Offaly Hurling 2026

[Faithfully]

Sorry, this ould lark of giving lads time, Adam Hogan, Adam English, Ruben Halloran - just picking them three off the top of my head, the first two played Munster Championship games in the weeks leading UPTO their leaving certs...Ruben Halloran a recent U20 with Waterford, looks more than at home from physical side, open play/frees, Darragh McCarthy has a miles even behind him at this stage....our lads are of similar age are on/off the team or worse still injured. I wont profess to know how one county can do it and we cant, but these are facts -it takes us years to "develop" these players, and as I said in other posts, lads now a days wont hang around for 6/7/10 years...they have lives to live and will rightly move on...the answer for Offaly is probably somewhere in the middle of the two scenarios..Other counties, prodigies come on and after a year or two there are main stays - we have a different 15 every week- for every game etc.

All of them lads named have had various injury issues over the last couple of years.
Reuben Halloran is 24.
You have picked an outlier from those counties - Offaly have probably looked to blood more young lads than any county.
Minor hurling all ireland 2021, Cork beat Galway.
From those teams, Diarmuid Healy might start for Cork this year, Joshua Ryan might start for Galway, nobody else.

Inclined to agree with you on this.

We had Donal Shirley play excellent in 2024 in the McDonagh final and against Cork as an U19 (U19 is the youngest legal age to play senior intercounty).

Ravenhill would probably have started too as he did in the group vs Laois prior to injury. Screeney scored 0-8 off the bench in that game and started the final (admittedly, very quiet).

Dan Bourke and Cathal King also played well and were one year older (U20). (Bourke arguably has seen his form dip, but I expect him to be an excellent inter county hurler)

There will always be a minority of lads who can handle senior inter county at a young age, most others take 2 or 3 years after u20 to begin to establish themselves.

[Plain of the Herbs]

The 'up side' is that in three to four year's time, Offaly's now 21 year olds will have much more intercounty experience than lads the same age from other counties.

Remember it took Offaly's 1986 Minors eight years to win a Senior All-Ireland.

If Offaly stay in the Leinster championship, their best chance of progression will more likely be in the even years when the Dublin and Wexford fixtures (and Kilkenny) are at at home. They will have to travel to those counties in the odd years.

[Fairplayalways]

ah yeah, I know what you mean, my fear is, as I say, lads (and we havent that many to be able to afford this) wont hang around if they are not making the team, and even injuries when lads are out and away from the set up might re-evaluate the commitment and how its impacting on their day to day lives and progress. Look, it is as it is, the injuries for both codes is staggering/baflling almost, but we have to trust managments are doing all they can to avoid these..a pity we cant pick 13/14 first teamers week on week and twig it from there, each week we have a new member or two on almost every line of the field..very hard to let a team pick up abit of form from that...anyway..lets see how it pans out..

[greenairfield]

Johnny kellys team selections baffles me...
For a successful manager im suprised at the amount of swaping and moving he does no players seem to get a decent run at one position.
To top if off he constantly plays certain players no matter how bad their performance is.

[Faithful Future]

Johnny kellys team selections baffles me...
For a successful manager im suprised at the amount of swaping and moving he does no players seem to get a decent run at one position.
To top if off he constantly plays certain players no matter how bad their performance is.

Am certainly not trying to back Johnny Kelly up, however a counterargument would be that a large amount of players will have got minutes of top-level hurling across the league which will stand to us.
In saying that, it does appear certain players are untouchable.
This league was always about giving lads exposure to a faster pace of hurling.

As regards tomorrow, surprised to see Ter Guinan back in the half forward line when his best performance so far this year came at midfield.

Hopefully Cathal Kings injury isn't too serious from last week.

Good to see the Ravenhills back, we will need Ross in particular to bring physicality to the table tomorrow.

Would much prefer to be hurling Limerick tomorrow than when we were hurling Sligo and Wicklow a couple of years ago.

Interesting to see how Shirley goes in midfield, he went well there for DCU in the fitzgibbon cup.

Hopefully Luke Nolan goes well, we really need another option to put their hands up in the forward line and where better to prove it against the best of the best.

Bench looking a bit light overall, hopefully more lads to come back in soon.

Esto Fidelis

[private joker]

Battled to the end. Wheels came off around the 50th minute. Handling just not good enough, dropping ball in and out of contact. Gk spot still up for grabs. Puck four balls straight out of play.
Limerick physically and hurling IQ wise streets ahead.
Never had to get out of 2nd gear.

[classof81]

A very good limerick team on paper today, great to see us battle to the end, I agree with above post we ran out of steam.with 20 to go, we seem to of done this a good bit this year... is it fitness? Lack of options on the bench? Our delivery into the forward line was poor at times. It's a tough league the best in the country we should come out of this better than when we went in. Alot of lessons learned

[Jacktareen-clareen]

Is there any lads around the county That are good enough to play for Offaly that aren’t in there?

[faithfulfanatic]

Same story as other games, kept within 3-4 points and when game is in melting pot after half time we don’t take our chances and too slow to move on the line.
In every game we have waited until our opponents get goals to move 7-8 ahead before we make any changes on the line.
Eimhin Kelly, Luke Watkins and Cian Burke all hurled well when brought in and definitely better than what went off for them. Hard to see why we wait so long to twist.

Ben Conneely has been outstanding, had Gillane in his pocket.
Killian Sampson hurling brilliantly.
Not going to name names of the poor performers because it is the same every week…

Limerick’s best performers all the young lads O’Neill, O’Connor & English.

[Faithful Future]

No ball sticking in our full forward line again, and again no changes made. Our striking, ball-handling and first touch is certainly a 'work on'.

Massively impressed with Ben and Killian who showed they can mix it with the best, we are lucky to have them.

Plenty of lads getting experience but I think in defence only our Ben & Killian are nailed on in their positions. At this point of the league, I would prefer to have a few more putting their hand up.

In midfield I feel Cathal King was missed massively today, he's guaranteed there for the league but any of Spain, Shirley or Ter Guinan could be paired with him.

In attack I feel Dan Bourke had an improved display but again, really needs to work on his shooting. Oisin would be more comfortable closer to goal, not sure why this has not been tried as of yet.

Luke Nolan acquitted himself well for a man making his first full debut at this level.
We could really do with Dan Ravenhill and a few more forwards to come back however.

To echo previous posters, we are again very slow to make changes on the line but what's new there...

[oneshot]

any word on Charlie Mitchell will he make it back for Dublin game or later game's.

[private joker]

Kildare motoring well vs carlow. Big win and scoreline from them.

[Wing Back]

Not going to lie......I have that Kildare game on my mind already. They seem to be well able to compete in 1B, making short work of Antrim and Carlow. Their worst performance was probably beating Down in workmanlike fashion.....and then gave Clare lots of it too. I expect them to give Wexford a good game also.

I'm more confident for our game against Wexford than Kildare actually. Offaly as favs never feels great for me. I really hope hurling in 1A will stand to us. Nothing will be easy. Galway hitting stride. KK seem to be slipping a bit, but a wounded Kilkenny are a dangerous animal.

Last year we left results against Dublin and Wexford behind us.....So I had hope that with another year of development and no U20 campaign to focus on for the majority of our lads, we could make hay. That still may be the case. Kildare seem to be a much tougher prospect than Antrim were last year. In 2025, we had reasonable momentum going into championship from the league. I hope we can make use of the higher level preparation.....as the momentum isn't there like it was last year. We have hurled reasonably OK in all games up to 50mins mark, just need to sustain our challenge.

Any views?

[Géill Slí]

Kildare motoring well vs carlow. Big win and scoreline from them.

I was at the game, we had 4 club lads playing for Carlow. Very disappointing from Carlow, gave up every puc out and Kildare were able to saunter up to their own 65 and either hit points (first half with a strong enough wind) or deliver into the inside forwards (second half against the wind). Kildare like to create overlaps and fed the runners. Essential I think that we press up on their puc out and make them go long. Carlow only figured this out late in the game and put Kildare under pressure when they did push up.
Has to be said Carlow were missing 6 of their top players today including James Doyle, Dion Wall, Conor Keogh, but Kildare are physically strong and fit and well able to work the ball through the lines with strong support running. Offaly will need to play well to beat them, but I still think we have enough quality and determination to win. We will probably need plenty of fight and energy and then you would hope that the hurling will see us through

[Plain of the Herbs]

With Leinster championship games in quick succession, momentum will mean everything. Not just results, but performance and injuries/absentees. As such, its impossible to know at this stage what the mood will be heading into the Kildare game.