Offaly Hurling 2026

[faithfulfanatic]

Scoreline was bad but we can get over that, it’s not our first. It was the way we went about it.
We set up to get play a system of high balls in on top of Ciaran Cleary, (who was called into the squad in the last few weeks to make up numbers for training) and try play off the breaks.
We won one break off him and got a goal and nothing else. No fault to Ciaran, he always tries hard but he was way off the pace which can’t be surprising and yet got the full 70. We pushed Oisin Kelly right out to the sideline in the corner to facilitate this, by the time he arrived for the breaks the ball was already swept up. Brian Duignan was a million miles off it.
Luke Watkins taken off before half time and was rightly aggrieved, there was far worse on the field for us.

Eoin Burke is Coolderry’s best hurler, Eimhin Kelly carried Lusmagh back to Senior A and Jack Clancy always gives everything for Offaly, these lads must have been sick watching this and being deemed not good enough to come in ahead of others, never mind to start.

Dan Ravenhill may come in for some stick and was lackadaisical at times but I think he is worth persevering with at wing back.

[G91]

Tough day at the office to be expected

Didn't go listened to it on tipp FM

Can't understand why jk so is persistent in keeping r.ravenhill on the 15

Obviously not getting the most from the forward lines same last week

By the sounds of things JK seems to keep sticking with the same plan throughout the game if the high ball isn't working why is it allowed to happen so much

With such a young team it was always going to be tough in 1A so is jk experimenting? Why not try something different with Brian D because it's obviously not working as is there has to be an alternative to getting the best of him somewhere else on the field or in the forwards

On the plus Eoin Cahill seems to have found some of his form he's capable of producing

But unfortunately there's more questions than answers

As said by faithfully fanatic, all the lads that have soldiered through the Joe McDonagh and lads that have shown what there made of in the club championship are spectators

I'm all for introducing new players but it shouldn't be ahead of tried and tested at the moment,

[private joker]

Very hard to play the way you want to play when the opposition are fitter, faster and more skilful. Its the all ireland champions, with a bunch of u20 all ireland champions also pushing hard for places. It is not an easy place to be. Staying in liam mcarthy for 4 to 5 years is the most you could hoped for .

[Hurling2024]

Obviously not a good day out, but that was to be expected going into today. Very depleted panel at the minute and most people's only hope was a positive few performances in the league, so no heartbreak today.

Having said that though I really don't know what the plan was today outside of hit it in high to Ciaran and hope for the best, which was never going to happen when you have Oisin off out in the corner so by the time he's in on top of breaking ball it's already gone back out the other way. No disrespect to Cleary but everyone can see he's way off pace and that's to be expected as he's only in a few weeks to make up numbers with the amount of lads out injured.

Saw Kevin Corrigan say Duignan was "one of Offaly's best players on the day" and had to question if he even watched the game. I usually think he's a great journalist with quite good objective views on the games, but I had to double check I read it correctly. He won the singular ball that Cleary broke down well and took his goal, a great finish for what it's worth, and then added 2 points once the game was long over ( 66 and 71 minutes respectively ). I just don't see a world where you can have all of Kelly, Duignan, Cleary and Ross Ravenhill starting in the forwards, at least with a game plan like today. There just isn't enough pace with them all playing. There's room for one of them to start, maybe 2 - but I think they'd be better off the bench. Especially Kelly, who has such downhill speed for such a big lad. Definitely need to rethink the plan with Brian as he wasn't overly involved this week or last, and with, presumably, Screeney, Cahill and Dan Ravenhill on the pitch - he's not even the best free taker we have, so "dead ball specialist" isn't a consideration. Plenty of size and power there, but not used well this year out at centre forward.

Watkins didn't look happy going off and rightly so, there was far worse performances than him out there today. And as for some of the lads on the bench, I don't know how they'd be feeling. Jack Clancy had a fine club campaign and always gives it everything with Offaly, and Eimhin Kelly basically singlehandedly got Lusmagh up and neither of them touched the field today, for whatever reason, I don't know.

I'm still not fully sold on Dan Ravenhill at wing back, both him and Ross look like fish out of water in their positions - although Ross I understand, as you'll have the choice of a few lads to slot right in instead of him come championship time. Spain and King has to be the midfield two in future, they both just have so much pace and ability most other midfield pairings wouldn't be able to keep up, but they're both young lads and more suited to summer hurling where they can work the ball better through the hands with the likes of Shirley, Kavanagh and Dan Bourke when he drops out deep.

Ruairi Kelly was never in it at all unfortunately, but you can give him a bit of leeway because of the age and inexperience, and Ben Miller was only a shadow of his performance against KK, which I thought was a very acceptable one.

The only positive so far has been Liam in the goals, who made a few fine saves today and was unfortunate with the last goal, and not much he can do about the penalty. Think he has a better puck on him compared to Troy, who almost forces you to work the ball out from the puck out if the other team isn't pressed up playing man for man, but I think Troy is marginally the better shot stopper of the two, so it'll be interesting to see what happens there in the future when Mark has had a few more weeks home and back with the panel.

Either way, we go again next week against a Waterford who seem to struggle to make much happen from play, and have a full back line that is there for the taking. I just hope JK has some sort of a plan outside of high ball in and work the breaks, because it'll be a long and miserable drive back home if that's the case

[Hurling2024]

Very hard to play the way you want to play when the opposition are fitter, faster and more skilful. Its the all ireland champions, with a bunch of u20 all ireland champions also pushing hard for places. It is not an easy place to be. Staying in liam mcarthy for 4 to 5 years is the most you could hoped for .

The bright side of that is we are a step above the Joe Mc teams, and Wexford look very shaky. A few years of division 1 hurling, probably yo-yo'ing between A and B, and solid years in the Leinster championship will develop these young lads quickly and when they're all 25/26 we could have a shot at maybe a Leinster or a league title.

[private joker]

I think offaly can beat wexford. Them and kildare. Then its a free shot at the other 3 who are a step ahead at the moment.

[Lone Shark]

I've been critical of the lack of use of the bench from this group in the past, but today I'll defend the management to the hilt, this was a league game we were never going to win and just because they didn't get the outcome they would have wanted, doesn't mean that you made the wrong choices.

(1) A lot of managers in counties like Offaly, and indeed some Offaly football and hurling managers in the past and present, have paid no heed to players who had put up a lot of minutes playing for their college. Johnny Kelly today pulled four of them from the starting team, and while they all came on, they weren't asked to play an hour or more. This is the league, this is the time to give lads meaningful chances to make an impression.

(2) My criticism in the league last year stemmed from the fact that it was the same 17 or 18 players that got all the playing time, through the whole campaign. I absolutely want to see Jack Clancy, Eimhin Kelly and Eoin Burke get playing time, but everyone who is on the panel should be given some sort of opportunity at some point, that's what the league is for. It's not realistic for most of the panel to have got a meaningful twist after just two games.

(3) Trying the three big men inside was an interesting approach that made sense, given the physical makeup of the Tipp FB line. I asked JK afterwards in my interview if it was a success or failure, he said somewhere in the middle. I'll be honest, I'd have said it didn't really work - but that doesn't mean it was the wrong thing to try.

CC won one free, the goal came from a break off a high ball, but a lot of excellent deliveries that should have suited Cleary were turned over and cleared by the Tipp defence. Even when he did catch the ball, he more often than not didn't have the ability to get separation and open up a shot. In some cases that was because the support wasn't there around Cleary quick enough, in some cases it was because he didn't win the ball as often as he should have against a guy where he probably has a four of five inch height advantage.

Galway are getting joy from this tactic with Jason Rabbitte, we saw what Cork did last year with Hayes, you know Kilkenny are going to use Reid this way at times in 2026. It's no harm have that option, and 100%, it's horses for course given the forwards that are missing, and the ones that we have available.

(4) Likewise with Ross Ravenhill in the half-forward line. I'm like a lot of posters here, nothing I've seen from him in the past suggests that this is a natural move for him, but if you're going to try something, try it, and give it a decent chance, and let him learn from what happened in Nowlan Park rather than just saying we've tried it once, it's not happening.

The fact that the substitution was made at half-time tells me that the management saw what we saw, and the experiment is unlikely to be repeated. If Ross lines out next week in Waterford, it'll almost certainly be back in his own half.

Similarly with his brother, I don't think that Dan at five should be dismissed as a bad move just yet. First of all, this lad is still just 20, so he's entitled to a bit more rope in terms of figuring new stuff out. In the modern game, a scoring threat from that sector is valuable, and he is absolutely capable of potting scores from his own 65m line and behind that. But neither do I think he was hammered today. Tipp got scores from breaking the tackle and running through at times today, but it was much more often Brecon Kavanagh's wing or down the middle than it was on Dan's side. It's not a dig at Brecon to say that's going to happen, at the least he has 15kg to find on Ravenhill and for all his natural hurling ability, there's always value in heft. For me, you could argue that this is a long term move and one that is progressing not excessively quickly, but not too slowly either.



Overall, if we get as far as the trip to Páirc Uí Chaoimh and we're still going with tactics that aren't working, we're still waiting to see Clancy/Burke/Kelly/others get a meaningful chance to show themselves, then that's a different story. But right now, we're at the point of the season where we're supposed to be trying different things, within the constraints of who's available, and managing players so that they are physically ready, healthy and sharp for the Leinster championship. To my eyes, that's what's been happening.

[Anon444]

The obvious tactic was lump it into Cleary and see what he can do. I don’t think he done well enough to warrant trying it again, we did score a goal off it, but with the amount of ball that went in, I don’t think the success rate was even mediocre. Especially when you consider the length of time the ball was in the air going in, the Tipp half back line just mopped up the breaks.

I thought a lot of our lads were below par. The amount of times a ball didn’t come up first time, contested passes across the middle, how many times were their Tipp forwards completely unmarked inside our half? It’s very frustrating, but the All-Ireland champions will punish every lapse in concentration or mistake and they did today.

We need our key men to really step up and lead in the absence of Sampson, Mitchell, Shirley et all.

[Hurling2024]

Similarly with his brother, I don't think that Dan at five should be dismissed as a bad move just yet. First of all, this lad is still just 20, so he's entitled to a bit more rope in terms of figuring new stuff out. In the modern game, a scoring threat from that sector is valuable, and he is absolutely capable of potting scores from his own 65m line and behind that. But neither do I think he was hammered today. Tipp got scores from breaking the tackle and running through at times today, but it was much more often Brecon Kavanagh's wing or down the middle than it was on Dan's side. It's not a dig at Brecon to say that's going to happen, at the least he has 15kg to find on Ravenhill and for all his natural hurling ability, there's always value in heft. For me, you could argue that this is a long term move and one that is progressing not excessively quickly, but not too slowly either.


[/quote]
I'd be very interested to see if we will ever get a half back line with Dan in the middle, and Shirley out on the wing. I think Dan has the frame to play in that central role, and as you say he's only 20 so he still has a lot of time to put on more size, like Charlie did at about the same age. Would also enable them to play similar to how the u20's did with a more free flowing Limerick-esque style of hurling working the ball up the pitch instead of a near constant high ball into the square or long ones into the corners. A triangle of Dan, Donal and Brecon in the half back line, King and Spain in the middle and Dan Bourke dropping deep in that sweeping role he plays so well would move that ball through the lines very quickly and efficiently.

Not sure what to do with Brecon though, an absolute abundance of talent and a gifted hurling mind - just a very easy target due to his size, especially straight from a puckout, or directly after a short one he can't compete as well as you'd want with a high 1 on 1 ball on top of the wing forward. Could potentially have him in the corner, but it almost feels like a waste to have him in there and when fully fit, I think James is a much better fit in there. Interesting to see the team, the shape and the tactics next weekend

[Bord na Mona man]

I wouldn't get too worked up about last Sunday.
In such matches, a big losing margin comes from the opposition's:
A) firepower to run up a big score
B) desire to run up a big score.

Kilkenny were clearly less than Tipp on both counts.
The bad news is that Cork are another team who usually rank high on both categories.
Galway would always have plenty of B, but may lack in A right now.
Limerick usually take it handy early on in the league, but by round 5, they'll be sharpening their claws and Offaly will have a handful.
Waterford mostly beat Offaly by a margin that suggests they're not too bothered. Their 24 and 27 point wins in 2017 and 2019 are the outliers. They mostly beat Offaly by low digits and even had to be woken up during last year's league final.

[bracknaghboy]

Does anyone know if Jordan Quinn was asked onto the panel this year?
And no I'm not looking to start a 10 page discussion about alternative teams like the football thread

Just a question if anyone knows.

[oneshot]

first of all if they were going to play screeney, dan burke , cathal king, why not start them.not bring them on when the game was over. another thing Dan ravenhill is a fine young hurler but he ain't a wing back he doesn't mark anyone at least 3 times on sunday jason forde ran bye him and pick up the ball wit Dan just looking around. the lad is half forward line or midfield. Ross shouldn't be on it full stop. young watkins was hard done by he has scored in the 3 games so far this year and at least 4 or 5 could have went before him on sunday.

lads looking for Eimhin kelly to get game time he was on again galway and kilkenny and his not up to it he has been around the last 5 years . as for Johnny kelly how the jasus he couldn't see that offaly had one one to cut out the ball tipp were senting into Jason Forde right across the middle time and time again on sunday. his 4 or 5 years there now and his only plan was to sent in holy mary balls into a forward who was playing his first game for offaly were not in mcdonagh cup anymore. after last years shambles again Antrim last game nothing has change .

[Faithfully]

Screeney and Bourke(along with King) both played on Wednesday in Fitzgibbon. Both are playing again on Wednesday this week. It's just common sense not to play them for 70 minutes and inevitably contribute to chronic injury down the line.

Re the above, Jordan Quinn would definitely be worth his place, but has been involved in both panels over the years, and may not have the desire/time to commit again this year (only speculating as to why he's not in there).

Let's just get through the league with a couple more competitive displays, no more big drubbing and a healthier injury list.

Championship is what counts at the end of the day, and I'd be confident we'll be in a better place come April with lads returning to the fold.

[greenairfield]

There is certain lads he hasnt looked at but still persists wtih players hes very loyal too.
If the league is going to be struggle fine but make sure you have exhausted every avenue.

I think it may be JKs last year with Offaky who takes over is a question for another day.

[faithfulfanatic]

In a star studded UL side, Screeney is the standout with 4 points from play after 20 minutes. They lead NUIG 10 to 1-1. Hoare, Bourke and Taaffe starting for NUIG. Screeney is on the wing. Live on TG4 YouTube.

Sam Bourke on losing side for DCU against Mary I after extra time in the earlier game. Offaly physios wouldn’t let Shirley play, right decision.