Offaly Senior Football Team - Championship 2023

[Superhans75]

Pretty wet conditions after yesterday's weather.
Let's just get behind the lads and hopefully get a result
Personally I don't think we are playing our strongest
Team for our ability but that's my opinion.
Up Offaly

[kingscounty]

Offaly 1-11 Meath 0-10 hanging on at the end but great result for this group of players , well done to all

[jimbob17]

Super win. Outstanding in first half and dug in when needed at end with some brilliant tackling.

First half was best championship half of football I've seen from Offaly since probably Wexford in 2006. Huge effort by all throughout. Ruairi McNamee worked his socks off and his tackling was brilliant, particularly in second half.

You could see by reaction of Declan Hogan how much it meant to some of older lads at the end. In that vein, particularly delighted for the likes of Cian Donoghue, Ian Duffy, Hogan, Anton, Panda and Nigel Dunne. They have soldiered for long long time and some could have packed it up before now if they didn't love playing for the county.

Pearson excellent throughout and his move back to corner back suits him. Dempsey and Hogan also very good today and prob main reason we won was our full back line. Very impressed with kickouts and gave us great chance on primary possession. Anton was very very good in general play but had plenty of wides. If he had the shooting boots today, we'd have won by lot more.

Rory Egan (who was excellent in first half) and Bernard Allen will be injury doubts for next day I'd imagine so competition hots up for places. Would imagine Donohue swaps in at left half back and Donnelly will go right half back if Egan misses out.

Louth in a semi is very winnable, though will need to be at our best to do it. We should be aiming to make Leinster final now and if we do, 3 games in Sam Maguire beckons. If we dont, it's been decent season to date and need to go after the Tailteann Cup.

[Anonymous1]

A very nice draw for Offaly in the Leinster championship for once.

Round 1:

Offaly vs Longford
Wicklow vs Carlow
Wexford vs Laois

Quarter finals:

Offaly/Longford vs Meath
Westmeath vs Louth
Wicklow/Carlow vs Kildare
Wexford/Laois vs Dublin

Semi final:

Offaly/Longford/Meath vs Westmeath/Louth
Wicklow/Carlow/Kildare vs Wexford/Laois/Dublin

Can we begin to dream of a provincial final?

Dare to dream!

[Superhans75]

Good result awful second half but that's following Offaly

[Handball]

Great to get a win over a big name like Meath. Have to keep the show going though, for all of the prestige this headline brings, Meath have been out of sorts for 13 years. , and particularly bad in the last 3/4 (except for the some fleeting moments). Louth pose a bigger challenge but by god, not a bad summer so far, and it only April

[JimBwobb]

Good result awful second half but that's following Offaly

Less of your shite.

Up the Faithful!!!!!!

[Doon Exile]

Anton was very very good in general play but had plenty of wides. If he had the shooting boots today, we'd have won by lot more.

Well thank God Meath didn’t have their shooting boots….

Great win, nervy at times but everyone played their part. Great to see a crowd like that in Tullamore. Looking forward to next Sunday and hopefully Rory Egan and Panda are available.

[G91]

What sickens me is looking at social media accounts of meath the comments under them on twitter "embarrassing how bad have we (meath) become)"

As If hey were somehow far superior than offaly , offaly have been hunting down that win for awhile now and today they finally got over the line and i wouldn't consider them that easy of a pushover they haven't been absolutely fantastic and no team in lienster has been apart from dublin.

It's a semi final level playing field in my opinion and good momentum.

[Faithful Future]

Great win. Excellent to see lads putting their bodies on the line for the jersey and running themselves into the ground which is all we can ask for. We looked a bit nervy at times but that's to be expected as lads are growing in experience.

Good variety of scorers, we defended as a unit and midfield functioned well.
A couple of loose kickouts towards the end but Duffy was solid overall.

Louth will be a different kettle of fish but hopefully we can use the expanses of Croke Park to our benefit and push on further.

It really goes to show that Dublin aside, Leinster is an interesting competition where anyone can beat anyone.

Hopefully we can get a good crowd in next Sunday and get behind the lads. Also hopefully the injuries to Bernard Allen and Egan aren't serious.

[Fear Uibh]

Great win today, 1st half we really played well with good link up play from the lads, I know Meath hit a lot of wides but in fairness some of them as a result of our lads putting pressure on the kicker, we did miss a couple as well, second half you'd have to be impressed by the desire of our lads as there was always going to be a spell of Meath dominating the game , but overall credit to the boys and management as well.

[Bord na Mona man]

Best win in years.
The first half game control was excellent. Offaly put in the big tackles and won the turnovers that Meath rarely did. Offaly worked the ball around the field well to create openings.
Meath hit a few wides, but they were generally one-dimensional in attack. Straight and narrow drives, very little width on the ball.
At the back, they had no real defensive setup, meaning Offaly could open them up with overlaps.

Let's not be too negative about the 2nd half. As you watch it unfold you get frustrated. And in recent years we've been burned several times with some cruel but self-inflicted losses.
Remember that Meath had to go for broke and throw everyone forward, including the keeper. A half time team talk by Sean Boylan and O'Rourke would have been about invoking the voodoo of Meath past and launching a famous comeback.

Offaly made some poor handling errors and coughed up too many turnovers, but Meath spilled and lost the ball a lot too. The conditions were terrible.

The golden rule of the top soccer managers like Guardiola or Arteta is "if there's a transition, make a foul". So every Offaly turnover of Meath was immediately followed by a cynical Meath foul. All matter of pulling and dragging, head high at times. With a ref who had no intention of stamping it out, Meath were rewarded every time they fouled because they bought time to get players back, and unfortunately Offaly tapped the frees short or backwards and the pressure was back on Offaly.
And while Meath did make inroads, they didn't look like getting a goal, or they never got many easy, quickfire scores.

After the Down match, I didn't believe Offaly would go well in 2023. The players looked deflated and downbeat. Here we are now, daring to dream.
Unfortunately, Louth are better than Meath. Offaly edged them by a whisker in 2021 when Louth were still a division 4 team. They are better now.
While Meath had a throwback manager in O'Rourke, Louth have the manager who practically invented the swarm defence. Looking at the Sunday Game, every Louth player looks 6 foot 3 as well.

We'll need something special again. You’d never know though.

[Bord na Mona man]

What sickens me is looking at social media accounts of meath the comments under them on twitter "embarrassing how bad have we (meath) become)"

As If hey were somehow far superior than offaly , offaly have been hunting down that win for awhile now and today they finally got over the line and i wouldn't consider them that easy of a pushover they haven't been absolutely fantastic and no team in lienster has been apart from dublin.

Things in Meath could get worse before they get better. Their past legacy is probably more of a hindrance than help these days too.
They haven't moved with the times.

[Fairplayalways]

A good reply but saying "if" various players and selectors mentioned "can" develop this way or that is all very hypothetical... they should only be there on current form merit, not on "if this or that is done with them" then potentially they can offer something..of course we won so typical Gaa no one will want listen to the moral arguments.. It was a great result today...On a different note Harry Hogan for Meath of course strong Banagher connections.. he is some keeper..

[Bord na Mona man]

Love it!

tweet.png (62.95 KiB) Viewed 8912 times

https://twitter.com/macnamararonan/stat ... 3141938181