Offaly v Longford Leinster MFC 17/04/2010

[Black Spot]

offaly 2-19
Longford 0-3
offaly 1Matt Carragher (Clara )
2conor lowrey (ferbane) 3David Hanlon (Edenderry) 4Cian Donoghue (Rhode)
5Joe o, conner(St.Rynagh,s) 6Declan Hogan(Tullamore) 7Stephen Hannon (Rhode)
8 (c)Noel Graham (St.Vincents) 9Pat Caman (St.Rynagh,s)
10Stuart Cullen (edenderry) 11Derek kelly(Edenderry) 12Peter Cunningham (St.Broughans)
13Paul Macpadden(rhode)14Eamon McCabe(St.Rynagh,s) 15Barry Cushen(Clara)
Very comfortable win for Offaly against a very poor longford side.Dont think Offaly would have learnt much from the game as they just cruised through.
Maybe im wrong but dont think the minors have had much luck in the first round of the championship in the last few years and Its being along time since they won the leinster.This year there dosnt seem to be as many individual stars on this team like previous years when weve had the likes of ken casey,Nigel Dunne and Anton however with a win like that these guys must stand a chance.
The goalie and full back line are solid Cian donoghue in particular was very good,the half balk line whenever tested stood up well.Noel Ghram who played u.21this year was very good and well assisted by Caman.All the foward played well I taught Cunningham and Macpadden stood out. There will be much tougher tests to come hopfully the lads will push on from todays win and give us somthing positive to talk about.

[Lone Shark]

What impressed me most was that the lads appeared to be quite well drilled, in the sense that even when things weren't coming off, they generally seemed to do the right thing with the ball while the match was competitive. I'd argue that Noel Andrew Graham overpowered them at midfield to the point that he took men on when he didn't need to simply because he could get away with it, and that the handpassing was sometimes lobbed rather than crisp, but that would be nitpicking. Generally the lads showed well, supported well, the backs were tight, disciplined and tenacious and the whole team had a good pattern and structure about them. The margin was probably flattering in that if Longford had scored their early penalty things could have been very different, but I don't think there was any way that Offaly were going to lose this match.

Which leads me on to my next point - that I honestly believe that for this Offaly team to win Leinster this year, the best thing they could have done was forfeit that game in the last five minutes. As a result of winning today, the lads now must play an away game in Navan in a straight knockout quarter final. Meath are probably the clear favourites to win Leinster and got some great results in the schools competitions, while Offaly have found out nothing about where they are likely to have problems.

Had we decided to forfeit the game, we would have had a home game against Wexford which we would expect to win, followed by a home game against Carlow which we also should win. (If we lost either of those games, we'd have no chance of winning Leinster anyway no matter what the draw.) We then would have gone into a quarter final at home against Westmeath (subject to the home and away agreement of course) with more knowledge of the team's strengths and weaknesses at championship football, and with the potential of a home semi final after that.

I understand that when having the draw, short of seeding minor teams which would be ridiculous, they can do nothing about the fact that we could draw Meath, but there is no way a qualifier should have a home quarter final. Extra games against other poor teams are a huge advantage and in fairness, Offaly teams have gained from this a lot in the last few years, but today we would have increased our chances of winning Leinster by forfeiting and there should never be a situation where that would be the case.

[azoffaly]

Good to see Mike Lowry's young lad filling the same jersey his Da did all those years ago in 1982.

Well done to the minors, it's always good to win a minor championship game, no matter what the opposition. They'll remember that.