Bord na Mona man wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2024 11:21 pm
The build up has been nice and low key. The main chatter has been about Leinster being a dead duck and Dublin ruining it.
There is no great motivation for Dublin to go out and play like lunatics. Dublin certainly have no point to prove after an easy game against Meath. Every bit helps.
Offaly can learn from Meath's mistakes for starters. Colm O'Rourke and Meath probably felt compelled to go kamikaze, and then could whine afterwards from the high moral ground about the impossible task they had.
As opposed to trying to be pragmatic and frustrating Dublin more. They could have kept it tighter, but then every caveman in Meath would have claimed they had spurned an opportunity to ambush Dublin.
Offaly need to at the very least defend in numbers and not be so open at the back like Meath were.
We do have pacy players who can carry the ball quickly on the counter attack. Let's use them.
Offaly should be willing to take shots from distance and accept that a percentage will go wide. It's much easier to make space for a speculative 40 metre shot, than work it in through a swarm of bodies for a 25 metre shot.
There is the chance for some advance marks too on the fringes. This may entice Dublin to push out a bit more and maybe create space closer in.
At the other end, we just have to accept that Dublin will create plenty of chances and have the ability to go on scoring bursts. It's about everyone sticking to their task and not losing focus. The team and each individual player has the chance to give a good account of themselves against a highly ranked opposition. Every one of them should relish this.
All of this makes a lot of sense to be fair. I'd expect all Offaly players will get the best out of themselves on Sunday, after a good league performance (form franked by teams recently)and dominant performance against Laois, so after that a lot will depend on what form Dublin are in and how clinical they are. Even with every Offaly player playing 100% their best and with all the luck with us we still can't win this game, the harsh reality is that Dublin will be individually better in almost every position on the field and we can't control that.. we can however get something out of the game and the manner of the defeat. The big concern will be a little moral victory could lead to us settling for what was achieved to this point and an effort not going into the Tailteann cup. With all the luck in the world we might keep it at single digits (ever the optimist eh?)
Bord na Mona man wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2024 11:21 pm
The build up has been nice and low key. The main chatter has been about Leinster being a dead duck and Dublin ruining it.
There is no great motivation for Dublin to go out and play like lunatics. Dublin certainly have no point to prove after an easy game against Meath. Every bit helps.
Offaly can learn from Meath's mistakes for starters. Colm O'Rourke and Meath probably felt compelled to go kamikaze, and then could whine afterwards from the high moral ground about the impossible task they had.
As opposed to trying to be pragmatic and frustrating Dublin more. They could have kept it tighter, but then every caveman in Meath would have claimed they had spurned an opportunity to ambush Dublin.
Offaly need to at the very least defend in numbers and not be so open at the back like Meath were.
We do have pacy players who can carry the ball quickly on the counter attack. Let's use them.
Offaly should be willing to take shots from distance and accept that a percentage will go wide. It's much easier to make space for a speculative 40 metre shot, than work it in through a swarm of bodies for a 25 metre shot.
There is the chance for some advance marks too on the fringes. This may entice Dublin to push out a bit more and maybe create space closer in.
At the other end, we just have to accept that Dublin will create plenty of chances and have the ability to go on scoring bursts. It's about everyone sticking to their task and not losing focus. The team and each individual player has the chance to give a good account of themselves against a highly ranked opposition. Every one of them should relish this.
All of this makes a lot of sense to be fair. I'd expect all Offaly players will get the best out of themselves on Sunday, after a good league performance (form franked by teams recently)and dominant performance against Laois, so after that a lot will depend on what form Dublin are in and how clinical they are. Even with every Offaly player playing 100% their best and with all the luck with us we still can't win this game, the harsh reality is that Dublin will be individually better in almost every position on the field and we can't control that.. we can however get something out of the game and the manner of the defeat. The big concern will be a little moral victory could lead to us settling for what was achieved to this point and an effort not going into the Tailteann cup. With all the luck in the world we might keep it at single digits (ever the optimist eh?)
It's going to massive game for the majority
Of the players probably greater than the u20
When figure in the age equation thrown .
If we defend too much early on we are not going to score .
And if we go gung-ho we will be torn apart for periods of the game
We have to try and attack the dubs half back line which is were they build alot of the attacking play .
Going to take a lot running and covering.
Going to be some serious tired legs .
Looking forward to the game with a breadth
Of intepidration.
Safe journey for everyone
A 20pt defeat. Some really good things. Some things that we need to work on. Would probably consider it an average 6/10 performance for us.
Starting with the positives, I thought some of our individuals did very well. Keith O Neill and Dylan Hyland were very good and threatened Dublin when in possession. Cormac Egan was good in patches, as was Pearson when we had posession. We had a patch in 2nd half where we went at them and got some good scores and they didnt like it. We should have done a bit more of it I felt. We still would have been beaten but id have preferred getting beaten trying to fire a few more shots at them.
Negatives:
I fully understand we were never going to win the game but I was disappointed with our first half tactics with so many back doing nothing. The right thing to do was bring lads back but when they are there, they have to do something. Too often lads were back for being back sake. But they just watched the match. They needed to get tight and man mark once the Dublin players crossed into our half. Way too many stood still as Dublin kicked scores unopposed over our lads heads from outside with lads just marking space and doing nothing.
When in posession we played with fear in first half. We never went at them when we could have bar 2 or 3 players. We got so far and I counted any amount of times where our forwards got the ball and chose to play it backwards by 20 or 30m when players could have backed themselves and went at them. We struggled in midfield which was no real surprise. Most of our players would have been very competitive with Dublin at underage so I hoped we would not play with so much fear.
Outside of Keith O Neill, our inside line didn't function at all today and this will need addressing for Tailteann Cup.
All in all, our championship only starts now. Dublin were always going to end Offaly or Laois hopes today. We have had a decent last 6 weeks or so after a very poor start to the year in the league. I hope the players embrace the Tailteann Cup now and give their best. If they do, we should be in contention to be there or thereabouts.
Some errors probably more to do with the presence of dublin
Your playing against so many players with all irelands who can rip you to shreds in minutes
Could have ran at them a bit more than we did probably could have taken a few more shots on goal instead of turned to pass it backwards
Dublin are a different machine they have the best of everything money is no issue time for them to be moved from leinster actually disgraceful how the gaa just let it be for so long
Gaa go should have been renamed dublin gaa go the commentary was dublin everything even when Offaly showed good possession straight back an analysis on dublin
A decent performance I thought. It was always going to be a circa 20 point defeat but of course it could’ve been 30+ on a bad day.
O’Neill, Hyland, Cormac Egan, Pearson and Furlong all had good performances and Cathal Flynn made an impact off the bench, he should be starting from now on.
Some of the senior players had more disappointing displays and a couple of the subs were anonymous when introduced but they need to stick together as a panel now and they should be reaching at least a Tailteann semi final.
They won’t win it because I can’t see any way they’d beat Down but they need to give it a rattle and certainly can’t afford to have lads jetting off Stateside.
On a final note I have no idea what Kelly’s problem is with Farrell but he needs to sort it out. Surely to god he’s worth 10-15 minutes at the end today when the result was already beyond doubt?
We played Dublin so there are no negatives, no matter what we did dublin can deal with it, you simply can't analyse this game like others, they have a lot of players who were on the greatest team to ever play the game and a few of them easily considered the greatest players ever. 20 including subs of the most talented footballers from a pick 20 times the size of us at least and individually on paper better in every position on the field.. and Dublin certainly didnt come out for a stroll either, they played with intent which is great and the lads will have learnt a lot.. What we learnt is that we will certainly have a good crack at the tailteann Cup if we go for it.. a lot of things happened in the game that will give the team a lot of confidence. The big plus is the performance of the u20 lads who were the ones who really competed toe to toe with the dubs, Pearson, Egan furlong and o Neill, flynn and Rory Egan aswell when introduced.. it shows that these players were an exceptional bunch but it may be the case that development wise things have improved in offaly and we will see a much better calibre of player coming through in the next few year's to lead us to our goal (holding a place in division 2 and competing in all Ireland series) a lot of talent in our u 20 team who competed strongly this year aswell it bodes well for the next few years. On another note The provincial championships need to be a side show apart from the championship, you simply can't just throw Dublin out of leinster for being better than everyone.. of course ulster will have a bigger argument than ever as this will be the most competitive ulster championship ever.
Can’t fault the effort of the Offaly lads today. They gave it their best shot against a supremely talented Dublin side. The only negative for me is that they didn’t go for it a bit more in the first half - they had plenty of the ball at times. Cathal Flynn showed when he came on that it is possible to go at teams.
Very good individual performances from furlong, egan, Carroll, hyland and O’Neill. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Cormac on team of the week.
Hopefully they’ll knuckle down now and give the taileann cup a good rattle.
