis. Will those problems be rectified before the championship? Looking at the situation from a distance it seems the old Faithful Spirit of 'never say die' has deserted our present crop of county representatives. Appreciate the positive nature of the replies. I suppose there is only one direction one can go from rock bottom!

I wouldn't say "never say die" is gone at all. We conceded goal number one to go a point behind, we recovered and were three up by half time. The penalty put the Rossies one up, we got back to two up again. They got a third goal, we got back in front again. Finally they got goal number four and then we were finally done for.

I wouldn't give out about the attitude of the players at all - there are plenty of things I'd give out about, but not that.

[Captain Scarlet]

is it a new low when roe is on about players not playing this year because if they dont make the leinster final they might end up in tommy murphy!

thats a serious attitude, imagine players not playing already admitting defeat before the season even starts!!

terrible stupidity coming from a manager, just shut up and play.

i have to laugh at all this as breheny pointed this was all voted in by county delegates and only now when the shit hits the fan and teams realise the story there is whingin.

what do the offaly boys thinks of waht roe said today, surely this must be filtering to the players

[fearglasmor]

Can you quote what he actually said and where he said it ?

[Captain Scarlet]

it was in Metro today.

to be fair on a second read i think he was played by the journalists here.

all he actually said was its possible players could quit. my apologies.

i got sidetracked a bit there meself in my semi sleep state.

[Model Hammer]

Someone told me today that Offaly were in Div 4 when they won the Leinster in '97. So maybe the omens aren't so bad.

I was at the game in Tullamore and I still don't know how Offaly lost. Every one of the Ros goals came at a crucial time. Heneghan's goal in the first half was Ros' only score in a period when OY kicked 9 points! He shipped a heavy tackle from 3 defenders, it was some goal. The 3rd and 4th were real sickeners when OY were on top again. After the 4th goal Offaly just gave up. A brilliant piece of skill from O'Neill to slip a pass into the goalscorer when surrounded by ball-watching Offalymen.

No, that's still a good Offaly team. Very unlucky Sunday I felt.

[faithful7]

So there's room for some hope for the year. Won't have to make that trip to Lourdes yet. Good point that about '97. And going back to last year  - the footballers might well have reached a Provincial Final but for the appaling intervention of the Dubs keeper when Offaly were on a roll. So it's a case of keep the faith in the Faithful for a while yet! They always play better in the summer (as opposed to March) with the sun on their backs and when least is expected!
Ua Faighle Abú!

[fearglasmor]

And going back to last year  - the footballers might well have reached a Provincial Final but for the appaling intervention of the Dubs keeper when Offaly were on a roll.

Eh.......  that was the provincial final.