Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
Doon Exile
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by Doon Exile »

jimbob17 wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 6:04 pm Think some of comments are unfair here. This group got to semi final against all odds. They were getting beaten heavily in most games through underage ranks and it was known they were not genuine contenders for championship unlike teams previously. They did well in earlier games and got further than expected.

Players did their best. I'm sure management did too. I'd accept that kickouts maybe didn't go as well as they might have done. Not really sure re kick out strategy or if there was one - it wasn't obvious that there was but Dublin had two beasts in midfield, one of whom would probably be good enough for Offaly seniors currently. It was obvious that Dublin did have kickout strategies in place and they did look really well organised.

Dublin could be All Ireland winners yet, we don't know. They were on different level physically and ran us off pitch in middle third and were really well organised. This is why we conceded so many goals as they had so many 5v3 or 6v4 situations running down our necks and being honest, they left another two or three goals behind them. The question was, why were they getting so many overload situations? Was it because of not being fit enough or not having work done? Or not being tuned in? Or just not being as naturally athletic in middle third as Dublin were. I really don't know to be honest but Id suggest it may have been the latter and hope this was the case.

There is only so much a full back line or goalie can do in them situations. Dublin caught fire and we just couldn't stay with them.

I wouldn't be at all put out at result as this appears to be particularly strung Dublin team against what we already knew was not our strongest minor team in a while. However, there were some good players on show for us too and I think we will be fairly strong at minor level in coming years given how well current development squads are doing in underage games.

It would have been perceived around Leinster that this Offaly group have over achieved by reaching Leinster semi final, given their underage results at development level. The day we start running our U17s (who have given their best) into the ground for getting bad beating off Dublin is the day we need to look at ourselves as supporters.
Fair play Jim. Very easy to sit back and criticise. Minor is a fickle grade. See teams getting hammered in the first round can bounce back in latter rounds.

I’d say team and management got the maximum out of the talents available. Notwithstanding the personal effort put in by all.
Doon exile....

Plain of the Herbs
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by Plain of the Herbs »

Okay. It goes against my better judgement that I dignify this post with a response, but I believe I have to. This statement is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

I'm only replying because this false statement attempts to portray the management or manager and the s&c people involved as incompetent. Which is far from the case. This I know because I was part of the support group to the management, though I make this post in a personal capacity..

Private Joker has consistently made little of the 2023 Minor hurlers throughout this thread. Much of his/her contributions are false. In addition, he has consistently made little of the 2023 Minor hurlers on other discussion forums such as the Dublin one before the Minors played Dublin, the Clare one, the Tipperary one and I can only assume there are others I'm not aware of. I don't know why - perhaps he has an issue with the management or manager. Perhaps he'd like to share that issue with us all some time. These players are 15, 16 and 17 - reading online that they had no prospects did nothing for their confidence and esteem.

Did the management or manager get everything right? No. But what they did do was to develop a group of young hurlers and a team that was ready for the Kilkenny challenge to the extent that winning that match was the aim. And a realistic one at that. They nearly won it too.

Sorry for going on, but I couldn't let an obvious falsehood go unchallenged.
private joker wrote: Fri May 26, 2023 9:52 pm Don't know about the footballers but in the minor hurling there was no S/c work done.
Pat Donegan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

faithfulfanatic
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by faithfulfanatic »

Fair play Plain of the Herbs, plenty of uninformed and blatantly outrageous comments go unchallenged on here by lads with their own agendas trying to belittle the great work our county sides are doing.

It’s amazing how they are able to come out AFTER the minor footballers (and same for the hurlers) lose and criticise every element of their preparation. If they knew about things going wrong, why didn’t they flag it 3 months ago?

Sport is a very results based business but that shouldn’t be how we perceive children’s sport. Of course it’s important, but not the be all and end all with minor teams. They have shown development and driving this on is the main aim.

private joker
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by private joker »

If that's how you perceive how things are going and that all is good then what can I say. Fair play for helping in your support role and hopefully things will continue to be driven on.

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Lone Shark
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by Lone Shark »

I'm still a bit emotional as I sit here in the Croke Park press box, finally finished the assorted reports for tomorrow's papers, so I've decided I may as well wade in here, just to really wind myself up even more......

The two posts side-by-side below, but particularly the one from Anonymous1, strike me as both spectacularly inaccurate, and utterly unhelpful, and I'm being kind using those words. There was a temptation to be a lot more blunt.

I'm not saying for a second that we should all be here to cheerlead. Absolutely not. Constructive criticism is entirely justified, and people can tell when comments are coming from a good place. I fundamentally disagreed with some other posters about the decision to seek a postponement of the U-20 final (today's result probably confirmed that I was on the wrong side of that debate) but the important thing was that at all times, it was plain to see that there were people who believed in one course of action, and they explained why, and there were people who believed in a different course of action, and they explained why.

It was constructive, and it was well-meaning. Swinging timber like this, absolutely was not. I'm going to break it down.

(1) Anybody who has ever been involved with minor teams - I haven't since it turned to U-17, but I did at U-18 - knows that first and foremost, these are young players who are nowhere close to being emotionally and mentally mature. For all their physical development shortcomings at that age, the real area where they are not like adults is in the mind. Aspects like game management, decision making, situational play, tactical choices, these are the skills that come last to most players. Yep, Offaly players made some shocking choices on the ball, but that comes with youth. And when things get away from underage teams, the wheels can come off fast. At adult level, you're far more likely to see a one-sided game that finishes with three or four points between the teams than you are to see a close game finish with a double-figure winning margin. At underage, it's the opposite.

(2) As explained by other posters, this wasn't a "golden generation" that everyone was trying to get their hands on. What Leo O'Connor did with the 2022 Offaly minor hurlers was fantastic, but even a mediocre manager would have probably done okay with that group. This group of footballers, and indeed this group of hurlers, did not come into the 2023 season with a glittering record of success - far from it. That's not knocking their potential as players, merely saying that as of last October, these weren't panels that you'd have looked at and said that they were laden with players that are nailed on to play senior for Offaly. Some of them will surprise us, no doubt - but on paper, for the minor hurlers to win the games they did, and then to be so competitive that Sunday morning in the Faithful Fields, was a sign of real progress. Likewise for the minor footballers, they played two championship games against the eventual Leinster finalists, competing well in one, and struggling in the other. They played three other tight games, and found a way to win all of them.

I'm a long time out of Ferbane now, but I'm still a Ferbane man, so I give praise to Shannonbridge people very grudgingly, at best. And by any metric, Roger Ryan and his team brought this group a long way, and they have done Offaly GAA a good service with their work.

(3) The remark about no S&C work done was bang out of order, as clearly the poster was either wilfully misleading people for a personal agenda, or didn't have a clue what they were talking about, and decided to have a punt.

I'm not a strength and conditioning expert, or even someone with passing knowledge of the field. I'm a 45-year-old who only ever played junior ball, and consequently my gym work then and now is both basic, and remedial. If someone with a bit of understanding spoke up and said that the work being done was misguided, or didn't fit in with the overall season plan, I wouldn't be in a position to disagree. However anyone with the most cursory knowledge of what's happening in Offaly GAA right now would know that there is a lot of effort being put into this area. Moreover, anyone who attended the game last Wednesday, would have seen that S&C was not our shortfall. Bad mistakes at the back, poor shot choices (particularly in the first half) and Dublin's immense talent at midfield, not to mention the straight line speed of some of their attackers, were the big difference makers.

(4) Of course a fast break, with either a sequence of snappy forward passes or else direct running off the shoulder, is the ideal form of attack. However just because Offaly got good scores that way against Louth doesn't mean that they could have done the same against Dublin but chose not to. Quite often it just means that Dublin had players back, or Dublin were better able to get pressure on the man in possession at the top end of the pitch and slow players down, or the Dublin markers were better at being touch tight with the Offaly inside forwards, or any one of several other factors. The same people who bemoan players going lateral invariably are just as quick to criticise a team that plays long ball into a 5v2 or 3v1 situation close to the opposition goal.

Fun fact: some teams are better than others at defending. Shocking, but true.


Anyway, that's all from me, it's time I went to get food. To both the Offaly minor hurling and minor football players and management, if any of ye are reading:
This never-was, lifetime junior B baller is hugely appreciative of the effort you made, and could quite clearly see the work that was done bearing fruit on the pitch. And that's not cheerleading, that's facts. So thank you.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

uibhfhaili72
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by uibhfhaili72 »

POTH and LoneShark make good points especially about young players immaturity fragileness and the online remarks that may effect them . However questions must be asked parental involvement at intercounty grade should be avoided. I don't know if this mattered for the minor team this year but I do know it is or was widespread last year among other development squads. It's not widespread in other big striving counties so we should have it errradicated and the argument of people are hard to get annoys me as i doubt there is many neutral people willing to turn down intercounty roles. The argument of S+C I understand but I'm not all for it either as the previous mentioned development and maturity is key. Questions should be asked rightly as that's the way things work but I do believe at heart people the higher ups have offaly gaa at heart.

Anonymous1
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by Anonymous1 »

I think some of the reaction here has been blown totally out of proportion.

Nobody is having a go at any of the players, no matter how badly a team loses, these are only kids at the end of the day which is why I said “This is no slight on any of the players, I’m sure they’ve worked just as hard over the past few years as the U20 team from two years ago did“

Loneshark said my post was “spectacularly innacurate” yet despite writing quite a lengthy post, never pointed out one inaccuracy in my post. Why? Well, because there were no inaccuracies, I literally just described what happened in the game.

As you’ve said yourself, some people believe in one course of action and others believe in a different course of action and as I’ve already said, in this instance the course of action I believe in is putting “a new regime in place for the next three years to give this group of lads the best chance of overturning this result at U20.”

If you have full confidence in the current regime and think they have us moving in the right direction to ultimately help Offaly get back where they want to be then fair enough but I take a different view.

Posters have regularly come on here over the years and called for a change of management whether it be John Maughan or Michael Fennelly etc so why all the fake outrage this time?

I do agree that the comment about s&c is absolute nonsense, maybe it’s not where it needs to be to compete with the likes of Dublin but to suggest there’s been no work done at all is a lie.

uibhfhaili72
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by uibhfhaili72 »

Terrible hammering last night in the Minor Hurling Championship on the website .Not good for either teams but especially losing side , these lads are only 15/16 is there a need for them to be put up against severly stronger opposition . Should they be graded early on and into A,B,C instead of the grading groups system ? I am aware this is underage and it can happen but this one really stuck out (50 pts differnce) but really wonder Is there a way around it for these kids.

frankthetank
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by frankthetank »

That result stood out alright.

Absolutely no need for an Offaly championship structure at underage to have facilitated this.

private joker
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by private joker »

Shamrocks bet tullamore in u13 championship final in hurling. One point win in a very entertaining match. Well done to both teams.

del
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by del »

U 13 A final was a super game with Shamrocks just about shading it had a few really big and clever hurlers . Well done to Shamrocks
It’s Tullamores 3rd under 13 A hurling final to lose in a row which isn’t the end of the world . Hurling is in a good space in Tullamore and bodes well for the future. Loads of work going on in both codes and it’s paying off.

chimbonda
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by chimbonda »

There have probably been a few but maybe somebody here might know how many players in Offaly have won a minor A hurling and football championship in the same year?

Fear Uibh
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by Fear Uibh »

Tullamore done minor double's in 1933,1935,1943-45, 1950,1953 and 1958. Clara done a minor double in 1957, there is no recent history of anyone completing a minor A double, probably the closet any club has come was last year when both KK and Tullamore contested both finals.

chimbonda
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by chimbonda »

Robert and Fionn Carney won a Minor A hurling this year with SBK and will play with Cloghan in the Minor A football final this weekend.

ah lethimoutwithit
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Re: Offaly Minor Football and Hurling 2023

Post by ah lethimoutwithit »

Congrats to Cloghan on winning the minor and at the same time preventing a clean sweep by Tullamore.
A fortunate goal in the second half helped Cloghan alright but they were far the better team on the day. Tullamore were aimless and bar 1-03 burst either side of halftime it was hard to see any structure to the team. Cloghan were tougher and very committed to attacking the ball, and carried the ball very well throughout the game).
Considering Fionn Carney was carrying one leg for all of the game this was a far achievement. How many of the the team are outside St Rynaghs/lusmagh as a matter of interest?
Good crowd there too for a standalone underage final and decent football despite the heavy ground.

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