o byrne cup vs kildare

[DAF]

I never was so embarrassed as i was today in newbridge, it has to be the worst offaly team i ever seen the only players worth holding on to ken casey,richie dalton,kevin meehan,ross brady,darby,mcconway,pender,derek kelly,smith the rest you could put a blanket over need to bring back alan mcnamee,shane sullivan,anton sullivan,scot brady,john renolds,tomas deehan,karol slattery,mcmanus, and then there's other good players in the county that don't get a look in sean casey croghan david brady ballyfore bracken raheen jimmy coghlan doon offaly manger has to get his finger out or no one will want to play with offaly or go and watch them.

Alan McNamee was no good 5 or 6 years ago ansd never was much good at intercounty football he wouldnt improve anything.Shane Sullivan isnt good enough anymore and is far too rash as a defender.Reynolds and Deehan were shown the door last year due to their lack of commitment good footballers on their day but bringing them back in without a proper commitment from them would be a massive backward step.

[Lean Times]

Brian Connor going back to Boston this summer so hes a NO. So frustrating on this site how people KEEP mentioning players like alan macnamee, thomas deehan and co. who have no interest or no committment in playing with offaly.....will people ever cop on and realise they are not the answer and we have to look forward.

[bogboy]

Alan McNamee was no good 5 or 6 years ago ansd never was much good at intercounty football he wouldnt improve anything.Shane Sullivan isnt good enough anymore and is far too rash as a defender.Reynolds and Deehan were shown the door last year due to their lack of commitment good footballers on their day but bringing them back in without a proper commitment from them would be a massive backward step.[/size

]McNamee would definitely improve things.He is very committed an excellent passer of the ball and a good reader of the game. He may not be as quick as he was or have the fielding abilities of a top midfielder but with a player like niall smith beside him he can do a job for Offaly. Sullivan is in good shape and centre back is his best position where he reads the game well and drives forward. Deehan has no interest in playing so end of story no more comments on the man please. brian connor will not give the required commitment as well so could people please refrain from mentioning these players. Its like saying if ''Colm Cooper played with Offaly''.Its not going to happen......John Reynolds is a good player who works hard and wins dirty ball. I would have him on my team.

Team to play Kildare in 1st round
1.K.Meehan
2.B.Darby
3.Richie Dalton
4.Sean Pender
5.James Keane
6.Shane Sullivan
7.Michael Brazil
8.Niall Smyth
9.Alan McNamee
10.Anton Sullivan
11.Nigel Dunne
12.Graham Guilfoyle
13.Ken Casey
14.John Reynolds
15.Niall McNamee

The best team available to Offaly with the pool of talent at our disposal.Ive no problem disputing this team with people but dont mention players that should be there who are not willing to commit.Its utter ridiculous!!

[Offaly Proud]

Agree with Bogboy and those posters who are looking at the bigger picture. Bringing back some of those mentioned would be a big step backwards. The new management have been in place 2 months and training outdoors 2 weeks. Shane Sullivan is back training seemingly and with Anton, Bernard Allen, John Maloney, Nialler and maybe Michael Brazil back I think we will see a big improvement in the league. Another 3 weeks will help.

[DAF]

There's only one answer to the problems Offaly football faces, bring back Vinny Claffey

[hard2watch]

I never was so embarrassed as i was today in newbridge, it has to be the worst offaly team i ever seen the only players worth holding on to ken casey,richie dalton,kevin meehan,ross brady,darby,mcconway,pender,derek kelly,smith the rest you could put a blanket over need to bring back alan mcnamee,shane sullivan,anton sullivan,scot brady,john renolds,tomas deehan,karol slattery,mcmanus, and then there's other good players in the county that don't get a look in sean casey croghan david brady ballyfore bracken raheen jimmy coghlan doon offaly manger has to get his finger out or no one will want to play with offaly or go and watch them.

Yes i have to agree with you here..Pound for pound the best footballer in Offaly is David Brady from Ballyfore and its unbelievable how he hasnt been brought in yet.His good friend and Kildare footballer Eoghan O Flaherty cannot understand how he is not on the Offaly team and went as far as saying he wud make the Kildare team if he were from there so how are management blind to this ??

[Lone Shark]

Folks, when the Offaly panel was named, people were delighted to see fresh faces in there. Of course there will be some who make and some who don't, but it would be foolish to underestimate the scale of the challenge that the lads faced yesterday. That Kildare team was robbed of a draw against the eventual All Ireland winners in last year's Leinster championship, they were cheated out of an All Ireland semi final appearance by the worst square ball decision ever against Donegal, and in 2010 they suffered a dodgy square ball call that robbed them of a place in the All Ireland final. They are an elite team now, part of a four team group alongside Dublin, Kerry and Cork, and to be honest if you gave me a free €100 bet on the 2012 All Ireland football winners, I wouldn't even blink - Kildare would be my selection.

So of course it's not nice to lose like that, but let's keep a little perspective here - a fresh team, which is forced to operate without 13 of the 20 players that lined out in our most recent championship match, and retained only Seán Pender and Niall Smith in the same positions, got a hiding from a settled, efficient, fit and ready team that is gunning for the All Ireland. It's hardly a shock.

Offaly football has limped along for a long time, always picking up the phone to the same guys who have done reasonably well in the past, but are either very limited or else much more committed to their social life. A change of pace is needed, and while there will be teething problems, that's how guys will learn. A lot of the players will come away from yesterday's game realising just how fit and strong they need to be, and it will be interesting to see how they respond. I certainly wouldn't like to see any knee jerk reactions that would undermine the players that are in there.

[bracknaghboy]

I never was so embarrassed as i was today in newbridge, it has to be the worst offaly team i ever seen the only players worth holding on to ken casey,richie dalton,kevin meehan,ross brady,darby,mcconway,pender,derek kelly,smith the rest you could put a blanket over need to bring back alan mcnamee,shane sullivan,anton sullivan,scot brady,john renolds,tomas deehan,karol slattery,mcmanus, and then there's other good players in the county that don't get a look in sean casey croghan david brady ballyfore bracken raheen jimmy coghlan doon offaly manger has to get his finger out or no one will want to play with offaly or go and watch them.

Yes i have to agree with you here..Pound for pound the best footballer in Offaly is David Brady from Ballyfore and its unbelievable how he hasnt been brought in yet.His good friend and Kildare footballer Eoghan O Flaherty cannot understand how he is not on the Offaly team and went as far as saying he wud make the Kildare team if he were from there so how are management blind to this ??

This is obviously a joke! The chap wouldn't make an Offaly Intermediate selection never mind the Offaly team....as for making the Kildare team ah lads stop

[bracknaghboy]

just a few points bracknaghboy besides James Gallagher,Lorcan Hiney, Aidan Keenaghan most of that offaly team have been around the panel over the last few years
Willie & alan Mulhall and Casey are there 3 years so this 4 years ahead of us i don't get wasn't at the game but kildare must of had lads that are new to.

See what I mean is Kildare have spent the last 4 years being turned into the closest thing to a professional outfit possible whilst Offaly have spent the last 4 years trying to coax potential county players out of the pub!

[Plain of the Herbs]

llkj makes an interesting point which I think is worthy of analysis.

For many counties (you could say most counties) GAA championships are more about the taking part than the actual winning. Much of the GAA is built on local rivalries, either club or county. Like, Offaly will take part in the Leinster Senior football championship next year – they face Kildare in the first round where there is hardly any chance of a win. Yet they will retain a sort of romantic notion that they can cause an upset, or at least put up a good show. However false that notion may be, it will still sustain them over the next five months.

There are several other examples. Roscommon will hope to upset Galway, Leitrim will hope to upset Roscommon, Louth (bless them) will hold out hope of eventually beating Meath, ditto for the Wasters who hope to eventually beat Meath. There are many others Most are doomed to failure, found out due to a lack of the required belief, not to mention insufficient preparation. Codding themselves.

As for the four weaker counties in Munster who will never, ever win a Munster Senior football title. Why do they do it? I dunno.

I think part of the appeal is the ‘big day out’. And, in a knock-out championship, there are no sustained losing streaks, unlike a league. Which is why a ‘champions league’ system will never ever work. Once beaten, that’s it. You can always blame the referee. Or the incompetent outside manager who cost a fortune.

Then again, the GAA scene would be much poorer without that eternal optimism

Family member was at the game yesterday and speaking to him after, it was pretty clear that he had just witnessed 2 teams that were on a completely different level than one another in every aspect of the game. Obviously on the day, failing to score for the entire first half is terrible and there is no other word for it. The more worrying thing is that a few years on from our hammering at the hands of Kildare in Portlaoise, where everyone commented about how much stronger/fitter/faster they were than us, that we are still having the very same conversation now.

Also, and please don't see this as a knee jerk reaction to yesterday, it really does bring up the question about the structure of the All-Ireland Championship in Football. Throughout every level in the GAA the teams are grouped to ensure that teams of equal standard play each other. Club level - Senior, Inter, Junior. College level - different cups for different levels. Club and schools Underage - A/B/C levels. Same situation in other sports - the main competition is always split into divisions based on quality (or in NFL a draft system to keep the level playing field).

Even if you take hurling, it is far better served with a 3 tier structure, as teams are playing at their level. If they rise above that, then there is somewhere to go. I would equate the beating Offaly got yesterday in football (13 points) to a 26 point beating in hurling, as I feel that hurling scores often are more reflective of the difference in teams than football. In hurling, Kilkenny would be easily able to beat, say a Carlow, by 26 points, who would in turn be able to beat a Louth by 26 points, so for that reason they don't play each other.

However, all of a sudden, when it comes to County level, everyone needs to get a shot at the title - which, in my opinion, is just wrong and based on fantasy. Don't have time to flesh it all out here now, but I feel that Offaly would be much better served in a 3 tier system in football too - 12 teams in each. I would say they would be in or around the bottom of tier 2/top of tier 3 at the moment and could move up or down from there.
If it was promoted properly and structured well, it would also capture the imagination of the crowds and mean as much to them if they won their level - the same way Cappincur winning meant as much to them as Edenderry winning this year...

[happy harry]

kildare were 3 levels above us. it was men against boys stuff on sunday.
but what i will say is that the aproach bieng taken is still correct....we need to buils so that in 2 or 3 years we are at the level kildare are now at. we have weak links but we also have good players returning for the league,namely niall mac,anton sullivan , nigel dunne (injured i think) shane sullivan ( again i think injured) , micheal brazil (injured), john maloney,
i feel all the above can add something and in the case of manamee lead us, after his personal problems are hopefully easing , im expecting a niall mac on song for 2012

[townman]

just one little thing did we not say all this when Tom Cribbin took over offaly that we need to build for 2 to 3 years
he got his wish but we are still no better off 3 years down the line.

i have a feeling we will be saying the same when Gerry Cooney rides into the sunset

[fluffkthatcrap]

Just one thing about building a team.who from last Sunday's 24 is even worth keeping with the exception of 1 or mayb two?or is der another panel of 30 brilliant footballers we don no about hiding sumwher for d championship??

[Truth as i see it]

just one little thing did we not say all this when Tom Cribbin took over offaly that we need to build for 2 to 3 years
he got his wish but we are still no better off 3 years down the line.

i have a feeling we will be saying the same when Gerry Cooney rides into the sunset

Just a couple of differences between Cribbins term and Cooney's

First of all Cribbin had a lot of players with commitment issues and lets be honest, he never really got to the bottom of sorting it out

We all know who the players are and we know the circumstances of it so lets not get into it (unless you feel like arguing )

Secondly people on this sight have rightly in my opinion questioned in the past whether Cribbin was able to get the team in the right physical condition to compete with the big teams or even to the standard where we could compete in division three

Now we know that getting the players onto a weight programme is a no go as far as the county board are concerned but there is nothing stopping the manager or the fitness trainer improving their cardio vascular fitness so that we can at least match opposition teams for speed and endurance

As well as that i (again like many) had questioned Cribbin's tactical ability as there were many occasions when there were strange and questionable decisions made during key games last year in winnable games which could have made the difference between us getting promotion from division 3 and staying there for another year.

Now i won't hide behind hindsight and say i was against Cribbin from the very start as i did for a period of time feel that given his past managerial record he had the right man management abilities to coral the team together to get us moving in the right direction but i will say that whenever i heard him speaking on the radio or the tv i always got the impression that he was never quite sure himself what he wanted to achieve (just my Impression)

i actually think this heavy loss could be a blessing in disguise as the team now knows what is required to live with the top teams in the country

Again just to point out what has already been mentioned numerous times before, we were completely unfit in serious football terms while Kildare were obviously using the O' Byrne cup as a launch pad for their league and championship season

I would be more worried if it we were in the middle of a league campaign and the team collapsed against mediocre opposition

Its better to know now what we have to do as opposed to halfway through the season when its too late to do something about it

I'm sure Gerry Cooney has been updated on the situation and i'm also sure that he will view the match on a DVD at some point and take the required action to build the team up for the season

Again remember that there are a lot of new faces in the team and if they can learn from this along with the management team then maybe it will have been worth it

Oh and by the way keep an eye on the U-21 squad this year i reckon we have some very good footballers coming up over the next few years

[PatSpillane]

just one little thing did we not say all this when Tom Cribbin took over offaly that we need to build for 2 to 3 years
he got his wish but we are still no better off 3 years down the line.

i have a feeling we will be saying the same when Gerry Cooney rides into the sunset

town-man what in the name of god do you no about Gerry Cooney, if you back up your statement with relevant facts and results i listen to you but until then shut your mouth. Your always getting in digs here and there and i'm sick reading your sh*t. Give the team a chance, new management and a team in transition. miracles aren't going to happen,everything takes time. the O'byrne cup is a competition to blood new players into a panel and see if there up to playing inter-county football or not. Kildare are indeed a few years ahead of us but isn't it great to see the level that these players need to get up to if they are to be competitive. You seem to forget that Kildare are one of the best teams in the country and were unlucky not to reach an all-Ireland final in 2010. Your the one that will come onto this site and run down players and management but you will not get out and support them. I was one of the few Offaly supporters who traveled to Newbridge to follow the team and see there progress unlike you,who was probably on this waiting for the result so you could jump straight down there throat. The future is bright for Offaly and i seen the u21 team playing last Friday night against Laois and they were excellent,they gave Laois a lesson on how to play football in the 1st half. with right guidance from management teams, and backing from the county board and more importantly the faithful support out in full force again i feel Offaly will be back where they belong, contesting at the highest level within 3 years. As Einstein said town-man, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. When you understand this quote come back to me.I feel Cooney is the man to drive Offaly forward as well as Pascal Kellaghan with the u21's.I wonder will your opinions change in accordance with the results or will you be at the same sh*t focusing on the negatives. I'm optimistic about the future especially with the young talent coming through.