Offaly Senior Hurlers 2025

[Hasselhoff]

Wouldn't be the first time cantwell got it wrong

[oneshot]

One or two people might be getting a little carried away. Offaly will do very well to beat Waterford as they showed today in hammering antrim in Belfast which is a tricky venue. Waterford are getting their squad back now as are wexford who bet clare in clare. Dublin in parnell will show exactly where this team is. Antrim seem to have fallen apart since Davy took over.

don't think we are getting carried away at all after year's in the doledrums its nice to have a good young hurling team that are winning matche's and we now have a good bunch of young good hurler's on the up. why shouldn't we not be confident of getting a win again waterford we have the hurler's to compete with them.

Well , lads talking about winning leinsters and all irelands is getting carried away. At the end of the day, it's the league, leagues are for playing, championship s are for winning.
Only a few weeks ago and offaly drew with carlow.
Waterford will be another big test to see where this team is at?

Don't think many on this site are talking about winning leinster or all ireland's but offaly hurling is on the up and it's great to see. put it to you this way this time 5 year's ago i was down in castlebar to watch offaly hurl mayo the same game was switch to the GAA dome outside Ballyhaunis with a bit of luck we will be hurling Limerick, Cork, Tipp next year.

as for only drawing with Carlow the leinster champs Kilkenny only drew with them last summer. anyway we have to beat Westmeath yet plus as for Waterford the Dub's could put them out next week. don't be so negative and waiting for them to fail.

[private joker]

Not waiting for anyone to fail. Somone posted about winning all ireland within next 5 years, I really don't think that will happen. Offaly will be doing incredibly well to stay in liam mcarthy. That's just been realistic and if they do, then the year will be a massive success. Beating Carlow, laois, westmeath on a regular basis is the immediate goal I would say.
Again I'm not been negative, I was at the Carlow game and there was a lot of negative posts after it. Fully expect offaly to beat westmeath but i feel Waterford will be a bridge too far. The championship will now be very interesting and that's great to see. Antrim seem to have gone way back since Davy came on board.

[joe123]

Not waiting for anyone to fail. Somone posted about winning all ireland within next 5 years, I really don't think that will happen. Offaly will be doing incredibly well to stay in liam mcarthy. That's just been realistic and if they do, then the year will be a massive success. Beating Carlow, laois, westmeath on a regular basis is the immediate goal I would say.
Again I'm not been negative, I was at the Carlow game and there was a lot of negative posts after it. Fully expect offaly to beat westmeath but i feel Waterford will be a bridge too far. The championship will now be very interesting and that's great to see. Antrim seem to have gone way back since Davy came on board.

[ah lethimoutwithit]

Not waiting for anyone to fail. Somone posted about winning all ireland within next 5 years, I really don't think that will happen. Offaly will be doing incredibly well to stay in liam mcarthy. That's just been realistic and if they do, then the year will be a massive success. Beating Carlow, laois, westmeath on a regular basis is the immediate goal I would say.
Again I'm not been negative, I was at the Carlow game and there was a lot of negative posts after it. Fully expect offaly to beat westmeath but i feel Waterford will be a bridge too far. The championship will now be very interesting and that's great to see. Antrim seem to have gone way back since Davy came on board.

Thats fair enough commentary. Wasn't at the Dublin game and it was a great win, but there will be another couple of gears in them come the Summer but we are progressing.
Westmeath will be coming with everything against us and why not.They have experience of Liam McCarthy and will fight tooth and nail to stay in this division.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Agreed on Westmeath. They weren't far off Dublin in round 3. And while it's not really a local derby for Offaly, it very much is a derby for Westmeath.

Westmeath will be coming with everything against us and why not.They have experience of Liam McCarthy and will fight tooth and nail to stay in this division.

[llkj]

Westmeath not a local derby? Half the team are from Durrow, right on the Westmeath border with a good rivalry built up between the 2 counties in recent years.
While many may consider Offaly to be too hoity-toity to consider Westmeath a rival and this game a derby, I would suggest that we leave this snobbishness at the gate and accept that Westmeath is indeed a local derby and a legitimate rivalry at that .

[joe123]

Westmeath not a local derby? Half the team are from Durrow, right on the Westmeath border with a good rivalry built up between the 2 counties in recent years.
While many may consider Offaly to be too hoity-toity to consider Westmeath a rival and this game a derby, I would suggest that we leave this snobbishness at the gate and accept that Westmeath is indeed a local derby and a legitimate rivalry at that .

Admittedly, Offaly dropped below Westmeath's level for a number of years, but as far as I'm concerned Offaly are back and here to stay. We have a couple of very strong clubs and with the underage success and the work with underage over the last 10/15 years, the skill level in offaly hurling is back, skill, first touch and that kinda thing was lost in offaly and we went into the doldrums. Those days are gone. Someone said above that we should be happy with beating laois westmeath etc on a regular basis and I can't agree with that, we need to get to wexford and dublins level over the next couple of years and maybe in a few years a leinster final. There is enough in offaly hurling to achieve that now. Westmeath should only be a geographical Derby and it's time order was restored and we continue brushing aside the likes of Westmeath.

[Bord na Mona man]

Westmeath not a local derby? Half the team are from Durrow, right on the Westmeath border with a good rivalry built up between the 2 counties in recent years.
While many may consider Offaly to be too hoity-toity to consider Westmeath a rival and this game a derby, I would suggest that we leave this snobbishness at the gate and accept that Westmeath is indeed a local derby and a legitimate rivalry at that .

Admittedly, Offaly dropped below Westmeath's level for a number of years, but as far as I'm concerned Offaly are back and here to stay. We have a couple of very strong clubs and with the underage success and the work with underage over the last 10/15 years, the skill level in offaly hurling is back, skill, first touch and that kinda thing was lost in offaly and we went into the doldrums. Those days are gone. Someone said above that we should be happy with beating laois westmeath etc on a regular basis and I can't agree with that, we need to get to wexford and dublins level over the next couple of years and maybe in a few years a leinster final. There is enough in offaly hurling to achieve that now. Westmeath should only be a geographical Derby and it's time order was restored and we continue brushing aside the likes of Westmeath.

Settle the head there. I remember a not very wise fellow spewing the same kind of raiméis in the past and it didn't look very wise.

https://www.offalyexpress.ie/news/sport ... rling.html

[joe123]

Westmeath not a local derby? Half the team are from Durrow, right on the Westmeath border with a good rivalry built up between the 2 counties in recent years.
While many may consider Offaly to be too hoity-toity to consider Westmeath a rival and this game a derby, I would suggest that we leave this snobbishness at the gate and accept that Westmeath is indeed a local derby and a legitimate rivalry at that .

Admittedly, Offaly dropped below Westmeath's level for a number of years, but as far as I'm concerned Offaly are back and here to stay. We have a couple of very strong clubs and with the underage success and the work with underage over the last 10/15 years, the skill level in offaly hurling is back, skill, first touch and that kinda thing was lost in offaly and we went into the doldrums. Those days are gone. Someone said above that we should be happy with beating laois westmeath etc on a regular basis and I can't agree with that, we need to get to wexford and dublins level over the next couple of years and maybe in a few years a leinster final. There is enough in offaly hurling to achieve that now. Westmeath should only be a geographical Derby and it's time order was restored and we continue brushing aside the likes of Westmeath.

Settle the head there. I remember a not very wise fellow spewing the same kind of raiméis in the past and it didn't look very wise.

https://www.offalyexpress.ie/news/sport ... rling.html

There is absolutely no comparison in offaly hurling today and in 2017, laois had easily beaten us, Kerry were beating us, westmeath hammered us the year before and we were definitely below all then teams only lads didn't want to admit it at the time. We were spiraling down and would hit rock bottom only a couple of years later. There wasn't a player in the county that could gather a ball with a first touch or come out of a ruck with a ball. Offaly hurling now versus 2017 is galaxies apart. We've made our way back to the top table, won all ireland and other underage success, clubs going very strongly, skill levels back. We just beat Dublin, brushed aside Antrim and laois and we will brush aside westmeath aswell. There is no comparison at all.

[private joker]

Offaly could easily win this weekend by 10. But it'll be a battle for 45 minutes plus before offaly take over. And taking for granted victory vs the other midland counties is very premature. Laois could have won the mcdonagh last year. It was a very tight affair.

[G91]

Lads completely gone off the rails here there was critics after the Carlow game and rightly so constant fouling and could t hold a lead and it lead to the draw

The only underage success we’ve been having is with the same team our minor team were very poor vs Wexford last year and it was the basics like rising the ball that they couldn’t do

I’m just saying everyone needs to relax a little this could unravel very quickly

Offaly did very well to stay within sight of Dublin and the response after the goal was brilliant I believe there’s another gear in Offaly aswell and expect them to do well v Waterford and Westmeath

[Wing Back]

The only underage success we’ve been having is with the same team our minor team were very poor vs Wexford last year and it was the basics like rising the ball that they couldn’t do

I agree with most of your post to be honest, but I think you are being harsh on our minors last year in the highlighted piece. I went back to refresh my memory and even looked at comments from yourself in another thread. We did lose to Wexford, as you outline, however they had an off day and there were still credible performances even in that defeat. 3 goals were the difference. We beat all the teams we would have been expected to beat namely Meath, Antrim, Wicklow, Westmeath, Laois (something we had not been doing up until very recently). Wexford had a reasonable crop last year, beating Kilkenny in the group. I followed the form lines after they beat us, when Wexford gave Dublin lots of it and were only edged out late on, showing me they were a very credible team. This was again confirmed when Wexford hammered Cork in the back door route which was introduced.

Now while last years minor team might not have scaled the heights of the 2022 crop, tarring over the whole team not being able to complete basics like rising the ball after one off day is way to harsh for me. I know many people read this forum without contributing, players included. And I'm happy to give them credit where credit is due, as well as call out harsh words when they are not warranted. I'm not trying to be sharp in my response here to you to be honest, far from it, but I think an off day against a decent Wexford team doesn't make that whole team a write off, and I already see a number of them already making an impact in our current u20 squad, and will continue to do so, even with our senior stars back, which we all know have the makings of another potential u20 success.

[G91]

I know what I’ve previously said and still stand by it but they were poor at basics v Wexford

It’s just the contrary to believe that we have had underage success outside of last year’s winning all Ireland team , we’ve managed to stay above Antrim Leix Westmeath I would see that as steady progress

What concerned me more than anything was player welfare we certainly won’t have many young lads left to play if we keep ignoring injuries

[private joker]

Player welfare will be the biggest concern for this group. They have more hurling done in one year than most would have done in 5. Been played when obviously hurt, ravenhill been the prime example when brought on in the u20 final when clearly not able to play.