Offaly Senior Football 2026

[classof81]

Best of luck to team and management today

[faithfulfanatic]

Zero excuses for this performance

[Old-school]

That's was just terrible football. VERY disconjointed team no belief in them. Its all over the place. Loais were there for the taken they were very poor also

[Buttons]

The only positive that can be said is that we only conceded 3 goals, Laois could easily have had 3-4 more while we had one or two half chances at best to score.

We were wide open when Laois came at us, very obvious at a very early stage but nothing done to stop it repeating again and again.

One team wanted to win, running back hard and playing as a team. 1 real item to summarise today, ball hits post Laois player quickest to react and scores a goal, Offaly hit post from free and one Offaly forward against 5-6 Laois defenders and ball gets played out.

At this stage the players are tuned out, no chance of doing anything in the Tailteann, attendances of 50-100. Something needs to change now, try salvage something for the year if a new management team does come in.

[Anon444]

Very very disappointing. There was a massive gulf in class between Laois and ourselves, a 9 point beating which really should have been 15+. It’s clear there’s a disconnect, which is sad for all parties. There is just too many lads walking back when the ball is lost, heads down, no real game-plan. Teams are praised to the heavens when they play well and management teams should face questions when they don’t. There can be no excuses for that I’m afraid.

[Lone Shark]

That was pretty dismal, and I take no joy in saying that. Conor Melia is the only reason that wasn't a humiliating score line, as opposed to just a gruelling 70 minutes for those of us who were here.

I feel sorry for the players that have to stick on for a Tailteann Cup campaign that I'd say they have no interest in, when they clearly need a break from what has been pure hardship all year.

[Fairplayalways]

I said it during and after the league, how posters on here thought we would beat Laois or get a good run or even win the Tailteann Cup..I dont see what logic gave that..it is now as it is..

[Wingbackassassin]

I said it during and after the league, how posters on here thought we would beat Laois or get a good run or even win the Tailteann Cup..I dont see what logic gave that..it is now as it is..

Didnt we hammer Laois a few years ago in Leinster championship and still end up getting beaten by everyone in the Tailteann.
Lost today on purpose, better off getting knocked out of Leinster now so can focus fully on Tailteann.

[Fairplayalways]

are you having a laugh ffs..sure we are team building i know, for how many years now like..

[Faithfully]

I said it during and after the league, how posters on here thought we would beat Laois or get a good run or even win the Tailteann Cup..I dont see what logic gave that..it is now as it is..

Didnt we hammer Laois a few years ago in Leinster championship and still end up getting beaten by everyone in the Tailteann.
Lost today on purpose, better off getting knocked out of Leinster now so can focus fully on Tailteann.

That is delusion beyond parody, sorry.

[greenairfield]

Early april and we are gone out of football champo along with minor hurlers.

[jimbob17]

My God WBA, that's as laughable an excuse as I have ever heard. It is worse than a child telling the teacher that the dog ate their homework copy! Do you seriously think that the players trained all year for 7 or 8 hours a week, put so much time in and they went out to lose to Laois in as poor a championship home performance as we have had in a while - probably on a par with London in 2024.

Didn't get to go this evening but from listened to all on radio. It was very poor by all accounts according to Laz Molloy and Brian Gavin on commentary. A 9 point defeat at home to a 3rd division Laois would not be considered acceptable in my book. Going by the radio, we failed to even throw a punch on them (in a football sense) and were lucky to be as close as we were. Going by radio, Laois played with way more purpose and intent than we did. Our lads were said to have dropped the heads and almost given up with Laz suggesting it was worse than any of the league games. Another disappointing factor mentioned was that there were 2800 approx in attendance - including 1800 from Laois and about 1000 from Offaly - of which about 200 were free tickets for family and underage players. This is not good and according to Molloy, indicates there is something amiss within the Offaly senior football camp.

So where to from here? There are some that come on here with the 'I told you so' sort of rhetoric and take pleasure in a result like that. I am not going to take that route but you would have to wonder about what is going on inside the camp.

There were lots of excuses re injuries etc up to now and some of that was legitimate. Today, however, I think we contributed to own downfall. It was mentioned here in middle of league that Rory Egan is like a fish out of water as a half forward. Daire McDaid has rarely if ever played in forwards for county and ended up there in a championship senior game. Aidan Bracken who has not played for 6 months is thrown in to mark their best player and taken off at HT. That was all on management. Good to see Bryant back contesting for place but again, he was not played in maybe 2 months or more. Is it asking a lot of him, Bracken and Higgins to play today having missed so much time? It is certainly a big jump.

There will be people calling for managements heads no doubt. I don't think that is right. They should be left to prepare the team for our big competition and finish out the year and review when all is done this year. The Tailteann Cup is our All Ireland. There are lots of players back now so there are no more excuses. We have 4 or 5 weeks or more to prepare for the TC so they should send them back to clubs for a round of league and go all in then for the T Cup. Hopefully they can stick together in what has been a very challenging year to date.

[Doon Exile]

The only positive out of today is that it was in Tullamore and we saved on fuel instead of driving to Portlaois……….

[Barnet]

Today was very poor. Slowest championship pace match i was ever at. Something is definitely wrong in camp. No excuses today how did we look at our full back line so long? We set back on laois with 15 minutes to go you would swear we were winning. If it wernt for our keeper and possibly the ref it could of been alot worse... where do we go from here? Its been a disaster of a year. 5 weeks to tc should we bring in a new manager to try get bit of a tune out of them? Or do we leave as is and hopefully change things around?

[Faithfully]

That was pretty abject unfortunately. Definitely the worst championship display since the shellacking at home to London in 2024.

It was remarkable how easy Laois cut through us at times in the 1st half, especially for the 2nd goal. It was hard to credit how open we looked.

In spite of this, we were in a pretty salvageable position at half time. 5 points down and with a wind behind us (the wind swirled a bit in fairness). What followed was disappointing to say the least. After about 20 minutes, we had one point scored. There was little to no cut through, and some of the shot selection was very poor.

At one stage it was 3-8 to 0-11 and we had several possessions in a row to try and cut the gap. If we even knocked over points, we would have been in it. Laois then went and scored 3 points on the trot with little fuss.

In truth, we could have lost by plenty more. I'm loathe to listen to Colm Parkinson, but he summed it up when he said that a 5 out of 10 Laois performance was enough to see Offaly off by 9 points. He's not wrong. Laois are no world beaters and they would admit themselves that they produced a pretty imperfect performance. Yet it was enough to beat us pulling up.

Not about individual performances or errors, just a collective malaise to be honest. They aren't losing intentionally and it's tough for everyone involved. It's been a pretty dispiriting season. Any team in div 3 or 4 would rightly fancy a cut off Offaly now.

Hopefully the lads can regroup and put in some good performances in the Tailteann Cup. It's not ideal considering the wait for the provincials to play out. I'd imagine that they'll consider letting lads out to the clubs for a week or so.