First things first let me give a quick introduction of where I am coming from. I have been exiled from Offaly for about 12 years now so I have no idea of the standard of club football in the county which is one of the reasons that I enjoy reading the diverse opinions on this website as most of the contributors regularly attend club matches and there are good and interesting debates.
Secondly I usually don't have much of a window of opportunity to post topics I just get time to have a quick read of the various topics. But I had to take a bit of time out to write about a few subjects that were brought up earlier today.
Firstly Declan Kelly, as I mentioned in paragraph one I dont know the local scene but if we are talking about Declan Kelly that was in court last year for kicking a player in the head on a football pitch well i would go as far as saying that I would never ever support the county again if he ever got to wear the county jersey in a match. I dont care if he is the next Matt Connor what he did was disgraceful and should not be condoned or rewarded with the green white and yellow jersey a year or two down the road from the incident. If we are talking about a different player my apologies.
Secondly as I mentioned in a previous thread I firmly believe that we threw away the match on Sunday and we have thrown away many a leinster final appearance over the last couple of years due to a variety of different reasons - poor management, poor decision making/shotind/passing by players - and excuses - refereeing decisions.
We had done the hard work early on last sunday by silencing the hill. We had matched Dublin's comeback and should have gone in at half time at least two points up. I was expecting Offaly to come out all guns blazing and ready for a right battle in the second half especially after the incident just before half time but that didnt happen.
I would love to know what kind of team talk KK made at half time but somehow it didnt appear to be inspiritational. We have all heard the story about Joe Kernan throwing his runners up medal against the wall and I can only imagine how the hairs on the back of your neck would have stood up if you were there that day and how determined and focused you would have been going back on to that pitch. Offaly did not have that determination in them in the second half.
My time is running out here so here are my other issues in bullet point.
Padraic Kelly's kick outs have been shocking recently. He is guaranteed to kick at least one over the sideline. When he is not doing that he is kicking it to the oppositions best midfielder. he should vary his kick outs more. He should have seen that we were in trouble in the middle of the park on Sunday and should have dropped the kickouts short of mid field and let the half backs compete for the ball or get the midfielders to come closer and then bypass them and aim for the half forwards whatever but doing something differently. Jesus can these players not think for themselves and do something differently that what mgt tell them to do or maybe I am just a footballer on the ditch and should just shut up.
Another thing we need a plan b. What i mean is that plan a is play with the two lads up front give them the space and let them fight for the ball and get the scores. We need a plan b where we get a target man up there, hit him with long balls and maybe try and get breaking ball for the other forwards. You know the traditional way to play ball.
Got to go talk soon
The way i see it
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Lone Shark
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A few points there, so onwards and inwards .... 
Obvious Declan Kelly has a temper, and yeah, he's far from an angel. However in the climate that exists in the GAA, I'm finding it a lot easier to forgive a guy who does wrong, acknowledges it, apologises to the victim and serves his punishment. Perhaps that's more of an indictment on the GAA than anything else, but to look at it another way - who's more likely to re-offend? Kelly, who is a marked man and saw first hand the damage he could do and paid for it, or Forde who was "absolved" of his actions by his county board despite being just as malicious. Debt paid and all that.
As regards management, inspiration and all that, I'm pretty much on record with regard to the fact that I'm not convinced by Kevin Kilmurray at all so I wouldn't expect miracles. However in saying that, I'd doubt if the Dubs were relying on inspirational speeches. I'd say instead that they were depending on all the work they had done over the winter and still are with regard to their strength and conditioning.
Finally, for the kickouts, the upshot is that experimental kickouts etc. are difficult to execute - particularly when we have to vary them nearly all the time. Lobbing a long ball down the middle is fairly straightforward - hitting a half forward making a run back down the sideline is a lot trickier, and seeing as we often miss frees from 35 metres, missing a runner 60m away is hardly unforgiveable. Unusual kickouts work because the opposition are preparing for a ball that's going to land somewhere around the middle between the 65s. If we don't have the element of surprise, it's a lot harder to make them work.
Finally I'd be slow to give up on the two lads inside. Nothing they did wrong the last day was a problem. The problem was being starved of possession and having to deal with an extra defender due to Dublin having an extra man. And seeing as we're struggling for big men out the field, in the absence of Ross Connor, we don't really have a good big man option in there at the moment!
Obvious Declan Kelly has a temper, and yeah, he's far from an angel. However in the climate that exists in the GAA, I'm finding it a lot easier to forgive a guy who does wrong, acknowledges it, apologises to the victim and serves his punishment. Perhaps that's more of an indictment on the GAA than anything else, but to look at it another way - who's more likely to re-offend? Kelly, who is a marked man and saw first hand the damage he could do and paid for it, or Forde who was "absolved" of his actions by his county board despite being just as malicious. Debt paid and all that.
As regards management, inspiration and all that, I'm pretty much on record with regard to the fact that I'm not convinced by Kevin Kilmurray at all so I wouldn't expect miracles. However in saying that, I'd doubt if the Dubs were relying on inspirational speeches. I'd say instead that they were depending on all the work they had done over the winter and still are with regard to their strength and conditioning.
Finally, for the kickouts, the upshot is that experimental kickouts etc. are difficult to execute - particularly when we have to vary them nearly all the time. Lobbing a long ball down the middle is fairly straightforward - hitting a half forward making a run back down the sideline is a lot trickier, and seeing as we often miss frees from 35 metres, missing a runner 60m away is hardly unforgiveable. Unusual kickouts work because the opposition are preparing for a ball that's going to land somewhere around the middle between the 65s. If we don't have the element of surprise, it's a lot harder to make them work.
Finally I'd be slow to give up on the two lads inside. Nothing they did wrong the last day was a problem. The problem was being starved of possession and having to deal with an extra defender due to Dublin having an extra man. And seeing as we're struggling for big men out the field, in the absence of Ross Connor, we don't really have a good big man option in there at the moment!