the Untouchable wrote:I hate disagreeing with the Lone Shark(yet I nearly alway do) but I don't think Ger Rafferty is really a corner back, from past experience of both playing on teams with him & seeing him play, I always felt that he was the type of player that had to be played straight down the middle of the park, be it Full back or Center back.
There is no way Offaly are going to not put their best man marker on Dessie Dolan come the championship & that unfortunately from an Offaly point of view means that Karol is going to have to play corner back, he probably will have the number 7 jersey on his back....but he'll be corner back!!!
Seven times out of ten in the modern game one of the two corner backs ends up being drawn out the field, leaving two guys back there, making corner/full back roles moot. I wouldn't want him isolated out on the wing either, but in truth he'll end up being plenty central if he's playing at 2, because it's reasonable to assume Wastemeath will play Dolan and Glennon inside, two on two.
I think the overall effect of pulling Slattery back is negative. Casey will probably mark Dolan in May, and good and all as Dolan is, he's not Stephen O'Neill - and I think Casey did okay on O'Neill for all the Clan man scores. Rafferty will do well on Glennon, just leaving the job of keeping the WM midfield and half forwards busy going backwards, which is where Slatts at seven is vital. I've no problem with Dolan scoring four or five from play as long as we keep the rest of their players occupied and they still only end up with eleven or twelve points and we get at least one more.
But you picked the same players? The point is that if they're not breaking the ball and losing the battle for clean catches, then they should be instructed (read: forced) to break the Goddam thing. Anyway, this is much more McNamee's problem than McManus - I don't think Mac goes for two many clean catches these days.the Untouchable wrote:Your solution to our midfield not being competitive is hardly ground breaking either....but at the next offaly match count the number of times either Alan McNamee or Mac himself actually breaks a ball...My bet is that they won't break 5 kickouts between them....because both of them are too incline to want to make this magnificent high catch that doing the right thing!!!
I didn't know either of these things, so chalk that one down to being exiled in Sassenach-land. However I was as disappointed with Guinan as anyone in his previous county incarnations, but last year he was Ballycumber's main threat in several games offering both scoring and pace. Likewise he played a couple of very good games for AIT that I saw this year, so there is a real case for giving him another chance now. I'm not saying it would work, but he's more worthy of a run than most. If he's tried and failed I'll accept it, but until that happens, I'm going to keep singing from this hymnsheet....the Untouchable wrote:Cassidy is in Germany last I heard so if he gets a run now I'll be amazed & Rory Guinan is injured at the min but won't feature anyway because he's not county standard...regardless of how much you keep up with this, he'll always be a good club player but he isn't up to county level.
It should be a no brainer - the problem is that it doesn't appear to be the case for our current management. At wing forward he'd be able to use his power and pace to track wing backs, eat up breaks, burst forward and support the inside players etc. As a defender he's clearly not happy, and is a very peripheral influence in games. I wouldn't be surprised to see him there in May either, just disappointed.the Untouchable wrote:Also how do you work out that Neville playing No.10 is a no brainer....I might be wrong saying this but has Neville played at number 10 yet of Offaly this year in the league??? I don't think he has...I think he's being wing back most of the time & while I agree with you to a large extent Lone Shark that he would be better used on the half forward line I wouldn't be surprised to see him playing wing back against Westmeath.
If by credible, you mean the literal sense - i.e. believable, I suspect we'll come close enough to matching them for points and go down due to goals - 3-11 to 0-12, that sort of score.the Untouchable wrote:I suppose saturdays match will tell us alot more...just interested to know what people would feel would be a credible result against Kerry?
Creditable on the other hand for me is a win. We've gone down so far that any kind of "honourable" defeat is not worth shi'ite. We need points, we need self belief, and we need to make the world sit up and take notice and stop talking about us like they always used to about Laois Hurlers (some great talent, will always fight to the last, etc.)
We've become a third tier football county now, with only Waterford, Wicklow, Tipperary and maybe Carlow left who wouldn't fancy their chances against us. Honourable defeat will do nothing to change that.
