Offaly Senior Football 2026

[Faithfully]

Not an awful or shocking result today by any means.

But at the same time. Some mad calls.

No Harry plunkett today ? Deck Kelly still clearly has an issue with him.
Bryant taken off ?
Sawyer nowhere near the level and left on.

I will get bashed for being a Kelly hater. But the evidence is there lads. What sort of team & players would we have involved if he wasn’t there ? More than likely Plunkett will walk now and who can blame him

Bryant was bottled up every time he touched the ball. Kicked a few wides, was generally marked out of it. Are you seriously querying someone else (Flynn) getting a run for a few minutes? I don't think anyone at the game could come to that conclusion.

[Superhans75]

Was not as bad
But O'Toole is not the answer
He is was lost for the game
Pearson was class
But the rest
Need a look in the mirror
No shit shot lol on goal in the first half
Enough said

[Cheddar]

Going off our first half, you’d be very happy with the future.

Going off the second half, you’d be very worried.

Positives;
Our midfield was better than in other years with us generally winning our own ball and Leavy and McEvoy certainly improving.

We had a spread of 2 point scorers. Good to see and not over reliant on any one player. Adding Hyland, Flynn and Tierney to the mix will improve our scoring.

Ciarán Murphy is a good footballer. Can kick off both feet and has potential to be a regular starter.

Negatives:
Our size in key areas. We seem to go in on him a lot but Sawyer is ok. He was decent in spells but he just isn’t up to the physicality of inter county. Sean Conway and Darragh Flynn brought in, but neither could win a ball when on. We need some physical forwards like a Mulroy.

We were afraid to attack and drive at the Louth defence. I love Cormac Egan and when he’s on form, he’s one of our best. I felt he was wasted today. It felt like his role was to sit on the 45 am conduct attacks, akin to a Cathal Flynn role. But Cormac’s strength is running at defences and receiving balls in the space on the run. The attack in general was poor in the second half.

We’ve a light bench and injuries are killing us. Even having the likes of a Furlong and Tierney back would help considerably. Despite their size, both lads are experienced and would instantly improve our attack. Furlong is well able to get forward, and Tierney is always lively. He works well with Bryant and O’Neill. Not sure how long the main injuries are for. Flynn and Dunican are long term. Hopefully the rest are back in the next few weeks.

Onwards to Newbridge.

[Faithfully]

Another note, even allowing for the hurlers playing at the same time, the Offaly turnout was very poor. Louth greatly outnumbered us. It's been a common enough theme over the years.

[jimbob17]

The amount of negative talk on this forum about this management, team, players, everything is deplorable. Especially after what was our best year in years in 2025. It is clear that for some posters, their opinions regarding this team and management are informed by a personal dislike. And top it off, according to the same posters there is a team of division one inter county players in the county not on the panel, only for the management.
The attitude on this thread compared to the hurling one is like night and day. One has to ask, why is that.


Regarding the result today, a decent performance by a very injury depleted team. Just found the going too hard in the second against the wind - a lot of attacks stalled at the arc. The result seems inevitable from a long way out.

This forum is becoming more and more Trump like by the week. Like the Trump police, some want to control what people think and what people say. People are not happy about people expressing a legitimate viewpoint unless it marries with their own personal agenda and then they come down and just rubbish what genuine supporters are saying. Perhaps there is good reason for genuine supporters to ask legitimate questions.

You mention the Offaly hurlers. The Offaly hurlers are operating in the top tier of hurling this year and have made good strides since we languished in Christy Ring Cup some years ago. The best players seem to be in playing with the county and there appears to be a fairly happy camp in place with all pulling together within a fairly positive team culture. In fact, the culture within Offaly hurling has improved drastically in the last 5 years or so - probably since Michael Fennelly's time in charge of seniors and continued by J Kelly since he moved from coach to manager - aided by influx of youth from U20s. This is the reason there is little negativity about the hurling camp. On the other hand, there appears to be a high level of turnover and disaffection from the football camp over last couple of years. It's unavoidable not to notice it. These are neighbours and clubmates of people who come on here in all likelihood. Offaly football is a small pool of people and there have been a lot of negative rumblings emanating from camp over last 2 years. Of course last years progress was most welcome and hopefully this year, we will progress another bit. I for one have no personal gripe against anybody. My interest is to see Offaly at their best and challenging at highest level that we can. To do that, we need our best 30-34 players in with the county squad. Do I think we could be a lot stronger at the moment and properly challenging at highest level if there were not so many fallouts? Absolutely! Would we be better without so many overuse injuries? Absolutely. Knowing the talent that has gone through minor and U20 in last 10-15 years, I genuinely believe we should be up there challenging with the Roscommons, Corks, Kildares, Louths and Meaths to make progress towards the top 10 teams. So maybe there is a piece of reflection there for supporters who turn a blind eye to what is being challenged or those rubbishing legitimate concerns that have been posted here.

To best of my knowledge, this is a forum where people are free to discuss all matters that are Offaly GAA related. A number of posters have brought up similar points and from what I have seen, most are done fairly and respectfully to all, bar a few having a few cheap cuts at players here and there (and sometimes management to be fair at times). In the main, the conversation is balanced and fair. Everyone wants the same thing which is Offaly to succeed. I wouldn't say there are too many points that are brought up here that are irrational in nature. It is the supporters right to express their views and hopefully in the right way. If you or anybody else is not open to such discussion, then maybe take the Trumpist ways elsewhere and don't come on to read it.

On today, Leavy in MF was a plus. Murphy is someone that can offer something too. Most of the backs did well generally. Lacking potency in forwards which we probably knew. Lacking physical presence in inside line. Could Harry Plunkett offer that? His performances for Tullamore suggest he probably could. Today in 2nd half seemed like an ideal time to throw him in. There was nothing to lose by doing it but we don't see him in training. Other than that, we will need to get the 3 or 4 lads with the shorter term injuries back ASAP to have a chance of staying up.

[Thomas mc]

Beaten at home by the weakest team in the competition..long road ahead. A few injuries have destroyed us.. no positives from today sadly

[biffinbanner]

was it not the leinster champions louth? i thought? minus our 5 best players from last year? i must be getting wrong info somewhere!!,

[Snotser123]

The lack of knowledge louth the weakest team in the competition

[Thomas mc]

was it not the leinster champions louth? i thought? minus our 5 best players from last year? i must be getting wrong info somewhere!!,

Yea but false leinster champions as meath shit the togs .. agree minus our best but today was our only chance of a win

[Thomas mc]

The lack of knowledge louth the weakest team in the competition

Ah lad louth wiill be relagated with offaly come on

[Superhans75]

I'm fed of people slagging
We are not that bad
Crowd wise there's no money
Simple
We are are in the middle of recession
But them people are on holiday
Kildare will bring out the 70 mintures
One game a year

[classof81]

Do people honestly think these exact things aren't happening in every single county in Ireland in both codes ....are ye really that naive ....donegal famously won the all Ireland without there best player for god sake because of player manager fall outs.....do ye honestly think there's not horror stories of Brian Cody's managements by lads on the sidelines ...by young lads who couldn't make the cut or by old lads who felt they had lots to give but got the chop.......I can't think of any talented young lad in Offaly that hasn't been given his shot by current management ...Dalton the stand out player in senior b this year and boom he's straight in...seriously I don't get it ...panda and Anton are bound to be peaved.....just like charlie Carter was with Cody....it happens in every sport ...you can cling on to anton and panda forever and they will do a solid job but those that mean you wouldn't have o neill and Bryant in this year as they would have got no minutes the last few years....cop on lads...we have two all Ireland managers working with out lads....what do ye want ? One of the absolutely coaching spoofers with the gift of the gab that are all over the country

Ok snotser, we all want progression right? Only 3 year back we were beat in a semifinal of a leinster championship in extra time we were very unlucky to not make the final.. fast forward 3 year with our under 20 lads joining the senior set up and its not acceptable to say that relegation and not winning a taligan cup a 2nd tier competition should be the least our team and management should be expected to achieve? If not then how long do they get and where is the progression from a leinster semifinal 3 year back?

[Doon Exile]

I would ordinarily have always been in O’Connor park today but went to Nowlan park.

I just can’t get my head around how anyone in GAA circles think it’s ok to fix both codes at the same time, on the same day but in different counties.

[Anon444]

The lack of options this year is getting blamed all on injuries of certain players, but I think part of it has to lie with management. Last year, we used the same 17/18 players over and over, even when there were chances to use more of the panelists. Now a couple of injuries, plus Ruairi McNamee leaving the panel, we still don’t know what we have and we have gone up a grade. I feel like in Div 2 it’ll be more of the same. That’s all well and good, but later on in a few years, more lads will leave the panel, more injuries will happen to different players and we are no further on. Not getting onto any of the players who played today, but I would have liked to see Dalton and Plunkett get some game-time at least. Positions of certain players too is a bit of a head scratcher. Anyways, hopefully we can move on and pick up points, maybe drag some teams into the relegation fight with us.

[Lone Shark]

I just can’t get my head around how anyone in GAA circles think it’s ok to fix both codes at the same time, on the same day but in different counties.

We're one of very few counties that would have an issue with it. I can guarantee you that there won't have been any caterwauling in Roscommon/Wicklow/Mayo about it today.

The main problem however is that when you get up into 1A hurling and 1 or 2 football, the GAA doesn't like putting those games on Saturday afternoon. It's a graveyard slot for attendances, and while they'll let you off if you're Division Four, or if it's Joe McDonagh Cup or below, there was no way they were putting either of Offaly's games this weekend on a Saturday afternoon, like they did last year with the Carlow hurling game.

And since there are no lights in OCP or Nowlan Park to facilitate a Saturday night slot, that was the end of that discussion.