Club Football 2026

[ruletheroost]

Final scoring tables... big well done to them all.

Total:
1 Harry Plunkett Tullamore 4-38 (50)
2 Peter Cunningham Bracknagh 3-27 (36)
3 Cian Johnson Ferbane 4-23 (35)
4= Brian Duignan Durrow 4-18 (30)
4= Keith O'Neill Clonbullogue 3-21 (30)

From play:
1 Brian Duignan Durrow 4-18 30
2 Cian Johnson Ferbane 4-11 23
3 Jack Bryant Shamrocks 2-13 19
4 Chris Kenny Ballycommon 1-15 18
5= Peter Cunningham Bracknagh 2-11 17
5= Ross Kellaghan Rhode 3-8 17

[DurrowBoy17]

Tullamore fully deserved their win yesterday.
They just don’t seem to have any weakness on their team. Someone gets injured, it’s next up to play that role.

Ferbane on the other hand have some excellent players, but do seem to have weak links.
I’m baffled by their decision not to start Oisin Kelly the last couple of years. He’s clearly one of their best players, but try to use him as an “impact sub”.

Not that this wouldve made a massive difference on the outcome yesterday but I do always find Ferbane don’t start their best players/team.

The dual 100% affects them lads too. Whatever about the physical demand, the mental has to weigh heavily on them.
They’re shooting themselves in the foot there I feel in both codes.

[Anonymous1]

Final scoring tables... big well done to them all.

Total:
1 Harry Plunkett Tullamore 4-38 (50)
2 Peter Cunningham Bracknagh 3-27 (36)
3 Cian Johnson Ferbane 4-23 (35)
4= Brian Duignan Durrow 4-18 (30)
4= Keith O'Neill Clonbullogue 3-21 (30)

From play:
1 Brian Duignan Durrow 4-18 30
2 Cian Johnson Ferbane 4-11 23
3 Jack Bryant Shamrocks 2-13 19
4 Chris Kenny Ballycommon 1-15 18
5= Peter Cunningham Bracknagh 2-11 17
5= Ross Kellaghan Rhode 3-8 17

This must make for sobering reading for Solan and co. The top scorer from play is one of our best hurlers whose club didn't even make it out of the weak group.

Some achievement for Brian all the same, he's very likely to finish top scorer in the hurling too.

[Behindthegoal]

The club championship in general must be depressing for him its absolutly cat cathal flynn back maybe in 2028 in paper this week and some rumoured lads to be opting out next year can we stay in division 3?

[MarkCassidy5]

Fair play to Tullamore, they showed serious desire on the breaks and made winning kickout possession look easier than I was expecting.

They just seem to outlast the legs on the challengers and have some smart players managing loads for each other so they can last the distance. They tackle hard too without being easily pinged by a referee which makes them formidable.

Really hope they can win a Leinster now.

[Anon444]

Is there any explanation for Tullamore being so good on kickouts and breaks and why can’t other clubs match it? Ferbane aren’t small and yet they struggled massively to win the ball around the middle. When Tullamore win it, it always ends in a shot too. It just seems that no matter what way the ball breaks, they have a player there. It can’t be luck when it happens so often. Maybe the stats tell differently but it felt that way. Their Senior Bs are similar in how they go about it too.

[Lone Shark]

Is there any explanation for Tullamore being so good on kickouts and breaks and why can’t other clubs match it? Ferbane aren’t small and yet they struggled massively to win the ball around the middle. When Tullamore win it, it always ends in a shot too. It just seems that no matter what way the ball breaks, they have a player there. It can’t be luck when it happens so often. Maybe the stats tell differently but it felt that way. Their Senior Bs are similar in how they go about it too.

To be fair, I think this was more of a case of Tullamore getting it right and Ferbane getting it wrong for this game, as opposed to a pattern. There are a lot of aspects of Tullamore's play where they are much better than the rest, for example I particularly admire their defensive shape and movement, their ability to hand off players and to still keep gaps tight, and to deny easy chances even after sustained spells of pressure - but that's a consistent thing. When it comes to the kickout stuff, Ferbane had much the better of things in the group stages, and Tullamore evolved and adjusted since then.

Of all the things that Ferbane might look at addressing in advance of the 2027 championship, that's one issue that I'd be confident they'll be able to solve. The others, most notably the lack of a creative spark in Flynn's absence, is a different matter.

[Anonymous1]

Is there any explanation for Tullamore being so good on kickouts and breaks and why can’t other clubs match it? Ferbane aren’t small and yet they struggled massively to win the ball around the middle. When Tullamore win it, it always ends in a shot too. It just seems that no matter what way the ball breaks, they have a player there. It can’t be luck when it happens so often. Maybe the stats tell differently but it felt that way. Their Senior Bs are similar in how they go about it too.

To be fair, I think this was more of a case of Tullamore getting it right and Ferbane getting it wrong for this game, as opposed to a pattern. There are a lot of aspects of Tullamore's play where they are much better than the rest, for example I particularly admire their defensive shape and movement, their ability to hand off players and to still keep gaps tight, and to deny easy chances even after sustained spells of pressure - but that's a consistent thing. When it comes to the kickout stuff, Ferbane had much the better of things in the group stages, and Tullamore evolved and adjusted since then.

Of all the things that Ferbane might look at addressing in advance of the 2027 championship, that's one issue that I'd be confident they'll be able to solve. The others, most notably the lack of a creative spark in Flynn's absence, is a different matter.

It took until the last 10 minutes - when the game was already beyond reach - for them to pivot to short kickouts. That's a sideline issue more than anything.

[Lone Shark]

It took until the last 10 minutes - when the game was already beyond reach - for them to pivot to short kickouts. That's a sideline issue more than anything.

Short kickouts are only on when the opposition doesn't push up with two lines of four across the full and half-forward lines. It was only late on when Tullamore looked happy to give up the short kickout, because with their unparallelled game smarts, they knew at that stage that the clock was their friend, and even if they gave up possession close to the Ferbane goal, it would be a lot of painstaking, hard yards gained to turn that into a scoring chance, and a lot of clock would be eaten up by every attack that unfolded in that manner.

And the Blues weren't wrong in that assesment, by the way. But I think that's the reason that most of the short kickouts from Adam Nugent's restarts came late, as opposed to it being a tactical adjustment from the sideline that came too late.

I should add, it's one thing to press a kickout, it's another to press it properly and get the traction that Tullamore did by doing so. Kudos to the Tullamore sideline and the players in the trenches for getting that aspect so right.

[Anonymous1]

and while not an excuse in any way the fact that 14 of the ferbane /belmont lads were playing every week for 10 /12 weeks either football or hurling has to have been detrimental to both teams. i dont know what the answer is.

In some counties, the hurling championship is played off first followed by the football or vice versa.

Or, you have two weeks of hurling followed by two weeks of football etc.

The 1 week football, 1 week hurling approach is not conducive to good outcomes for dual clubs. And, three of the four Senior A finalists (Ferbane, Tullamore and Ballinamere) are senior in both codes.

If we want more competitive championships then we need a move away from the 1 week football, 1 week hurling format.

Also, if we're sticking with the strong and weak group format then we should do away with quarter finals which serve no purpose. Have three teams emerge from the strong group and one from the weak group. Inject a bit of jeopardy into the group games and end the shadowboxing once and for all.

[biffinbanner]

kevin it was obvious fairly early that the kickout strategy wasnt working from ferbane. was there no plan b in that case? that was the big big issue. deflecting to cathal flynns creative spark isnt relevant when discussing sunday. tullamore are better but we made it easy for them playing to their strengths. bottom line is weve regressed from 25 to 26.

[faithfulfanatic]

and while not an excuse in any way the fact that 14 of the ferbane /belmont lads were playing every week for 10 /12 weeks either football or hurling has to have been detrimental to both teams. i dont know what the answer is.

In some counties, the hurling championship is played off first followed by the football or vice versa.

Or, you have two weeks of hurling followed by two weeks of football etc.

The 1 week football, 1 week hurling approach is not conducive to good outcomes for dual clubs. And, three of the four Senior A finalists (Ferbane, Tullamore and Ballinamere) are senior in both codes.

If we want more competitive championships then we need a move away from the 1 week football, 1 week hurling format.

Also, if we're sticking with the strong and weak group format then we should do away with quarter finals which serve no purpose. Have three teams emerge from the strong group and one from the weak group. Inject a bit of jeopardy into the group games and end the shadowboxing once and for all.

Waterford is the only county which now plays off the hurling before the football.
Just this weekend past, John Mullane was scathing in his analysis of this and called for it to be changed.

That's excluding the likes of Kerry and Kilkenny who make a mockery of one sport and play it during Intercounty time.
Kilkenny football championship finished back on the first weekend of May.
Kerry hurling championship is played off while the county footballers are still on the go.

Any county trying to make a fist of dual status (Galway, Cork, Dublin, Tipp, Laois, Wexford, Westmeath, Kildare) is operating on a week on-week off basis.
Some of these might have big clubs with big numbers, but there are plenty of lads playing both.

[Offaly Hero]

and while not an excuse in any way the fact that 14 of the ferbane /belmont lads were playing every week for 10 /12 weeks either football or hurling has to have been detrimental to both teams. i dont know what the answer is.

In some counties, the hurling championship is played off first followed by the football or vice versa.

Or, you have two weeks of hurling followed by two weeks of football etc.

The 1 week football, 1 week hurling approach is not conducive to good outcomes for dual clubs. And, three of the four Senior A finalists (Ferbane, Tullamore and Ballinamere) are senior in both codes.

If we want more competitive championships then we need a move away from the 1 week football, 1 week hurling format.

Also, if we're sticking with the strong and weak group format then we should do away with quarter finals which serve no purpose. Have three teams emerge from the strong group and one from the weak group. Inject a bit of jeopardy into the group games and end the shadowboxing once and for all.

I disagree completly with this. Every county bar one of two outliers does the one week on off hurling football.

Regarding the structure, as I outlined previously on this thread, I'd move to a single group of eight teams. Home and away games. Top four to semi finals. Bottom two teams in relegation final. Teams 5 and 6 - year over. That way there is some jepordy in all the group games at both ends of the table. Games early in the summer would have consequence and there would be much less of a window to loose a few group games in July and August knowing it would all be all right come late September/early October (as Tullamore did this year, knowing realistically they'd have to peak for those two games).

[Offaly Hero]

In terms of the population thing, it's like the Dublin versus the rest in Leinster situation. You have the other areas that are big, just not that big (Meath, Kildare, Louth), who need a lot to go right to be able to catch them, which in Offaly terms are Edenderry and Clara, and maybe at a push, Shamrocks.

Once you go into the tier below that again (Westmeath, Offaly, Wexford, or Rhode/Ferbane/Gracefield/Daingean), these clubs need a special crew of players, and the top team to be clearly below par, to win once. To win consistently, as teams like Walsh Island, Ferbane, and indeed Offaly did in the 1970s and 1980s, will never happen again.

Arguably however the bigger problem is not how high Tullamore's ceiling goes, it's how low their floor goes, and what that does to the clubs and counties that are even smaller again. Think of 1968, when Longford won the Leinster SFC and Ballycumber won their only Offaly title. Will we ever see either of those things, or their equivalent, happen again? I can't see it, there's a bit of me thinking that Ballycommon doing what they did this year could be as good as it gets.

We've got to the point that for a real minnow, the level that you need to get to in terms of preparing your team to compete, by which I mean the money and human resource needed to make that happen, and indeed the number of capable players you need to make it happen, has gone through the roof.

It's all very well to say that you can only put 15 players on the field, but when the championship was a straight knockout and you had a game every two or three weeks, it was a lot easier to put pretty close to your best 15 out all the time. Now you will almost always have a couple of lads in bother with soft tissue injuries, and you need to be able to bring on three or four difference-making subs.

So that's what strips the good out of it - you go into a senior championship where half the teams are beaten before they start, and that reflects how they go about things. And 40 years ago, when club players weren't building their entire life around training, recovery, gym and all the rest of it, a relatively shorter burst of intensity brought you to more or less where you needed to be. Now, you have to life the life of an elite footballer for 12 months of the year, and it's bloody hard to do that when winning the big prize is not realistic.


The irony of all this is that this is not great for Tullamore either, because the bar is higher for them. Of course the current generation is respected and admired in the town, but even locally, there is an understanding that they're doing what you'd expect them to do, rather than doing something special. For a Tullamore player to go down in local folklore in the same vein as those Ballycumber lads of 1968, or Shannonbridge in 1996, or even to be compared with those Ferbane and Walsh Island teams, they're going to have to do something bigger, outside of Offaly. Otherwise they're just going to be remembered as a really good team who came along at a really bad time for Offaly club football.

Well said and I'd agree with much, if not all, of this. It can be easy to be pessimistic now but Portlaois's current travails in Laois show that hard times can come to even the most seemingly demographically dominant teams.

Hard to know what the solution is to a more competitive senior a championship. I do feel structurally, the Offaly football scene is hamstrung by a large number of very small clubs, who have no hope of ever winning a senior a championship (through no fault of their own). Now its one thing when they are competing among themselves in senior B, intermediate and Junor but even the 10 team senior A championship has Ballycommon, Bracknagh, Clonbullogue and Durrow who, lets be real, are never going to win a senior A championship.

Ballycommons achievements are exceptional. And unstainable. But imagine a Ballycommon, Cappincur team. Now that could be more competitive. Ballingar + Raheen. Kilclonfert + St Brigids. A Walsh Island + Clonbullogue + Bracknagh team could be exceptional. Ballycumber + Erin Rovers. I could go on.

I just feel as long as we have this multitude of tiny, tiny teams with limited people and limited resources all playing musical chairs among themselves in the bottom half of senior a, senior B and intermeidate then the top of senior A will remain as it is.

[jonsey]

Ballycommons achievements are exceptional. And unstainable. But imagine a Ballycommon, Cappincur team. Now that could be more competitive. Ballingar + Raheen. Kilclonfert + St Brigids. A Walsh Island + Clonbullogue + Bracknagh team could be exceptional. Ballycumber + Erin Rovers. I could go on.

Kilclonfert + St Brigids ??, St Brigids would be with Rhode surely