Offaly Senior Hurlers 2025

[joe123]

Whoever set the fixtures obviously looked at this forum and said "them lads are only interested in underage success sure they won't mind where the senior match is on"

[oneshot]

i think it's to do with cork and tipp having home and away for league finals last one was in 1960 in thurle's. offaly were never going to get a say in it to be honest. a bit like the football bring kerry and mayo to croker for the football final won't be to many from kerry there i'd say.

[frankthetank]

Tipp and Cork have a home and away arrangement for knockout league games. The last knockout league game played between the teams was a league semi-final in Thurles in 2012. Resultantly Tipperary owe Cork a trip to PUC.

The 1980 league final also saw Cork have home advantage. That time over Limerick. Interestingly both the drawn game and the replay were held in Cork as Limerick owed Cork a home game. Cork won the replay by 9 points.

The 1960 final referenced by another poster was held in the old Athletic Grounds in Cork (it was demolished and replaced by PUC in 1974). Despite Christy Ring’s best effors (he scored 3-04 out of Cork’s 3-08) Tipperary won by 4 points.

Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion around at the moment.

Finally for anyone who is travelling on Sunday and hasn’t been to the new PUC you are in for a treat. It’s a fantastic stadium. But as we all know it’s in a shocking location.

Uibh Fhaili Abú

[Superhans75]

The joke in Cork is that PUC location was modled on spike island
You either needed a battleship or a submarine to get there.
Or a prison sentence in the early 90s

[Anonymous1]

It’s an absolute disgrace of a set up it’s set up to be an all Munster affair

Offaly aren’t being Fairly represented how they can decide to bring Offaly to a venue in Munster where 3 teams are playing from Munster Offaly having to travel the furthest.

Why couldn’t they play it as a standalone or in limerick.

In fairness - I’d imagine the majority of Cork supporters will be shouting for Offaly over Waterford so that should balance it up.

[jimbob17]

Thurles was the right spot if choosing. But historical agreements have it in Cork - a great stadium in bad location.

As for location, nobody in McCarthy Cup hurling counties gives a twopenny sh*t about a 1B final. It has zero impact on where it is on. The big game is Cork and Tipp and that decides the venue and that is fine with majority of hurling people. Until we can make it to 1A final, we have no business complaining about location of league final imo. If it was on in kilkenny as standalone, people would be saying it should be double header. You can't win.

Get over it, isn't it great we are there.

[Géill Slí]

In fairness - I’d imagine the majority of Cork supporters will be shouting for Offaly over Waterford so that should balance it up.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that … From encounters down through the years, the old nose-in-the-air/Donal Óg/“who the hell are Offaly” attitude would be fairly prevalent among the Rebels’ supporters.
Agree that it’s great to be there and let’s get on with it and hope for a good performance. I thought for large parts of the game the last day we were every bit as good, and at the start of the second half a good bit better than Waterford. The question from that match is did we just run ourselves to a standstill in the last 20 minutes, or have Waterford an extra gear that we can’t get to yet.

[G91]

In fairness - I’d imagine the majority of Cork supporters will be shouting for Offaly over Waterford so that should balance it up.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that … From encounters down through the years, the old nose-in-the-air/Donal Óg/“who the hell are Offaly” attitude would be fairly prevalent among the Rebels’ supporters.
Agree that it’s great to be there and let’s get on with it and hope for a good performance. I thought for large parts of the game the last day we were every bit as good, and at the start of the second half a good bit better than Waterford. The question from that match is did we just run ourselves to a standstill in the last 20 minutes, or have Waterford an extra gear that we can’t get to yet.

We made a lot of changes more or less emptied the Bench , between that and the work rate with a man down for so long I do think it was just nothing left in the tank rather than Waterford finding another gear

Before the sending off we still were poor with our accuracy and ability to control and rise the ball that wasn’t happening in any other game , I suspect a better playing surface and more analysis of Waterford along with a break should bode well I’d expect anyway

[JimBwobb]

James Mahon card NOT overturned, joke.

[Plain of the Herbs]

I see that. A joke is right. He was reported for 'dangerous play', which wasn't what he was sent off for as the referee gestured towards his head after showing Mahohney the red card. Referee presumably saw a charge relating to contact with the head wouldn't stick.

Same thing happened Dara Maher two years ago when it was clear the contact he made with the faceguard wasn't intentional.

Tough on James from a personal viewpoint. But in the biggerpicture, its no bad thing. Can concentrate on Ballinasloe now.

James Mahon card NOT overturned, joke.

[G91]

I see that. A joke is right. He was reported for 'dangerous play', which wasn't what he was sent off for as the referee gestured towards his head after showing Mahohney the red card. Referee presumably saw a charge relating to contact with the head wouldn't stick.

Same thing happened Dara Maher two years ago when it was clear the contact he made with the faceguard wasn't intentional.

Tough on James from a personal viewpoint. But in the biggerpicture, its no bad thing. Can concentrate on Ballinasloe now.

James Mahon card NOT overturned, joke.

If this was a bigger county it would have been rescinded

It’s easier for the gaa to make an example of that red card than it was appealing it making an example of bad refereeing

If that game was considered a good referee then the game is in trouble in future that’s on both sides he was very poor

The gaa are once again in headlines for the wrong reasons not for any good there doing they had a chance to stop the players looking for a red card by diving around but now situations like what happened with Offaly and the Clare under 20 will continue

[faithfulfanatic]

In fairness - I’d imagine the majority of Cork supporters will be shouting for Offaly over Waterford so that should balance it up.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that … From encounters down through the years, the old nose-in-the-air/Donal Óg/“who the hell are Offaly” attitude would be fairly prevalent among the Rebels’ supporters.
Agree that it’s great to be there and let’s get on with it and hope for a good performance. I thought for large parts of the game the last day we were every bit as good, and at the start of the second half a good bit better than Waterford. The question from that match is did we just run ourselves to a standstill in the last 20 minutes, or have Waterford an extra gear that we can’t get to yet.

I’d have to agree with this.
When we were in the doldrums, the line was always ‘it would be great to see ye back, hurling needs Offaly’.
On the way back, this was still said but not as much.
Now that we are beginning to hopefully reestablish ourselves, this is only said by the more casual fans from other counties or else people in the media.

Cork fans may casually cheer for Offaly next week, but at the same time they don’t want anyone to upset the storyline that Munster hurling is the greatest thing to ever happen in sport.
Munster Hurling fans in general might talk about wanting to see the game grow, but if they had their way, 5 counties would come out of Munster and 1 from Leinster.
Cork were a bit peeved off that we dared to even give them sort some of a game in the preliminary quarter final last year, as we were a Joe McDonagh side and they are the greatest team ever assembled.

A Quick Look at any of the other counties forums will tell you all you need to know.
The BIFFO and bogger jibes don’t be long returning.
After we beat Dublin this year, the electricity and running water jokes were back on the Dublin hurling forum.
I think Offaly’s disproportionate representation in the hurling media can rub others up the wrong way too.
Between Michael Verney, Will O’Callaghan, Michael Duignan, Brian Carroll et al., a minnow like us isn’t supposed to be heard like that.
Jackie Tyrrell said on the Sunday Game last week that it was good for hurling that Offaly were improving.
This led to an argument on one of the forums as to why he would dare say that about Offaly, when this person’s county hadn’t had enough analysis of their game shown.

If we are going to re-establish ourselves long term, there won’t be anyone waiting to extend the olive branch or to cheer us on too much.
We need to bring massive support throughout championship this year, and continue to rub people up the wrong way.

[Glendassaun]

I agree completely with the previous post. ‘Traditional’ hurling counties are only happy for you to get so far, to get so close, they’ll offer the plaudits, somewhat patronising at that, but get too close and you’re expected to get back in line and fall back into place.

The synergy that’s connected the Offaly public to the U20 team has got to be reciprocated for the senior team throughout the Leinster championship. A support as vocal as that which has created our U20’s for the past two seasons and the minors before is worth at least 3-4 points a game to a team, be that from winning 50/50 frees or the general lift it gives teams.

In the GAA ‘he who shouts the loudest is granted the free’. We have to develop a mean ruthless streak and if that takes developing a siege mentally then so be it. Would Cork or Kilkenny stay quiet about having a player unfairly suspended? Would they accept being dragged 200km to play a league final? Or expect their U20 players to play 3 championship level games in 6 days for those on both senior and U20 panels?

If we want to play with the big kids we have to throw our collective weight around and expect nothing in return from anybody.

[faithfulfanatic]

[Bord na Mona man]

A Quick Look at any of the other counties forums will tell you all you need to know.
The BIFFO and bogger jibes don’t be long returning.
After we beat Dublin this year, the electricity and running water jokes were back on the Dublin hurling forum.
I think Offaly’s disproportionate representation in the hurling media can rub others up the wrong way too.
Between Michael Verney, Will O’Callaghan, Michael Duignan, Brian Carroll et al., a minnow like us isn’t supposed to be heard like that.
Jackie Tyrrell said on the Sunday Game last week that it was good for hurling that Offaly were improving.
This led to an argument on one of the forums as to why he would dare say that about Offaly, when this person’s county hadn’t had enough analysis of their game shown.

If we are going to re-establish ourselves long term, there won’t be anyone waiting to extend the olive branch or to cheer us on too much.
We need to bring massive support throughout championship this year, and continue to rub people up the wrong way.

Yes, for the last couple of decades, all these 'admirers of Offaly hurling' have come out of the woodwork. I don't recall much warmth towards Offaly in the 80s and 90s. the opposite actually.
Some traditionalists were particularly rattled that Offaly could win things without being 'serious' enough about hurling. It undermined their belief system that only an elite of dedicated, thoroughbred craftsmen could prosper in the sport.

Now that Offaly have started to make gains, it's trending back towards 'Biffos', unenlightened about hurling, pox lucky to win what we won etc.

Which is exactly where we want to be!