offaly v cork NHL 21/02/2010

[leinsterman]

I feel the problem for Offaly is two fold.
Firstly too much petrol being used in the first half against the big teams. Typically at the start of these encounters 3 Offaly men seem to tear in to gang tackle every opponent in possession. Yes, it yields the odd possession turnover, but it takes it toll. It is fire and brimstone, bodies on the line stuff without much intelligence. Most of it is wasted energy, its like a marathon runner deciding to sprint the first five miles.

Secondly, the reaction to setbacks is almost awful woeful. A goal around the 40-50th generally reduces Offaly to a disorganised rabble. This is sort of related to the first point. The team are too wound initially, that it doesn't have the calmness to bounce back. You almost sense the feeling is: "We've half killed ourselves so far today and now we're a goal behind. That's us done for". In similar situations, the great teams know how to shut up shop for a few minutes until the game ebbs back in their favour. Offaly usually concede a further 3 or 4 consecutive cake walk scores, with players being 5 yards off the man they are supposed to be marking.

If you were Brian Cody, or Liam Sheedy sending your team out to play Offaly you'd probably instruct your players to ride out the initial burst of exuberance and then dismantle Offaly in the second half when the scores are easy to come by.

I'd agree 100% with BNM mans summary here. The next question is what if anything can be done about it? If they don't go hammering into teams from the 1st minute then will they just be blown away by halftime. As for the reaction to setbacks well I think feeling that games are over after one (setback) is now ingrained in the minds of this team and has been for a few years now. Maybe we will just have to face up to the fact that we do not have a senior hurling team that is capable of competing for honours

Jesus lad's don't know what world ye are in we know offaly are not going to win the liam mccarthy in the next few year's as for competing for honour's since we last
won it in 1998 that's 12 years this year kk and cork have won them all well tipp in
2001 galway with all there minor's and under 21s are as far away as ever. waterford, limerick galway have being as ye say competing but winning nothing.
we are in divison 1 in the league so that should bring on offaly hurling, another thing
is the hurler's if they make the breakthrough have to beat the best hurling team ever in kilkenny which know other county can do in the last five year's. its not like
the leinster football champonship were there's only a bad dublin team going for 6-in-a-row .

[Bord na Mona man]

Jesus lad's don't know what world ye are in we know offaly are not going to win the liam mccarthy in the next few year's as for competing for honour's since we last
won it in 1998 that's 12 years .

No one is expecting All Irelands. Being competitive and robust would be a good start.
The others in the top 10 hurling counties don't seem to consistently fall to pieces the way Offaly do when a setback occurs.

[leinsterman]

Jesus lad's don't know what world ye are in we know offaly are not going to win the liam mccarthy in the next few year's as for competing for honour's since we last
won it in 1998 that's 12 years .

No one is expecting All Irelands. Being competitive and robust would be a good start.
The others in the top 10 hurling counties don't seem to consistently fall to pieces the way Offaly do when a setback occurs.

take it you didn't see how waterford or limerick played in their allireland's
or all the talk about the dublin hurler's lost very bad today.
look iam just saying get behind the player's we know they haven't got the hurler's
we had year's ago there's not many team's come to cork and win, next sunday won't
win either but they can only do their best that's all. i think we will get home win's
against dublin and limerick to stay up.

[bracknaghboy]

No one is expecting All Irelands. Being competitive and robust would be a good start.
The others in the top 10 hurling counties don't seem to consistently fall to pieces the way Offaly do when a setback occurs.

Our current 2nd half fade out problem is is even harder to stomach because there was no better team than the Offaly hurlers of the 90's to respond to a setback. In fact they usually had to concede a goal of two before they swung into action!! Agreed we should do better at home although I reckon it could be a much changed Limerick team we face than the one they have out now. As for Dublin perhaps todays thumping by Waterford might ground them a bit and hopefully sow a few doubts in their minds.

[Bord na Mona man]

Jesus lad's don't know what world ye are in we know offaly are not going to win the liam mccarthy in the next few year's as for competing for honour's since we last
won it in 1998 that's 12 years .

No one is expecting All Irelands. Being competitive and robust would be a good start.
The others in the top 10 hurling counties don't seem to consistently fall to pieces the way Offaly do when a setback occurs.

take it you didn't see how waterford or limerick played in their allireland's

Waterford's was a once off blow out, but they consistently go toe-to-toe with Kilkenny, Cork and Tipp.
In the All Ireland against Kilkenny, Limerick fell behind badly but actually kept plugging away and lost by 7 in the end. Would Offaly have kept trying and kept it respectable? On the evidence of the what I have seen in the last 10 years, I'm afraid not.

In the vast majority of encounters with the big guns in the last decade, Offaly have fallen to pieces an shipped woeful and preventable hidings by packing it in long before the end. This is unprecedented amongst other hurling counties. Dublin, Wexford, Limerick, Clare etc are not much ahead of Offaly in ability, yet they fare much better against the big guns. They simply don't suffer continual and consistent trimmings, and second half melt downs in the manner that Offaly do. You can't deny that this is serious problem for Offaly.

[GreatDayForTheParish]

My my, these second half fade-outs are becoming unbearable. It would appear that all the opposition have to do is score a goal sometime in the second half and from then on there is nothing to stop them running up a low-teen victory. The contrast between these performances from Offaly in the last few years and that of Dublin in last years Leinster final is shocking.

As for the game itself, word from people who were there is that Del, Horan, Mahon and Kenny (when he went full) were good. Healion was, apparently, not at the races and I fear he has nowhere near the skill level needed to make it as an inter-county full forward. Another example perhaps of narrow minded, negative thinking from Offaly in that any 'big lad' who can 'break it up' will do as a forward? Perhaps Molloy should be given run at full instead.

As an aside, it would appear that Hayden started at wing back with Horan at midfield. Can anybody confirm this? If true, then I for one a getting quite fed-up of the dummy teams Joe Dooley keeps putting out. It's not a big issue but it has become quite a habit of his and for the life of me I fail to see any benefit in doing it. I mean really, it hasn't worked in any of the games so far has it?

I feel the problem for Offaly is two fold.
Firstly too much petrol being used in the first half against the big teams. Typically at the start of these encounters 3 Offaly men seem to tear in to gang tackle every opponent in possession. Yes, it yields the odd possession turnover, but it takes it toll. It is fire and brimstone, bodies on the line stuff without much intelligence. Most of it is wasted energy, its like a marathon runner deciding to sprint the first five miles.

Secondly, the reaction to setbacks is almost awful woeful. A goal around the 40-50th generally reduces Offaly to a disorganised rabble. This is sort of related to the first point. The team are too wound up initially that it doesn't have the calmness to bounce back. You almost sense the feeling is: "We've half killed ourselves so far today and now we're a goal behind. That's us done for". In similar situations, the great teams know how to shut up shop for a few minutes until the game ebbs back in their favour. Offaly usually concede a further 3 or 4 consecutive cake walk scores, with players being 5 yards off the man they are supposed to be marking.

If you were Brian Cody, or Liam Sheedy sending your team out to play Offaly you'd probably instruct your players to ride out the initial burst of exuberance and then dismantle Offaly in the second half when the scores are easy to come by.

The above should actually be shown to the Offaly panel, only by acknowledging the truth can they hope to fix it. It really has become a serious, serious issue at this stage.

[leinsterman]

I was at the game yes del morkan was my man of the match a toss between him and
dylan hayden, as for horan midfield didn't think he was in the game at centre field
tom kenny and gardiner took over in midfield as i said on friday horan and hanniffy at centre field wouldn't work and it didn't, jame's rigney was a mile behind pat horgan every time he had about 4 point's got before rigney knew the game was on,
shane dooley was the only forward offaly had, mahon work hard i would put him in centrefield with hanniffy. brian carroll well what can you say i was in the stand behind offaly's sub bench in the first half joe dooley called out to carroll to stay out
wide carroll turn around and started mouthing off at joe the four letter word, dooley should have took the little upstarter off there and then i know what brian cody would have done with him, the cork man beside even said dooley should of took him off as well and he is the offaly captain i think we done better without him
in the walsh cup shane kelly of tullamore should not have being droped for brian carroll kelly played alright in the few game's i saw him played in.

[Phoenix]

Some of the lessons learnt in the Walsh Cup have to be used now. Offaly will not survive in Division One by sticking to the players who have been in the team for the last 5 or 6 years. We have to experiment a bit against Kilkenny and then pick the players who are performing best in 2010.

I don't know about who is ruled out due to injuries, suspensions or college but on form Offaly have to find places for Stephen Egan, Stephen Wynne or David Franks, Del Morkan (glad to hear he played well in Cork) in the backs.

Where do we play Joe Bergin? Tom Dempsey said on RTE1 yesterday that he is up there with Joe Canning in natural talent. We have to get the best out of that talent.

In the midfield and forwards we need to mix and match to find the best combination. Kevin Brady played well at midfield when he came on in the Walsh Cup and scored lovely long-range points. Shane Kelly tried hard at half-forward but might be worth a try at midfield. James Keane also tried hard and might be worth a run or at least a substitute appearance at midfield.

The problem behind Offaly's second-half collapses is that the sliotar doesn't stick in the midfield and forwards when it crosses the halfway line. Eventually the backs crack under the unremitting pressure.

What have we got to lose with trying young players and new combinations? At least we'll be giving Division One a cut!!

[Bord na Mona man]

brian carroll well what can you say i was in the stand behind offaly's sub bench in the first half joe dooley called out to carroll to stay out wide carroll turn around and started mouthing off at joe the four letter word, dooley should have took the little upstarter off there and then i know what brian cody would have done with him, the cork man beside even said dooley should of took him off as well and he is the offaly captain i think we done better without him

Bad form from Carroll. I would have given him the benefit of the doubt over the years with his borderline tantrum behaviour, but he really needs to cop himself on at this stage. A spell on the bench might just be the tonic.

[black and red exile]

I for one felt very sorry for the lads yesterday, each and every one of them ran themselves to a standstill , don't forget that apart from the Cork goal which was mainly due to a lack of communication between David Kenny and Eoin Kelly they did'nt create one goal chance in the whole game whereas we created two very good goal scoring opportunitys with Cusack saving brilliantly from [I think it was Conor Mahon, maybe Leinsterman might clarify this] and Ger Healion just skidded the lower base of the upright and if one of those had been converted it would have put a different complextion on the game.
Leinsterman covered everything about the game so I won't go into everything again but I can tell ye lads there is no way Cork were 11 points a better team than us yesterday, Dennis Walsh even said the scoreline flattered Cork, with 12 mins to go we were just 2 behind and more frustrating was that we hit a couple of wicked wides that should be converted at this level.
As a supporter I left Cork yesterday very proud of the fantastic effort our guys put in, they left everything they had out on the field, it was only in the last 8 mins after the Cork goal that the rebels started to get comfortable and don't forget Cork are not a bad side.

[Johnno81]

Was at the game and there definitely was not 11 points between the teams. It was Conor Mahon who had a great goal chance in the first half when it was 5 points apiece and Healion who should have scored but unfortunately it went the wrong side of the urpright. I always felt if Cork got a goal, they would move up a gear and thats what happened. The sad part is that it was the only goal chance they had. We hit a couple of bad wides after the goal and when we were on top too. Their goal was a killer blow, you could see our lads heads drop a bit but they kept battling till the end. As for the referee, the less said the better!! Very fond of the notebook when we fouled but a quiet word in the ear with the cork lads. Paul Cleary got booked early in the first half for nothing and think it was Cathal Parlon who got chopped down in the first half and the Cork lad got nothing. Very inconsistent refereeing.

My one gripe was the constant changing of Ger Healion in the second half. I was sitting at the Blackrock End of the ground and I'd say there was at least 8-9 changes between him and the rest of the forwards. It was clear he wasnt playing well so why keep moving players to accommodate him. Derek Molloy should have been brought in earlier.

[black and red exile]

Whatever about Ger Healion not having the best of games, in my opinion he wasn't that bad at all. One Question I have to ask to johnno and Leinsterman. How the hell did Joe Bergin last the full 70 mins without being called ashore?

[Georgio1]

Seems to be a consensus that we kept trying to the end and a couple of breaks went against us in terms of goals. I am disgusted if that is true with Carroll. He has gotten every chance over the years and I never saw Captain material in him. James Rigney not a corner back. Wynne should fit in here or Stephen Egan. Healion hurled well against Galway and may get another chance. We need more of a threat inside, maybe Molloy would be worth a shot in there. Joe Bergin may pull the finger out shortly too, big strong man who aint working the scoreboard like he should. I saw Keane and Shane Kelly in action against Galway and Kelly in particular had very poor games.
We need to compete against Kilkenny, and then the real yardstick will come against Limerick, Dublin, Galway and Waterford.

Hang in there lads, with Franks, Murphy, and Kevin Brady in the mix we will improve. But we need to stem the tide and grind a win out soon to give lads that bit of confidence.

[Phoenix]

Rigney is definitely not a corner back, judging on his displays against Galway and (from all accounts) Cork. He was brilliant against Kilkenny at wing back, scrapping all the time and somehow coming out with the ball from unlikely situations. Half back or midfield seem to me to the options for Rigney.

Healion deserves another chance - he played well in the pre-season Walsh Cup games and showed surprising skill & deft finishing for such a big man.

[leinsterman]

Whatever about Ger Healion not having the best of games, in my opinion he wasn't that bad at all. One Question I have to ask to johnno and Leinsterman. How the hell did Joe Bergin last the full 70 mins without being called ashore?

DON'T know either, but what i would do is put him back in centre back he played a great second half against the cat's in the walsh cup, the thing about bergin he needs to be in the action not stuck out in the corner like on sunday, oakley was at fault for at least 4 points on sunday he won the ball put he can't hit it, bergin would
drive a ball 70 or 80 yard's every time, so for kk match bergin centre back hayden and del each side of him oakley to midfield horan to half foward carroll to the bench, healion done well unlucky not to get a goal don't forget cork had to take off
their fullback at half time, one time in the second half healion caught on great ball
turn around their was brian carroll with his hands on his b...s so healion got block
out bye two cork men he won alot of ball but no one to give it to,