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An interesting stat that I came upon when I was looking back on Sunday was this - or so I thought anyway.

We had four teams playing, two good senior ones and two good junior ones, on a day when there was a solid but not huge wind blowing from the town end of O'Connor Park. Playing into the wind, K/K scored 0-2, Durrow scored 0-2, Clara scored 0-2 and Rhode scored 1-2. That's nine scores in two hours of football.

Now I know it's tough to play into a wind at the best of times and you do have to change your game, but sometimes I think in Offaly we can be slaves to the "traditional" way of playing football, and it takes a toll in situations like this. It's as if you cannot question the orthodoxy of early long ball into an isolated full forward line, and any other method of attacking is frowned upon. Now that's fine on a good dry day, or even with the wind behind you, but it means that teams often can't cope when they don't have that option. Now I understand that Rhode were without Niall Darby who's the type of player who can create chances with his pace into the wind, but even so, the senior final featured some of the best and cleverest footballers in Offaly, and yet they simply couldn't adapt.

I wonder sometimes are we a little bit too one-dimensional, do we need more players who can use shorter passes, do we need better use of running lanes and support play, or am I just harping on something which would be the same in any county?

Any thoughts?

I was on the terrace side and thought the wind was fairly strong (it was bloody cold standing there too!). The goalkeepers did a reasonable job with their kickouts against the wind although Rhodes hung high in the air during the second half (i think the wind picked up a bit more as the day went on?). When teams take a man out of the forwards and put him floating around midfield or the half back line when against the wind they are pretty much conceding that they won't be scoring much themselves. All 4 teams did this against the wind sunday. Definetly the wind was not that strong on sunday that it was going to prevent a team from scoring more than 2 or 3pts. Its a familiar reaction from managers.....look out the dressing room pre-match and if theres a bit of wind they bring a man back behind the ball.........how much thought actually goes into what they are doing is another matter. Perhaps doing nothing unless the wind is gale force might be the best option???

The Rhode Keepers kick outs were not brilliant and led to Clara getting on top in the last 10 minutes.

To play a tight and controlled possession game you need a lot of fitness and strength. You need players who fancy themselves to go into the tackle and come out the other side of it with the ball.

Footballers at all levels in Offaly look to get rid of the ball at the first hint of an oncoming tackle. Even if that means a risky 50-50 ball.
The games I see in Offaly tend to be messy with a lot of scrapping for these loose balls. The frees given are usually for jersey pulls, pushes in the back and putting the foot in on a man picking it up.
You don't get enough decent combat, like shoulder to shoulder hits.