Offaly SFC Round 2

[Offaly2010]

I heard a rumour this morning that Thomas Deehan is on holidays in Spain and won't be available for the Gracefield game on Saturday?
Can anybody confirm or deny this??

[offalyman08]

For Clara's sake you would hope not, he was lethal in the first game.

[Offaly2010]

Personally I actually don't think it will make much of a difference,Clara should have too much class up front for Gracefield.
At least if he was it would be one less class forward for us to worry about!

[Luther Blissett]

Gracefield seem to be light on effective fowards this year with Smart being the only one lookin like he could do business. Admittedly i'v only seen them in the league this year but it seems that they are relying alot on the likes of slattery comin foward to set up scoring chances. I thought 2-3 years ago that gracefield had a very nice team coming together but it hasnt materialised...
As for pushing McNamees case at Connors expense on the back of a club game I dont agree at all. I've seen Connor in the first round of the championship and i thought if anything he lost his duel with his marker, at least for the majority of the game, as did many walsh island players. But, who is the best player to bring the county foward? If McNamees case is to be pushed let it be on his own merit and not at the expense of a developing player as this countys only goin to get back to some sort of respectability if everyones pulling the same way!!

[offalyman08]

Still, Deehan scored 1-7 from 1-9 in the first round, a game in which John Reynolds was held scoreless. So while Clara are still very strong Deehan would be a huge loss.

[biffo_king]

D,Island match is the game of the Round!

G,wan d island

[Offaly2010]

Clara beat Gracefield tonight 0-14 - 0-4.

[The Magpie]

As Offaly2010 has reported, Clara defeated Gracefield in O'Connor Pk this evening in a game that was never really tight at any stage. I think Gracefield won enough ball to have picked-up a few more scores, but they struggled a little bit in the final third of the field and Clara defended well.

Niall Smith must be the finest fielder of a ball in the County - his timing is near-perfect and he has a great pair of hands. As the game wore on Clara came to terms with him, but he caught some great balls early in the game. Karol Slattery was a little ineffective by his standards, but to be fair to him, I think he was switched onto Thomas Deehan quite early in the game, bringing him away from the part of the pitch that he'd like to occupy.

For Clara, nobody did too much wrong. It was good to see Marius Stones and Peter Flanagan back on the pitch - both have a lot to offer. Also, the scores were a little more evenly spread throughout the team, which is encouraging. I think at least the following got their names on the score-sheet: Thomas Deehan, Paul Deehan, Scott Brady, Matt Mitchell, Graham Guilfoyle, John Reynolds.

In terms of scoring, I think Clara led by 0-10 to 0-2 at half time. With only a minute left in the game, the score was 0-14 to 0-2. Gracefield kept on going and slotted over 2 late points. Kieran McEvoy is still plugging away. In what must be his 20th year of senior championship football, he still has a sweet strike of a dead-ball.

[Lone Shark]

Cheers for that update lads - good news from a Ferbane perspective in the other match, the lads winning 1-13 to 1-8 in what was a very good overall team performance. Shamrocks burst out of the blocks with two good scores from Nigel Dunne and Neville Coughlan, then Ferbane levelled up before PJ Ward won a penalty. Declan Nugent made a great save from Nigel's penalty to keep matters level, but Shamrocks still pulled away and were leading 1-6 to 0-4 after twenty minutes.

We tacked on a couple of scores before half time that were very important in terms of momentum and then the second half was pretty much all Ferbane - very good work in tackling and movement which meant that we created a lot of good openings. The forwards took their chances much better than against Tullamore, but more importantly the cohesion up front was great - lads seemed to have a lot better sense of knowing their role and working together. Our young midfield of Colin Egan and Ciarán McManus did very well in terms of primary possession too, while at the back things really tightened up after Eddie Lowry moved onto Brian Monaghan and Liam Browne took on PJ Ward. PJ did hit a fantastic late point but essentially he was out of the game and was reduced to pulling way out the field before the end.

Neville Coughlan did go off with an injury midway through the first half and I'd say that loss was keenly felt by Shamrocks, but overall they didn't look good once the game became a tough battle - Ferbane's pressurising yielded a lot of turnovers and Shamrocks really struggled to get good ball into the hands of the forwards.

We still have a long way to go and by the sounds of it Clara are going really well, but it was nice to get the win under our belts tonight, particularly in the manner in which it was achieved. Shamrocks would still have a chance in the last three group games if they can get their act together a bit, but they'd need to do a lot of work between now and then realistically.

Teams and scorers:

Ferbane: Declan Nugent; Paddy Moore, Eddie Lowry, Liam Browne; John Mollen, Gary Rigney, Gerry Grehan (0-2); Ciarán McManus, Colin Egan; Ciarán Kenny (1-3), Declan Killian, David Lowry (0-1, '45); Ronan Daly (0-2), Aidan Keenaghan (0-2), Paddy Connolly (0-3, 0-1 free).

Conor Lowry and Shane Nally came on as subs.

Shamrocks: Alan O'Connell; Conor Mooney, Michael Stanbrook, Karl Mollen; Neville Coughlan (0-1), Anthony Condron, Barry Mooney; Shane Guinan, Paul Minnock; Paddy Kelly (0-1), Ivor Scully, Nigel Dunne (0-2, 0-1 '45) ; Daniel Heffernan (1-0), PJ Ward (0-4), Brian Monaghan.

Not sure who the Shamrocks subs were - sorry!

[Offaly2010]

[quote="The Magpie]I think Clara led by 0-10 to 0-2 at half time.[/quote]
It was 0-10 - 0-1 at half time!
And of Gracefield's 4 points,1 of them came from play and it was pretty much the last kick of the game from Robbie Knight and the other three came from Kieran McCevoy frees!

Just reading LS's report from Ferbane-Shamrocks game,is Padraig Kelly not in goals for Shamrocks anymore?

[Offaly2010]

Anyone any word on today's games?

[Lone Shark]

Walsh Island 3-6 Edenderry 0-6
Rhode 0-10 Ballycumber 0-9
Tubber 2-9 Erin Rovers 1-7.

Huge result there for Tubber, can't see Rovers staying out of the relegation battle now, while Ballycumber appeared to have had another reasonable performance without putting anything on the board. A lot will depend for them on how they react over the coming weeks - today's qualifier draw should mean that it will be five or six weeks off for the clubs now at least. And the leagues all done and dusted - it's a great system altogether!

The test for Rhode now and Walsh Island in particular will be maintaining intensity with their quarter final slot essentially secured. Not so much because they need results from now on, but because it would be very difficult to turn on championship form like a tap in the quarter finals after cruising to this point.

Yet again I firmly believe that we should have a top three system so as to ensure that these clubs still have something to play for. Big advantage for Tubber in particular getting these two clubs in the closing rounds when they might be a lot more vulnerable.

[black and red exile]

Walsh Island 3.6 Edenderry o.6
Rhode 0.10 Ballycumber 0.9.

2 desperate matches that were painful to watch, Edenderry had the aid of a strong wind in the first half but kicked 9 wides and went in 1.3 to 0.2 behind with the Island goal coming from Gary Comerford. In the second half and with the strong wind Walsh Island were far more direct and added 2 more goals from Willie Mulhall and Alan Mulhall, Edenderry huffed and puffed but took way too much out of the ball at times as giving away way too much possession, the Island were far more economical and let the ball do the work which paid dividends and as far as I know only recorded 5 wides in the whole game.
Scorers Walsh Island. A Mulhall 1.2[ 1 free], G comerford 1.3, W Mulhall 1.1, Adrian Kelly 0.1.
Edenderry. Mark Young 0.2[1 free], Stuart Cullen 0.1,Richie Dalton 0.1, Stephen Guing 0.1, Sean Og Farrell 0.1.

In the second game Rhode edged out Ballycumber by a point in a game just as dire as the first one, Rhode had the breeze in the first half and went in 0.5 to 0.4 ahead, in the second half Ballycumber failed to take advantage of the wind and at times were way too slow with the ball out of defence allowing Rhode to bring at times everybody apart from Niall McNamee back behind the ball to starve them of space to create anything, in the end a draw would probably have been a fair result because nobody deserved to win it, the amount of possession given away by both teams was criminal with some wicked wides kicked on both sides too, it was a relief to everyone when the ref finally blew the final whistle. One last thing, Niall Mac had a his right leg heavily bandaged and was obviously struggling with his movement, a bit of a worry with the qualifers coming up.
Scorers Rhode. N. McNamee 0.2 [1 free], P Kellaghan 0.2, C Heavey 0.2, Niall Darby 0.2 [1 free] R Malone 0.1, A McNamee 0.1.
Ballycumber. R Guinan 0.7[ 4 frees] C Quinn 0.1[free] Adrian Kelly 0.1.

[Offaly2010]

Cheers lads.

[Thereorthereabouts]

Are rumours true that Shane Sullivan broke his arm in the pre match warm up yesterday? Heard it going round O Connor Park yesterday..