Full Time Score 2-11 to 1-8

[D Corner Flag]

I think what your getting at magpie is spot on and in someways would be like the divisonal team structure which is run in Kerry.

I dont think any clubs would lose there top team to amalgamate with a local rival for the club championship when they want to give there own players the opportunity to play football- pride of parish etc.

What has been posted before i think, but would be a great idea (in my opinion) would be for a divisinol league run off over consecetive weekends in October/November. The strongest players from clubs would come together and play football which should be of a higher standard than senior club football.

For county players at the present it would keep them ticking over and also give guys a chance to impress county managment who could use these games as there trials for the county panel.

An example of clubs coming together for this would be-

A: Edenderry, Rhode, Ballyfore, Clonbulloge, Bridgds, Kilclonfert
B: Gracefield, Raheen, Killeigh, Dangain, Balinager, Cappincur, Walsh Island
C: Tullamore, Shamrocks, Durrow
D: Clara, Ballycumber, Tubber, Erin Rovers
E: Doon, Ferbane, Shannonbridge, Rynaghs, Birr, KK

I know thats far from perfect just trying to give an example of how it could be drawin up.
A club from each region would take charge each year with a pitch, Jersey, balls etc.

Maybe it wouldnt work, but the county from board level, managment, clubs and supporters need to do something because things arent going to get any better themselves.

[Phoenix]

Ewan Mac Kenna put it well in the Sunday Tribune:

"In fact only Niall McNamee and McManus scored for Offaly. Mind you that was as much down to home tactics as it was to John Keane and Kieran Gavin. Both sides moved forward and back as a unit barring Offaly's reluctance to get their half forwards within scoring distance. It left McNamee and Thomas Deehan exposed and everyone else out of range"

That was the problem - no half forwards to carry the ball at pace or try long-range points. The sort of players that can do that in Offaly are Sean Ryan, Karol Slattery (nominally in the half forwards but actually played sweeper), Neville or Thomas Coughlan, Rory Guinan or Niall Darby. We might have done better if 2 or 3 of those were playing in forward positions for us.

[the weasel]

I thought my post was clear enough.

I'm not suggesting that guys
playing intermediate football are not (or will ever be) good enough to
play inter-county. What I'm saying is this, just in case it's not clear:

- Playing intermediate football is zero conditioning or preparation for Senior Inter-County Championship football.

- Offaly Senior Club football is in a very poor state.

-
If some of our best footballers are playing in the Intermediate ranks
(or lower), we should seriously consider amalgamating clubs at Senior
level to stengthen the Senior Club Football Championship in Offaly.
Apart from making the Championship more interesting (which is really
just a bonus), it would give those footballers half a chance of playing
more competitive football.

As for the negative comments, for
my part I'm trying to be honest. If it appears to be overly negative,
I'll apologise...but don't piss down on top of me and then tell me it's
only raining.

magpie i dont think players not playing senior club football makes much difference as county players only play around 5 championship matches and only a handful of league & challenge matches & trainings a year with the club and do at least 4/5`s of the their football a year with the county.

Ewan Mac Kenna put it well in the Sunday Tribune:

"In fact only
Niall McNamee and McManus scored for Offaly. Mind you that was as much
down to home tactics as it was to John Keane and Kieran Gavin. Both
sides moved forward and back as a unit barring Offaly's reluctance to
get their half forwards within scoring distance. It left McNamee and
Thomas Deehan exposed and everyone else out of range"

That was
the problem - no half forwards to carry the ball at pace or try
long-range points. The sort of players that can do that in Offaly are
Sean Ryan, Karol Slattery (nominally in the half forwards but actually
played sweeper), Neville or Thomas Coughlan, Rory Guinan or Niall
Darby. We might have done better if 2 or 3 of those were playing in
forward positions for us.

I agree with you phoenix, we should play our own game and i dont think we would have played such a defensive team if we were playing a less negative team. Are we just going to play whatever game plan the opposition use and let them dictate the game and how its played. Westmeath were obviously the better drilled and more experinced team using that game plan. I would love to have seen Sean Ryan and jason Kelly (or even rory guinan and neville if they were on the panel) as the wing forwards to carry ball and support the full-forward line and at least carry a bit of a scoring threat, deehan and macnamee were to isollated and sometimes had to drift out the field because there was no one even within kicking distance to them and only mcmanus willing to carry the ball forward a bit, very disapointed overall .

[Sydthebeat]

i decided to wait til to day to comment, hoping that the diappointment emotion would have eased by now.. but it hasnt. As arbarg and Bernard Flynn have stated, the soul is gone from offaly football.
Right from the outset it was a damage limitation gameplan. and even though we went on at half time 1 point down we were being outplayed all over the place. The game plane would have worked fine if the westmeath half backs followed our lads into our halfback line, but they didnt... thus leaving us with 2 forwards being marked by 5 defenders... and as good as niall mc namee is, he isnt that good. they had a lot more confidence in our forwards than we did, we essentially started the game with 11 defenders and 3 forwards, only one of which can score....
The game plan should have been changed after 15 minutes.... it was obvious.... changes were made by putting niall smith into midfield, where he excelled, but it was up front that we were flacid. even in the second half when we reverted to playing in long balls to mcnamee, he was breaking the ball down and there was no one there to challange for the breakdown... too often he himself had to make this challange...
im not going to single out players, because it was both team and management debacle, but some looked seriously off the pace... yes it was a warm day, but fitness should always be constant. There was a lack of urgency with some players, perhaps it was the gameplan.... perhaps not.

The second half was simply a better team out classing a lesser one. Dessie Dolan showed why hes a class act, kicking great points and taking a well made, if badly defended, goal... Some hopeful things to come from the game were Niall Smith in midfield, he put it up against some big lads and came out on top.... Karl Slattery again defended excellently, but was a bit at sea as regards position for some scores....

hopefully, with a better class of opposition in div 3 we will progress further and be able to put in a stronger challange for next year schampionship. I do wish however, that we revert to a simple tactic of 1 v 1 over the 15 positions on the pitch... this blanket defense tactic does not suit us.

[beirut]

Explain this to me, a guy gets the ball on the 40, has time and space and opts to try pass it in to try get a kick around the 21, can these guys not pop the ball over the bar from 40 yards? I know McManus tried once or twice, had the distance but not the accuracy!

[DD]

Right from the outset it was a damage limitation gameplan. and even though we went on at half time 1 point down we were being outplayed all over the place.

I totally disagree with that, we wre a bit ropey for the first 10 minutes but after that we were the better team in the 1st half but couldn't/didn't take our chances. Niall missed 4 or 5 good opportunities, Deehan has 2 bad misses, and Darby, Smith and McManus had one each and all were relatively easy scoring chances. We should have went in at least 2 or 3 points up.
In general we were winning midfield and Dolan & Glennon were being contained.

[The Biff]

I agree with DD that we got our tactics almost spot-on, but only in the first half.

Going into the game, we all knew that Westmeath had been playing at a higher level than us for some time, were well used to the short interplay gameplan and would be relying on their usual few suspects to score. And we held them to 5 points with very few other chances missed.

Offaly's game might not have looked pretty but for an underdog team it was pretty effective and with just a little more luck, we could have been 2 or 3 points ahead of half-time. We completely over-ran them in the last 10 minutes of the first half, but just could not take all of our chances. I'd imagine our dressing room was fairly contented at the break. Probably all that needed to be said was to try to take the chances.

HOWEVER .......

The Second half performance went badly in the other direction. Maybe they did not anticipate that Westmeath were going to try to change things a bit. Despite a few very poor individual performances, we were still hanging close from very meagre ractions. Then the Killer goals.

1. We had just replaced Scott Brady with John Reynolds. This required Slatts to drop back and Darby was also shuffled. These adjustments were still just being worked out while Westmeath worked the ball downfield and scored.

2. Shane Sullivan should have got a free out when he went down to pick up the ball and a Westmeath player (dont know who) went in with the boot to kick the ball away. Only last week on a Referees Course, this was emphasised to me as a serious offence, definite free to the man with his hands on the ball and a likely booking for dangerous play againt the "foot-tackler". Instead Sullivan looses the ball and makes a desperate attempt to recover. Unlucky sending off, and now a large gaping hole in our full-back line which was not plugged and Westmeath promptly ran in their second goal right through the middle.

For the last few minutes, it looked the Armagh Ref was trying to atone for his contribution to the crap game, doing his best to give us cheap frees and serving only to "pi**" off everyone on and off the field.

Bottom line: I foresee a real danger that Pat Roe & Co. can portray this as almost a success for themselves. But for a couple of moments of slow team re-organisation, we were actually close. However, the real truth is that we had only two scorers, many downright bad performers, a lucky goal of our own (after a very poor penalty kick) and a ten-point loss would not have flattered Westmeath undeservedly. On our own patch, this was not good enough.

[True Red]

Firts of all I will start with positives,of which they were few.

Niall Smith - Tried his best and caught good clean possession.brought down for the penalty.
Niall Darby - playing out of position but gave it his all and ran himself to a standstill.Couldnt expect anything else considering his pedigree.
Niall McNamee - didnt play hugely well but still was our top scorer.A natural forward who suffered due to Offaly's game plan. The mind boggled when he was brought further out the field in the second half?
Karol Slattery - another who put everything into the game. Between himself and Niall McNamee they are probably our only two top level Inter County standard players.

Negetives (deep breath)

Our midfield was ineffectual.Alan McNamee wasnt on the ball enough.Ciaran McManus the same.I am not saying the lads werent trying,its just that it wasnt happening for them.

Scott Brady,Ger Rafferty and Paul McConway were all blowing hard after 20 mins.I know it takes a while to tune into championship pace but at that level it shouldnt take 20 mins.

Sullivan marshalled Glennon well enough and when he did get on the ball Offaly's crowded defence tactic kicked in and from that point of view the gameplan worked. A rush of blood to the head saw him barrell into an opponent who was out near the sideline and wasnt going to do much damage from there.Sending off was needless.

The management have a lot to answer for. I felt ashamed to be an Offaly man looking at that game on Saturday. The day an Offaly team goes out with its main aim of trying to negate a Westmeath team is indeed a sad and black day. Westmeath are a good outfit,well drilled and stick to their gameplan well. However, they are no Kerry. We afforded them too much respect by picking 2 half backs in our half forward line and then withdrawing the team into a more defensive unit,hoping to hit Westmeath on the break. Its a ploy that doesnt sit comfortably with the Offaly players and this was clear after the first 20 mins on Saturday. The management have ultimate responsibility for this. They had no plan B when it was clear plan A wasnt working effectively enough. And when Sullivan was sent off it was also clear they had made no contingency plan for this either. All in all, Saturday evening was a low.

The sad part of this is that this team will cost the county board €150,000 or thereabouts this year. As a club player who is waiting around for championship matches because of this and other county teams,it doesnt seem like money well spent to me.

[Sydthebeat]

No.

Tactically, we went out there trying to restrict westmeath from scoring, without any though as to how we would score ourselves. Damage limitation. In the first half westmeath took their scores with a lot more ease than we did, niall scored a great opening point and macca scored a great long range point, other than that it was free kickes..... most other shots we had were under pressure which either went badly wide or dropped into the keepers hands. As i said above we were very lucky to go in a half time 1 point down, we had a good 10 minute period towards the end of the half when we came from 5-2 down to go in at 6-5 down.... i do not consider that 'tactically spot on' tactics should not be rigid and should be open to flexibility..... it was obvious that westmeath were quite content to keep 5 defenders back versus our (generally 2, and sometimes) 3 forwards. We went 1 a point down because westmeath took the foot off the pedal after going 3 points up....

statistics are a pain in the hole, but relect the game in its truest terms.... we had two scorers... 1 forward scored.... 5 of our eight points came from placed balls... the goal was as a result of a penalty.....

It would have felt a lot better if we had given ourselves a fighting chance, to loose by playing so negatively is very hard to take... we were never close to getting anything out of this game... i cant see how anyone can think otherwise?

[DD]

In the first half westmeath took their scores with a lot more ease than we did

I dunno what game you were watching - thay got one point from play by the corner back and other than a couple of long range speculative shots by Glennon that went miles wide and half a goal chance for Flanagan. Other than that they never threatened.

[DD]

.... i do not consider that 'tactically spot on' tactics should not be rigid and should be open to flexibility..... it was obvious that westmeath were quite content to keep 5 defenders back versus our (generally 2, and sometimes) 3 forwards.

I doubt anyone thinks Offaly got their tactics spot on but defensively it had worked in the first half, where we fell down was the delay in getting the ball into Niall (Deehan was never an option). Whether it was solely tactics by Roe or bad decision making by the players, too often when we won posession around the middle of the field we slowed the play down instead of bombing it in early. This allowed the Westmeath half backs to funnel back and close up the space in front of the fullback line. As BNM man said in an earlier post, if it was even not the best of delivery but went in early, Niall was capable of winning it.

[Sydthebeat]

In the first half westmeath took their scores with a lot more ease than we did

I dunno what game you were watching - thay got one point from play by the corner back and other than a couple of long range speculative shots by Glennon that went miles wide and half a goal chance for Flanagan. Other than that they never threatened.

after 25 minutes we had kicked 2 points and had 6 wides
westmeath had 5 points and kicked 3 wides.. .thats what game i was watching.....

[Oceans 15]

[quote="The Magpie"]I thought my post was clear enough.

I'm not suggesting that guys playing intermediate football are not (or will ever be) good enough to play inter-county. What I'm saying is this, just in case it's not clear:

- Playing intermediate football is zero conditioning or preparation for Senior Inter-County Championship football. quote]

Players are not prepared or conditioned by their clubs for Senior-Inter County Championship football, this is supposed to be done by the Senior Management, afterall they are training since October and their clubs have only seen them for 1 week before the 1st round of the Championship. Some intermediate tems are fitter than the weaker Senior teams.

[Bord na Mona man]

Players are not prepared or conditioned by their clubs for Senior-Inter County Championship football, this is supposed to be done by the Senior Management, afterall they are training since October and their clubs have only seen them for 1 week before the 1st round of the Championship. Some intermediate tems are fitter than the weaker Senior teams.

True.
However it might be no harm to consider ways to raise the overall standard of the senior championship.
There are a lot of poor enough matches played in it every year.

I wonder when it was a straight knockout did teams put in greater work for do-or-die fixtures?
Now I suspect clubs are playing to preserve their senior status by winning one of their 3 matches and not being as concerned about losing to the big guns. The bigger teams don't worry as much about losing or drawing, because they can rectify it by upping their game a bit on their next outing.

Perhaps the edge and intensity has gone out of the competition a little?

[DD]

In the first half westmeath took their scores with a lot more ease than we did

I dunno what game you were watching - thay got one point from play by the corner back and other than a couple of long range speculative shots by Glennon that went miles wide and half a goal chance for Flanagan. Other than that they never threatened.

after 35 minutes we had kicked 2 points and had 6 wides
westmeath had 5 points and kicked 3 wides.. .thats what game i was watching.....

We had also hit the post twice (or maybe 3 times) and dropped several short.
You still haven't expalined the scores Westmeath took with ease Do you mean Dessie's frees?