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I see Declan Kelly is gone from the under 20 role.
Was this the plan or is this a surprise?
I wonder is he being lined up somewhere else?
It seems a shame to be loosing one of our own like this yet bringing in somebody who is arguably in the 'journeyman' category like Liam Kearns (I'm expecting a few arrows fired my way for that comment by the way )
I know Kelly kinda ruled himself out of the running for the senior job but was that him or was to told to rule himself out?
Oh the murky world of intercounty roles!
Whats peoples thoughts?

Late response BB. I thought Kelly might take over the Senior Footballers, but it did not happen.
Are you ready to face neighbours Clonbullogue in the Senior B Football decider?

Excited to see what kearns brings to the table this year time for change and a building phase

Building phase my ar*e. I hate these type of statements as it simply excuses management inadequacy that has prevailed over the last 15 years. We have been building for the last 15 years. You cant constantly be in a building phase. We have a bit of talent with competitive and strong minor teams over last 10 years. We need to be looking to make a statement in Leinster next year. Starting point is getting the best 35 players on board which the last 4 or 5 managers failed to do. If we get this and get good buy in, we should be as good or better than every team in Leinster bar Dublin.

Fairly obvious jimbob that your out of touch this is a new mgt in and our brightest stars are still early 20s and you think it’s not a building phase

Far from out of touch my friend. FYI, A lot of these U20s are good players but some who are touted to be our guaranteed future are only very average senior inter-county footballers in my opinion, andsome are just not good enough to ever be senior inter county players. The best of them U20s are probably still U20 in John Furlong, Pearson and Keith O'Neill. I don't see how you can argue how many others will set the world alight at senior inter-county. Some are good club players but some are not even guaranteed starters with their own clubs at senior level.

We are foolish if we think we will get any more than 6 or 7 off that team to make significant contributions at senior level. It was great to win, yes, but come on, have some perspective. Who won u20 this year? Are they going to get more than 5 or 6 off their team? Do Kildare go on about their u20s that won an All Ireland 3 or 4 years ago and how many of them came through. Kerry had 4 or 5 minor teams to compete at All Ireland level to get their current team, same with the Dublin team under Gavin. We had one year of success. if anyone is out of touch, it is you.

Senior is for the best 3 or 4 off every u20 team over a 10 year or so period from age of 20 to 30. The best 3 u20s of 5 and 10 years ago are better than the 8th 9th and 10th best players from last year, despite the fact that they won an All-Ireland. Go back 10 years and you are looking at likes of Conor Lowry, Phillip Foy, Derek Kelly on Noel Graham. While some may have made their own decisions around playing inter county football (One of them left the country), What did we do with the other two? 5 or 6 years ago at minor level, if I recall correctly, you are looking at likes of Michael Mooney, Shane Tierney, Jack Walshe and Cian Johnson. Again, some may have made their own decisions around application to play at the top level, but from that talent pool, what did we do with them? Until we actually figure out that we have produced lots of talent and have not converted it to senior level, (which is not exactly rocket science) we will not fulfill our potential and reach levels at which we are capable.

We should not be at a rebuilding phase for the quality of underage teams we have produced in last 10 years, end of story. It is an easy self serving excuse for senior managers to throw out that line. To agree with it means you are certainly out of touch with what has gone on on the ground.

We're not seeing a big upturn from last year in terms of availability.
In this day and age, you'd now have to expect about 30% of the normal panel to be unavailable due to work, injuries, travel.
Smaller counties won't have the same depth to cover this.

First objective would be to preserve Div 3 status.

Interesting proposition, do you think maintaining our current status is the objective? Or should we be in a position to bounce back up? I’d say off the bat we’re an upper half div 3 team, and we had our destiny in our own hands coming down the tracks in division 2 last year.

Our lot is the lot of many counties. Despite all the goodwill accumulated lately, it’ll likely be a tough sell to any lads on the fence about committing. Ideally we’ll be able to keep our core 12-15 lads together and build a squad around them. No harm to start the rebuilding process now and replace key players at 6 and 14 and try discover a couple of big mobile units to play 8 and 9.

I think this group of Offaly footballers has been overrated for quite a while now. Our Leinster championship record since 2006 is a true reflection of our standing in the world.

Played 20 Won 4 Drew 1 Lost 15. That’s pretty pathetic that we have lost 75% of our last 20 Leinster championship games. Considering during this period Leinster has become arguably the weakest football province. Remember 14 of those 15 losses came to teams other than Dublin.

Last year in Division 2 we sneaked a win against the bottom team in the group, lost all other 6 games and it was only that Cork were equally as inadequate that our fate wasn’t sealed before Round 7.

There’s more chance of relegation than promotion in this season’s league in my opinion.

See Kearns has an interview in the tribune today.

Get the feeling the bar is being set very low. While there’s probably a few counties in the division ahead of us right now, I don’t see why we should be fearing playing any of them, particularly in county grounds.

Next year there will be another two quality teams dropping down from division 2, so its not like it’ll get any easier the longer we wait to go back up.

frankthetank wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 7:58 pm I think this group of Offaly footballers has been overrated for quite a while now. Our Leinster championship record since 2006 is a true reflection of our standing in the world.

Played 20 Won 4 Drew 1 Lost 15. That’s pretty pathetic that we have lost 75% of our last 20 Leinster championship games. Considering during this period Leinster has become arguably the weakest football province. Remember 14 of those 15 losses came to teams other than Dublin.

Last year in Division 2 we sneaked a win against the bottom team in the group, lost all other 6 games and it was only that Cork were equally as inadequate that our fate wasn’t sealed before Round 7.

There’s more chance of relegation than promotion in this season’s league in my opinion.

Dublin have been the dominant team in Leinster for the past 15 years or so. Offaly are in the third tier in Leinster I think, behind Meath, Kildare, Westmeath.
Promotion from Division 3 will be a challenge, Cavan and Westmeath look like favourites for promotion.

At full strength, I would fancy Offaly to get out of Div 3. With the current list of absentees, it would be a challenge.
Who knows, a new manager might come in and freshen things up and maybe get a higher level of performance.

Let's see how we are 2 games into the league. We could be anxiously projecting the relegation battle, like we've done most years in the last decade.
Or maybe getting giddy about the possibility of promotion.

Offaly play Longford in the 2023 Leinster championship. The winners play Meath in the quarter final.

Kildare v Carlow/Wicklow
Dublin v Wexford/Laois
Westmeath v Louth.