Offaly Senior Footballers 2025

[ruletheroost]

We have a match winner in Dylan Hyland and the forward line is pretty strong. Hopefully have enough to keep us up. Haven’t seen enough of Sawyer so will hold off on judgement. The fact he’s not a regular starter with Castleknock is worrying though.
Let’s be honest too the bench looks pretty weak apart from a few.
The Cian Farrell one is a mystery. He was exceptional at club level this year. There is no way the forwards on the bench are ahead of him.

[Bord na Mona man]

Also, can we actually just have a full panel announced. Too many rumours and questions. Every county should be doing it at a bare minimum

Yeah but to be fair this has been the way for the last couple of years, for better or worse. In one sense its good that theres a reasonable level of talent spread across all teams in the county. Conversely I think your team should be backboned by 2/3 of the strongest clubs in the county. You probably get a bit of a benefit from lads being used to playing with each other at club level. You’re trying to build up a dynamic between lads who hardly ever play together.

Cian Farrell hasn’t been the same since his injury. Offaly are definitely weaker for not having him there, just unsure as to how much weaker given recent year’s performance.

Carroll, Cunningham, Hogan, Farrell and Sullivan all out this year; its looking like a huge ask to stay up. If they perform worse this year than last, is there any justification in pursuing the joint manager arrangement?

Completely agree, poor analogy but you won't see tuchel picking players from Oldham and Norwich...make the backbone of the team from rhode, tullamore and ferbane, players who are used to getting to and competing in finals

The team should be picked based on merit and ability, not what club they're from.

Why don't we go the whole hog and revert to system of having the county champions picking the captain and them getting to a selector on the 12 man selection committee.

[ruletheroost]

Yeah but to be fair this has been the way for the last couple of years, for better or worse. In one sense its good that theres a reasonable level of talent spread across all teams in the county. Conversely I think your team should be backboned by 2/3 of the strongest clubs in the county. You probably get a bit of a benefit from lads being used to playing with each other at club level. You’re trying to build up a dynamic between lads who hardly ever play together.

Cian Farrell hasn’t been the same since his injury. Offaly are definitely weaker for not having him there, just unsure as to how much weaker given recent year’s performance.

Carroll, Cunningham, Hogan, Farrell and Sullivan all out this year; its looking like a huge ask to stay up. If they perform worse this year than last, is there any justification in pursuing the joint manager arrangement?

Completely agree, poor analogy but you won't see tuchel picking players from Oldham and Norwich...make the backbone of the team from rhode, tullamore and ferbane, players who are used to getting to and competing in finals

The team should be picked based on merit and ability, not what club they're from.

Why don't we go the whole hog and revert to system of having the county champions picking the captain and them getting to a selector on the 12 man selection committee.

One selector would be a start!!!

[Loyalsupp]

Let's call a spade a spade here young Sawyer got less than 10 mins championship time with Castleknock last year but is now deemed good enough to start for Offaly while Farrell was top scorer both from play and overall and is not considered good enough for the 26 . Very strange since he was involved in all the recent challange matches

[pigeon house biffo]

Yeah but to be fair this has been the way for the last couple of years, for better or worse. In one sense its good that theres a reasonable level of talent spread across all teams in the county. Conversely I think your team should be backboned by 2/3 of the strongest clubs in the county. You probably get a bit of a benefit from lads being used to playing with each other at club level. You’re trying to build up a dynamic between lads who hardly ever play together.

Cian Farrell hasn’t been the same since his injury. Offaly are definitely weaker for not having him there, just unsure as to how much weaker given recent year’s performance.

Carroll, Cunningham, Hogan, Farrell and Sullivan all out this year; its looking like a huge ask to stay up. If they perform worse this year than last, is there any justification in pursuing the joint manager arrangement?

Completely agree, poor analogy but you won't see tuchel picking players from Oldham and Norwich...make the backbone of the team from rhode, tullamore and ferbane, players who are used to getting to and competing in finals

The team should be picked based on merit and ability, not what club they're from.

Why don't we go the whole hog and revert to system of having the county champions picking the captain and them getting to a selector on the 12 man selection committee.

Does it not stand to reason that the clubs who routinely get to semi final and latter stages probably have the best players in the county, is that an unfair assumption? I don’t think its unfair to say that Tullamore and Ferbane, Edenderry and Rhode should probably be back boning an Offaly 15, with the best of the rest sprinkled in on top. Its not a criticism of who’s there, merely an observation.

[Cheddar]

Sure the likes of Kevin Nugent, Corey White, Oisin Keenan-Martin, Harry Plunkett, Geordi O Meara, Jamie Guing and Aidan Bracken would be good enough to make the panel

But do we know if they aren’t on the entire senior panel? That’s only 26 for tomorrow. Like I mentioned in my last post, the full panel should be announced to clear up all confusion of the entire squad list. Hate this shite with the GAA. Only tonight Dessie Farrell said Mannion and McCaffery aren’t there this year. Shouldn’t be relying on soundbites to see a county panel for a year. Kildare and Laois have announced the entire squad which is only right. Offaly should do the same.

[jimbob17]

Yes to certain extent but going by that thought, you'd miss out on some very good players from lesser clubs. So for example, P Cunningham, Keith O Neill, Dylan Hyland, David Dempsey, Eoin Carroll, Aidan Bracken and Jack McEvoy would all have probably been considered likely starters if available in 2024 most likely. Others that featured include Nigel Dunne & Bryant (shamrocks), McDermott (Durrow), Poland (Erin Rovers) Duffy (Walsh Island). That is 12 players. Clara will always have one or two, and many of the other senior B or Intermediate teams would have maybe one and sometimes two players. I'd agree each of senior semi Finalists would normally have 3 or 4 involved but that often varies and wouldnt use it as guage by any means. For most part, bigger clubs have sizable representation. Best man should play whether he is from Birr or Ballyfore and thats way it needs to be.


One observation is so many from Ballinagar given they only just won 3rd tier. Some good players there but all are yet untested at this level and you'd wonder if their representation is overly high with Finneran, Tynan, O'Meara, Gallagher and possibly Strong also? That said, Ballinagar could well win Senior B this year and then nobody would bat eyelid at their contingent. Ferbane might have one or two more if some chose football over hurling - ie Oisin Kelly and David Nally as examples. Tullamore have 5 in Egans, Bourke, McDaid and John Furlong and could have one or two more in Hogan or Plunkett, while Edenderry had Pearson R Egan, Hayes and Farrell (until recently) so don't think it's much of issue.

Main thing is that management get best team out on pitch playing together and for each other, irrespective of where they are from.

[oneshot]

What's wrong with John Furlong that his not on the panel today.

[Cheddar]

Cian Farrell named on the bench in the match program. Aidan Bracken at 6. Dalton at 5. Different to the social media post.

[pigeon house biffo]

Cian Farrell named on the bench in the match program. Aidan Bracken at 6. Dalton at 5. Different to the social media post.

Is Farrell there? Surely you’d see him among the subs?

[pigeon house biffo]

Cian Farrell named on the bench in the match program. Aidan Bracken at 6. Dalton at 5. Different to the social media post.

Is Farrell there? Surely you’d see him among the subs?

Don’t think anyone predicted that, been a while since offaly hit 20 points in January?

[oneshot]

Great win and start to the league hope some will get off Declan Kelly's and Mickey Harte's back with this win. it's a while since offaly had a big win like this .keep her lit for Leix next weekend.

[Offaly Hero]

I've heard only positive reports from the camp. I expect an Offaly win.

DM me for lotto numbers.

[ruletheroost]

The Mickey Harte effect

[ruletheroost]

Cian Farrell named on the bench in the match program. Aidan Bracken at 6. Dalton at 5. Different to the social media post.

Panel would have been submitted prior to him leaving. Very good team performance. Sawyer looks like a fair weather player. Hasn’t the size or strength for winter football. Having that extra bit of space in the forward line suits our very skillful forwards.