Dissappointing for the lads involved to lose a Leinster final but the team can hold their heads high as they battled hard in the traditional Offaly way against a much slicker Laois outfit and were unlucky not level matters with 10 mins to go.Would have been interesting to see how Laois would have reacted to this situation.
However on a totally different matter I thought the fact that the Offaly team were wearing the short sleeve jerseys with the old crest on them highlighted the professional incapacity of the incumbent county board.This was a Leinster final for Chirst sakes. I know it was a busy weekend for Offaly teams with Minor,Under 21's and Senior footballers all in action as well as the Senior hurlers but surely we have more than 2 sets of jersey's with the proper crest on them. It beggars belief that an adminstration that spent well over €500,000 on preparing county teams in 2006 couldnt cover this angle.
Would it happen in any other county?
U-21 Final vs Laois
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TheManFromFerbane
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Muck Savage
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I played in a Leinster final a few years back and before the game we were told not to switch jerseys afterwards. After the game a few lads that had had switched were told to go into the opposition dressing room and get the Offaly ones back. The Offaly county board are the tightest shower of ..... I know they put a lot of work into it but Christ surly we've saved up over the past 10 years to be able to afford a Jersey with Leinster U21 final written on them.
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Lone Shark
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I truly hope that none of that kind of carry on went on. These lads are doing their best to drag our county back to some kind of eminence, and they most certainly deserve a lot better.
As to the game itself - I think that while we can look back on a certain degree of what might have been, it would be unreasonable to suggest anything other than the best team won. Coming into this game I felt that the Laois trump cards were in the full forward line, but looking back on it now it was a lot less heralded individuals like Mark Timmons, Cahir Healy, John O'Loughlin and Craig Rogers that stepped up for them in a big way. So congrats to them - and a little part of me is glad that while Quigley certainly helped, you couldn't say he was the difference between the sides. I think in the long run it'll be better for both the Laois players and our own that it won't be a Leinster title with a little asterisk beside it, one of those where a dodgy boardroom decision went a long way towards determining the winner.
From an Offaly perspective, this was my first time to get to see these guys live this year (unless you count the challenge match against Padraig Pearses that I happened upon driving through Shannonbridge a few weeks ago) so I'm probably not in as good a position to comment as some others but, my random thoughts from the game were as follows:
(1) The backline were slightly flattered by the amount of wides Laois kicked, but that certainly is not to take away from a unit that generally impressed me. What was even more impressive was that the two supposedly marquee players - McConway and Keane - were no more than cogs in the overall machine. Richie Dalton has always given me heart failure for some reason, but he was impressive, Gerry Grehan was an absolute pest on his man as you would hope for, and Eoghan Byrne was very assured and on top - if you did have to pick one out of the six it would be him. I'm glad they kept their record of no goals conceded - it was deserved.
(2) It's hard to fault younger players for not always having a calm head, but each of the midfielders were responsible for boneheaded fouls, the type that breaks defenders' hearts. In one instance it was Grehan, in another Byrne, who had hassled a forward for about twenty seconds - never letting them inside, putting them under pressure. In the first half Mahon and in the second half Smith, came barrelling in with wild tackles to give Laois a handy free in front of the posts when it looked like they were going nowhere. Little things, but it left long spells of disciplined defending without reward. The lack of fouling from the full back line was also commendable, bearing in mind they were on some very lively forwards who would be very easy to bring down.
(3) At the start, Craig Rogers lined out at centre forward and was running riot on Paul McConway. Keane was switched onto him after about 20 mins and did a much better job - I've had a lot of people say to me since that McConway should have been put back in centre back, but I'm not buying it. I thought this was a good switch, that had to be done - the first job of your defenders should be to defend.
(4) We were overpowered at midfield, but it was hard to avoid - in general Mahon did well trying to spoil Quigley. However there was one minus point. For kickouts, Mahon was being deployed to draw Quigley out of the middle on to the wing. Initially Quigley was following him, but pretty soon he realised that the kickouts weren't going out there, and he left Mahon on his own and his help gave Laois a big advantage under the dropping ball. This was the stage when we needed to actually hit a few kickouts at Mahon, to keep Quigley honest, so to speak. one of our selectors should have picked up on this.
(5) Bracken's kickouts do need work, to follow on from the previous point, but it's getting close to the stage when he'll be the county's number one. He'd give you palpitations the way he takes on defenders with a little sidestep before letting the ball go, but he stops shots. I've never understood this logic of judging keepers by their kickout - any keeper who can keep the ball out of the net is a good keeper.
(6) Now to the bad bit - the showing for the ball of the forwards. In the first half it seemed like our half backs and midfielders were carrying the ball too far, but it was because the running from Casey, Mulhall and later on, Connor, was terrible. They never got out in front, if they did they timed it wrong, and overall the Laois full back line was completely on top. As was pointed out earlier, the main inroads were made when Ryan and Thomas Coughlan ran at them, drawing fouls or creating chances.
(7) As I mentioned above, Craig Rogers started by terrorising us, management picked up on it and made the switch - and that's as it should be. Now why oh why was the same rule not applied up front? We scored twice in the first half, and not because we had a load of wides either. We replaced Niall Derby midway through the second half, but he was hardly the only player struggling to make an impact. William Mulhall was clearly rattled when the crowd jeered his miss in the first half, he shied away from shooting on a couple of other occasions, it wasn't really his day. Rory Connor in particular will be disappointed - but he was contributing nothing and needed to be switched. Obviously this is not meant as a criticism of the lads' ability in general, but an off day can happen to anyone - and leaving them on the field does not help them or Offaly. In particular Connor - at half time the team received a fair lecture on getting out for the ball. After twenty seconds a low ball came into the forward line and Connor was a full ten yards behind Timmons who burst out, collected and started another Leix attack. If he was unable to concentrate within twenty seconds of the restart, the time for a switch was there and then.
Overall it's tempting to think what would have happened if switches had been made, or if we hadn't given away the couple of handy frees, but ultimately if we had got anything out of the game Laois's wayward shooting would have had a lot to do with it. That said, a Leinster medal would have been the least a lot of these lads deserved - all we can do is hope that they get what they deserve at senior level in years to come.
As to the game itself - I think that while we can look back on a certain degree of what might have been, it would be unreasonable to suggest anything other than the best team won. Coming into this game I felt that the Laois trump cards were in the full forward line, but looking back on it now it was a lot less heralded individuals like Mark Timmons, Cahir Healy, John O'Loughlin and Craig Rogers that stepped up for them in a big way. So congrats to them - and a little part of me is glad that while Quigley certainly helped, you couldn't say he was the difference between the sides. I think in the long run it'll be better for both the Laois players and our own that it won't be a Leinster title with a little asterisk beside it, one of those where a dodgy boardroom decision went a long way towards determining the winner.
From an Offaly perspective, this was my first time to get to see these guys live this year (unless you count the challenge match against Padraig Pearses that I happened upon driving through Shannonbridge a few weeks ago) so I'm probably not in as good a position to comment as some others but, my random thoughts from the game were as follows:
(1) The backline were slightly flattered by the amount of wides Laois kicked, but that certainly is not to take away from a unit that generally impressed me. What was even more impressive was that the two supposedly marquee players - McConway and Keane - were no more than cogs in the overall machine. Richie Dalton has always given me heart failure for some reason, but he was impressive, Gerry Grehan was an absolute pest on his man as you would hope for, and Eoghan Byrne was very assured and on top - if you did have to pick one out of the six it would be him. I'm glad they kept their record of no goals conceded - it was deserved.
(2) It's hard to fault younger players for not always having a calm head, but each of the midfielders were responsible for boneheaded fouls, the type that breaks defenders' hearts. In one instance it was Grehan, in another Byrne, who had hassled a forward for about twenty seconds - never letting them inside, putting them under pressure. In the first half Mahon and in the second half Smith, came barrelling in with wild tackles to give Laois a handy free in front of the posts when it looked like they were going nowhere. Little things, but it left long spells of disciplined defending without reward. The lack of fouling from the full back line was also commendable, bearing in mind they were on some very lively forwards who would be very easy to bring down.
(3) At the start, Craig Rogers lined out at centre forward and was running riot on Paul McConway. Keane was switched onto him after about 20 mins and did a much better job - I've had a lot of people say to me since that McConway should have been put back in centre back, but I'm not buying it. I thought this was a good switch, that had to be done - the first job of your defenders should be to defend.
(4) We were overpowered at midfield, but it was hard to avoid - in general Mahon did well trying to spoil Quigley. However there was one minus point. For kickouts, Mahon was being deployed to draw Quigley out of the middle on to the wing. Initially Quigley was following him, but pretty soon he realised that the kickouts weren't going out there, and he left Mahon on his own and his help gave Laois a big advantage under the dropping ball. This was the stage when we needed to actually hit a few kickouts at Mahon, to keep Quigley honest, so to speak. one of our selectors should have picked up on this.
(5) Bracken's kickouts do need work, to follow on from the previous point, but it's getting close to the stage when he'll be the county's number one. He'd give you palpitations the way he takes on defenders with a little sidestep before letting the ball go, but he stops shots. I've never understood this logic of judging keepers by their kickout - any keeper who can keep the ball out of the net is a good keeper.
(6) Now to the bad bit - the showing for the ball of the forwards. In the first half it seemed like our half backs and midfielders were carrying the ball too far, but it was because the running from Casey, Mulhall and later on, Connor, was terrible. They never got out in front, if they did they timed it wrong, and overall the Laois full back line was completely on top. As was pointed out earlier, the main inroads were made when Ryan and Thomas Coughlan ran at them, drawing fouls or creating chances.
(7) As I mentioned above, Craig Rogers started by terrorising us, management picked up on it and made the switch - and that's as it should be. Now why oh why was the same rule not applied up front? We scored twice in the first half, and not because we had a load of wides either. We replaced Niall Derby midway through the second half, but he was hardly the only player struggling to make an impact. William Mulhall was clearly rattled when the crowd jeered his miss in the first half, he shied away from shooting on a couple of other occasions, it wasn't really his day. Rory Connor in particular will be disappointed - but he was contributing nothing and needed to be switched. Obviously this is not meant as a criticism of the lads' ability in general, but an off day can happen to anyone - and leaving them on the field does not help them or Offaly. In particular Connor - at half time the team received a fair lecture on getting out for the ball. After twenty seconds a low ball came into the forward line and Connor was a full ten yards behind Timmons who burst out, collected and started another Leix attack. If he was unable to concentrate within twenty seconds of the restart, the time for a switch was there and then.
Overall it's tempting to think what would have happened if switches had been made, or if we hadn't given away the couple of handy frees, but ultimately if we had got anything out of the game Laois's wayward shooting would have had a lot to do with it. That said, a Leinster medal would have been the least a lot of these lads deserved - all we can do is hope that they get what they deserve at senior level in years to come.
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Muck Savage
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