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I heard Ollie Baker say after the match that he would "have to go away and look at the tape", so I thought, that sounds like a good idea. I spent the last hour or so, watching the first 8 mins of the Offaly v Galway match again and again - pausing, rewinding, repeating, etc trying to get a picture of the game. I then wrote a summary of everything that happened in those first 8 mins. I believe what I found is very interesting.

I would encourage you to read the summary below. Then watch the game on RTE again and then let me know your thoughts and opinions.


1st min Action
The throw in is the usual scramble with nobody getting an immediate advantage. After 10 seconds of a mess, Kevin Brady has the chance to pick the ball. He elects to pull on the ground. Ball goes 8 yards. Colin Egan miscontrols the ball and flicks it on 15 yards. Galway number 6 flicks ball to wing. controlled first time by number 9. met with a good shoulder but then Egan comes in with a lazy lunge and hurl across the body, with little attempt to play the ball. free to Galway. missed. a let of.
CommentAlready we have seen unnecessary pulling, mis-control and silly free. But it is first minute so this often happens.

1 min gone
Offaly do well on first puck out. Brady picks up own break and delivers a low ball in front of full forward. offaly forward, Dooley, is behind his man. ball breaks to Parlon, but he fails to pick the ball up first time. Ball is cleared. Canning wins ball from air and takes off. Great classic-offaly-style flick from Horan and ball is well controlled by Hannify and cleared well. Again 1/2 forward is behind man
Comment
We have now seen forwards behind men, poor effort at pick up, beaten in air. Hanniffy looking sharp

2nd min
Mahon gives away a sideline by failure to pick up the ball. franks gives away a 65 - no fault. 65 is missed
Comment
all of this is within 2 mins (including about 1 min of a delay for free, puckout and sidelines to be taken).

3.30 min
from puck out scramble (2 offaly players and 1 galway went for primary possession) - 2 offaly players pulled on the ball when they should have picked it up and moved into space with ball - rigney and murphy.
murphy was lucky the ball he pulled on hit his own man and bounced up to him. this gave him 5 yards of space, 45 yards out straight in front of goal but he hit the ball rashly and wide.
Comment
currently 4 mins gone. offaly have no composure so far.

4.00 min
Galway Puck out breaks behind haniffy, Rigneys man is out in front on right wing. gathers pocession first time and drives a cross field ball
into a forward line where there are 2 attackers and 2 defenders only within 35 yards of offaly goal.
Ball in was too high, but the point is that Galway knew exactly what they were doing. Execution was bad.

Kenny miscontrols the sliotar and is slow to try to pick it up.
galway attacker, cooney, picks up the ball and accelerates away. Offaly backs are slow to get back - There is 1 other offaly back around the 25 yard area in front of goal, so Kenny has no support.
Cooney has to avoid getting hooked and then blasts the ball to the net.
4.30 gone. First blood to galway.

Comment
Galway win the tactical battle so far - Galway have managed to isolate players one on one, with one pass from a puckout.
offaly defenders dragged out very easily.

4.00 min
puck out takes place 20 seconds after the goal goes in. Now 4.52 on the clock. Drops on Galway 45, stand side.
2 offaly players jump, 1 galway. ball is gathered first time by one of two galway men waiting for the break

Galway man slips a handpass out (when he could not clear the ball himself) to galway number 10 who had made a 10 yard dash to get himself into a position to take the handpass, and the ball is delivered long into full forward line.

Again, There are 2 people inside the offaly 45 yard line Kenny and Cooney. Remember this is about 7 seconds after the puckout is hit. and 40 seconds from first goal going in. ball breaks behind the 2 players. Cooney is stronger and faster than kenny. easy finish with 5mins 8 seconds on clock.

Comment
People will blame kenny here and of course he has to shoulder his share of the blame, but look at the bigger picture - the galway men winning breaking ball, the support play, the tactic of isolating the full back, their power in the air. From an offaly point of view, they were extremely niave. Tactically, Baker's team has been killed, by possibly the most common tactic of any forward line.

5.30 min
Next puck out comes at 5.30. egan competes and then tries to pull on ball to keep it moving.
galway gather ball. move to wing and strike a crossfield ball again. This time, the ball only reaches offaly 45 and they have the numbers there to shut galway out.
Hannify displays great control and speed to move upfield.

shoots for a point, with ball dropping 10 yards short. Keeper collects ball, gives a short pass straight to shane dooley who shows good composure to finish to the net - currently 6.06 on clock.
offaly have got a break. back in game.

Comment
Hanniffy looking good
great finish from dooley

6.40 min
galway puck out comes at 6.40. Goes over head of half backs. Hanniffy picks the ball and hits a 40 yard clearence over his shoulder straight up the line (no support play for an easy handpass)
offaly compete. Egan fails with a pickup under pressure. Ball spills loose. mahon runs back and pulls on ball on ground. it goes 5 yards. carroll gets ball in hand. goes to swing hurl, but is hooked.
ball goes back to hanniffy, who delivers a good ball to other wing. parlon is beaten to the ball and galway deliver a 50 yard clearence (poor enough one with no pressure on him).

Morkan has a chance to catch the ball - but drops it. Cooney picks up break, but his poor shot his offaly leg for a sideline. currently 7.22 on clock.

Sideline is a crossfield ball. Galway player picks up break and throws out a handpass. Galway have time to miscontrol handpass but still shoot in lots of space. now 7.55 on clock. Score is 2.1 to 1 goal.

Comment
This passage of play sums up a lot. Offaly hitting balls with back to goals, failure to control ball under pressure, galway have supporting player to receive a pass, Galway have a tactic of a crossfield ball to forwards, offaly too slow on the strike, galway supperior in the air.
Having said that, Galway don't exactly look like world beaters. They are just doing some pretty basic things well.

8.15 min
offaly compete well for puckout. Dooley is sharp to win break, but half hooked. ball comes to egan who controls well and gives a good handpass to mahon who is running in support. point taken well

Comment
nobody has won a puckout clean yet, so breaking ball is vital.
movement can open up galway too.

8.45 min
Galway puckout is not won clean by either side. Bit of ping-pong for a few seconds. Hanniffy is sharpest, but then drives a ball 30 yards straight down the field where Tony Regan bats the ball to the waiting Galway midfielder, Tannian. He has time to look up and although it looks like he may be shooting for a point too, the ball drops in big square. Dempsey drops ball, and looks to have got a smack on the head. Breaking ball is again Galways and they go for goal straight away. Offaly defense is very poor in holding up the player and he gets a shot away. Dempsey doesn't deal with it properly (head injury probably had something to do with that) and Galway player lunges in to score.
Currently 9.10 on the clock. Dempsey is treated for injury and 10 minute mark arrives.

Comment
Aimless clearence from Offaly. Poor in tackle. poor at catching a high ball. no anticipation for breaking ball.


Any comments?

Video is available to watch here: http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=3320061
I know that offaly do come into the game after this period, but I felt that this was worth the time and analysis.

Do you know if offaly do any type of analysis like this before and after games, or do they just sit down with a cup of tea and 'watch' the match on a video.

Any comments?

yes some great points there iikj as you said i think they just sit down and drink a cup of tea and just watch it on video.
they learned nothing from the wexford game in the first 20 minutes wexford missed their goal chances Galway didn't.

Just made some edits to the initial post, as I see that I copied a couple of things from my word document incorrectly.

Fair play to you for going to such lengths to study the match like that, or the ‘tape’, as Ollie said. Like me, he mustn’t trust the DVDr to record correctly.

Seriously, I watched the first 50 minutes on tape last night. I didn’t slow it down or rewind like llkj did, but the one thing that jumped out at me was that Offaly must have broken the world record for fumbles, misses, pokes and dropped balls.

Now, before someone says “Offaly need to cut out the mistakes and then everything will be grand again” we need to delve a little deeper.

Controlling a hurling ball in a drill, or in a field, or on the beach on a summer Sunday is easy. It becomes difficult when the pressure comes on, whether the pressure of the big occasion, and/or the pressure of an opponent hopping off you. That’s the kind of pressure that made Steve Davis miss a black off its spot.

What singles out the top players (in any sport) is that they can reproduce the tasks when their heart is racing and instinct kicks in. While to a certain degree this comes naturally, it has to be practiced and finely honed. In turn, the top players make it look good because they are so practiced and their instincts can be trusted.

In the main, Offaly can’t do that. You could say Dooley and Hanniffy are exceptions. But year in, year out, since 2005, Offaly have reverted to rabbits in the headlights when faced by a superior team.

Galway may have looked naturals on Sunday. They will, in turn, hit the invisible ‘wall’ and they will be made to look like Offaly were last Sunday.

Personally, I think that this type of qualitative analysis is better for hurling that quantitative analysis. Of course, having a count of the number of frees conceded, points from play, clean catches, etc. is good too, but I personally think that sitting down and looking through everything with a fine toothcomb is very valuable.

From this 10 min analysis alone, you can see areas that Offaly were poor in. Not just things like inability to win the ball cleanly off the ground or in the air, or panicing a bit when the ball came near them (eg: swiping at it on the ground, or pucking a ball over the shoulder while running backwards). But also things like defensive set up, leadership, etc.

If you go back to the 2 goals. Kenny was caught out for the first one, so he as the captain should have taken control of the situation straight away for the next puck out and ensured that his defense stayed close to him for the next few balls. Was there any communication between him and Hanniffy. This is the type of conversation that needs to take place between the players in the cold light of day a few days after the match. At that stage, players should be open to discussion between themselves with Ollie Baker leading them in the analysis and creating a plan for the future or focusing on areas that need to be improved.

One 10 min spell is one thing, but this should be done for every league game. That way the direction from the top is clear and all the players should be capable of following the instructions. However, from this video breakdown alone, Ollie Baker should be able to see what he needs to work on with the team between now and the qualifiers.

I agree with what you wrote, llkj. Interesting that after the second Galway goal it is Dempsey who is organising the defence, asking the right corner-back to drop back.

I don't bother much with the management post-match quotes, it's only spin, after all. But Ollie Baker referred to "Subs Sean Ryan and Derek Molloy made an impact. Conor Hernon, a young lad coming on to the team and Chris McDonald came on and steadied up the ship." Roughly what age does he think Conor is?

Great topic llkj. Video analysis is absolutely critical in all sports these days. At the top level, things are dissected on a blow-by-blow level such as you have done in you opening piece.

The IRFU have retained Mervin Murphy as a DVD analyst for more than 10 years . After every game, a player can get a DVD burnt of pretty much every moment he was involved in the play. I’m sure big monied GAA set ups have access to this level of detailed analytical aids too.

In my view, it is the only way a player can truly critically analyse his performance and make himself a better player. As Effin Eddie himself put it in Littleton in 1991 “Tis on de tape lads you caaaant miss it”.

It’s 20/20 and the rewind button doesn’t lie. In the past, players couldn’t take criticism from someone who they thought was a prize p^&ck or who they simply didn’t respect. With DVD analysis, it’s become a cleansing process where a player can own up to his faults, know what they are, and take measures to rectify them.

You also made a good point about the lack of communication amongst the OY backs and particularly the senior members thereof once the first goal went in. I’m loathe to say anything critical about Kenny or Hannify who are true OY hero’s in my opinion, however, due to no fault of their own, neither are vocal on the field. It’s been a feature of this side that whenever a goal is conceded, defenders tend to trot back to their positions without any exchange of words good, bad or indifferent.

I’m not expecting to see for a Batty / Le Saux type punch up, but I would expect to see a mother-hen standing up and barking orders in any settled side – and I would describe this team as a reasonably settled side. Someone with the authority, respect and the leadership characteristics to become this kind of leader. Again, not saying the likes of Rory and Kenny don’t have those attributes or qualities, they just don’t appear to have that mother-hen dominant personality. People would be quick to criticise Baker or the line in this instance and of course he has a duty to issue his directions and make changes promptly. In the white heat of championship, with things moving so fast, it’s very difficult for players to hear instructions from the line never mind implement them and that’s why on-field leadership is so important.

In a settled senior side, mother-hen type vocal characters emerge over time and effectively micro-manage on the field. I’m talking Kieran McGeeney, Martin Johnson, Paul O'Connell - dare I say it, John Terry. Joe Brady filled this role for Coolderry in their march to Croker this year. Lads who, might not be the best player on the park, but who have the authority to enforce and direct amongst their own. Lads who can see things happening on the field through experience and intuition.

Anthony Cunningham definitely won the battle of the side-line in that he spotted our positional weaknesses at the back and our inability to cope with physical fast, direct lines of running. Cunningham was himself a direct corner forward in a Galway side in the 80s which had plenty of fast, direct runners who moved all over the field. Himself, Martin Naughton and Joe Cooney come to mind.

Very good analysis work.
In GAA, most pre-match game plans last about 20 minutes. Either they get abandoned, the opposition counteract it, or your players drift back to playing on olds habit. It was fairly clear what Galway’s early attacking plan was. Offaly's wasn't quite as obvious.

Defensive issues aside, were a lot of Offaly's outfield players too fired up and not using their heads early on?
Too much adrenaline. Trying too hard to force a level of intensity that hadn't been previously there.
When the championship ball is thrown, it's not just a matter of simply speeding up everything you've done all year by 20%.

Very fired up Offaly teams also have a habit of swinging at the ball as if killing rats on thrashing day. We need to curb this primal instinct rather than feed it. Once Offaly actually cooled the jets and started using their heads, they actually outhurled Galway for most of the 1st half.

Even in the most feral of occasions like All lreland final day, you’d rarely see Kilkenny a player flap or slash at a ball because of adrenaline. They still stick to their well practiced routines.

If Offaly played Galway in a couple of week’s time and the appetite was still there, we'd gave them a much closer game. I'm not sure how much psychological damage this performance may have done though.

Great piece of work.

It was in many respects as we feared except we got punished harshly. Too many fumbles and lack of awareness of what is happening around each player.

But the sad thing is that unless things have gone backwards under Baker, Offaly have been using a piece of software that breaks down the various aspects of the game. Even under Tom Cribbin this was done by the footballers!

I notice during the comment on various players performance in the other thread that there was little comment on Brian Carrolls performance, he was woeful. I thought he was shocking poor the last day aswell in the second half. He got a couple of good points in the first half, but more often than not he has been very disappointing for Offaly over the years, and was way over rated.

The comment from Ollie about the subs is disturbing to say the last , Sean Ryan, Hernon and McDonald were non existant. McDonald, I would say was most diappointing. In one instance a Galway player got a ball on his own, McDonald ran towards him and the Galway man burst through his arm which was the part of the body McDonald tackled with. A lot of the Offaly players tackled like that, Kenny, Franks, Rigney at times, Brady, Carroll didnt even tackle, Parlon and Bergin. Kenny and Mahon put in a few hits as did Rory. We need to bring in a specialist to coach our lads to hold up a players momentum, not wave them past with a flailing hurley waving at them!

You made good sense until you came to the last paragraph. I feel that such unjustified optimism (which exists throughout the county) is part of the reason why nothing ever gets done to address the serious woes of Offaly hurling.
Because Offaly always have a ‘what if’ to fall back on. If Galway played with a three-man full-forward line . . . if Kilkenny would only oblige us by playing ground hurling . . . if the match was in Croke Park . . . if the weather was different . . . if the match was the day before or the day after. Blah de blah.
My opinion is that Offaly weren’t good enough to beat Galway two years ago. Ergo they didn’t. That was proven beyond doubt on Sunday. History is full of such examples.
The psychological damage has been huge. It probably ranks with losing to Limerick’s 2-29 in 2006. The similarities are there – one win away from a quarter-final place, high hopes, big flop, asses handed on a plate, opposition donkeys become heroes. A week after that they went to Ennis for a qualifier that no-one had any interest in. They could well be heading to Ennis for a repeat in a fortnight.

Bord na Mona man wrote:If Offaly played Galway in a couple of week’s time and the appetite was still there, we'd gave them a much closer game. I'm not sure how much psychological damage this performance may have done though.

the Limerick game in 2006 in tullamore was poor, but why did the same offaly team beat a better Limerick side in 2008 out the gate in limerick
i feel the squad has gone way back under Baker their first touch and striking were brutal and sunday was a lovely day so the weather played no part.

we played Galway in 2010 could have won the both days but didn't, offaly have gone back since then Galway have also brought in a new trainer in Anthony Cunningham
and he swept out most of the squad from 2011,10, and brought in most lads from the under 21 winning side and the side that lost to tipp in 2010 .

these galway hurlers have no fear of hurling offaly as they have never lost to them at any level of hurling and don't look at offaly as a threat in the hurling world
just looking at sundays programme and the Galway squad there is not one player from county winners Gort in the squad which is hard to belive as Galway is a very hard county to
win the county title in.

beside Rory Hanniffy and Shane Dooley there wouldn't be to many more that would make a top county team outside of offaly, hurling has been on the down in offaly this 10 years
we got to two leinster under 21 finals in a row but we were well beaten in both, Coolderry done well to put offaly hurling back on the map in the club last year but came up way short
in the final on paddys day.

from what i have seen from the underage ranks in the last few years in offaly there won't be any pressure on any player that is in with the offaly squad or has his place for the last
few years as there is no young players coming up that are better than what lined out sunday and thats a worry.

i remember coming home from the all ireland defeat by kilkenny in 2000 giving out like fcuk about this player and that player and the Dooleys are to old and Troy should have started
but as we had a few pints in Ollie Nolans and Sids that night a fomer offaly inter county hurler said a thing and made a point back then i brush it off that night, but in the last few years his words has came true.

he said we are all giving out tonight about the final defeat, but i tell you he said you think we were bad today he said wait till them lads are gone and then you will see what we have
and he was dead right. we were spoilt rotten from 1980 to 2000 with great hurling sides and hurling men now sadly we are gone back to where offaly hurling was pre 1980.

i know i will get don't be talking sh.te and go way there is great work been done in offaly in which there could be but the bottom line is, we have fell way behind the pace of championship hurling its unreal how far.

i over heard men saying coming out of portlaoise isn't luck we didn't sneak a win over galway what would kilkenny or Dublin do with them in a final sure kilkenny would beat them like they did in 2005 if they got us in the leinster final, and the killing part after watching offaly hurl since 1979 when wexford pip us in the semil-final that year they were all dead right.

so they can look at DVDS till there blue in the face the fact of the matter is offaly don't have the skill or hurlers to compete in the leinster championship anymore which is sad to say

Does anybody know the name of the software that offaly are currently using/used in the past? Or the name of the one for the rugby team?

Also, does anyone know if the current hurling team are using any video analysis software?

llkj wrote:Does anybody know the name of the software that offaly are currently using/used in the past? Or the name of the one for the rugby team?

Also, does anyone know if the current hurling team are using any video analysis software?

The OCB has a licence to use Dartfish software - whether they're using it or not I don't know. My understanding is that the Irish Rugby team, along with a few of the more well off counties are using Avenir. However that's something ridiculous like 10k a year as far I know, and you'd need to have different cameras at games to really get full value for it.

townman wrote:the Limerick game in 2006 in tullamore was poor, but why did the same offaly team beat a better Limerick side in 2008 out the gate in limerick
i feel the squad has gone way back under Baker their first touch and striking were brutal and sunday was a lovely day so the weather played no part.

we played Galway in 2010 could have won the both days but didn't, offaly have gone back since then Galway have also brought in a new trainer in Anthony Cunningham
and he swept out most of the squad from 2011,10, and brought in most lads from the under 21 winning side and the side that lost to tipp in 2010 .

these galway hurlers have no fear of hurling offaly as they have never lost to them at any level of hurling and don't look at offaly as a threat in the hurling world
just looking at sundays programme and the Galway squad there is not one player from county winners Gort in the squad which is hard to belive as Galway is a very hard county to
win the county title in.

beside Rory Hanniffy and Shane Dooley there wouldn't be to many more that would make a top county team outside of offaly, hurling has been on the down in offaly this 10 years
we got to two leinster under 21 finals in a row but we were well beaten in both, Coolderry done well to put offaly hurling back on the map in the club last year but came up way short
in the final on paddys day.

from what i have seen from the underage ranks in the last few years in offaly there won't be any pressure on any player that is in with the offaly squad or has his place for the last
few years as there is no young players coming up that are better than what lined out sunday and thats a worry.

i remember coming home from the all ireland defeat by kilkenny in 2000 giving out like fcuk about this player and that player and the Dooleys are to old and Troy should have started
but as we had a few pints in Ollie Nolans and Sids that night a fomer offaly inter county hurler said a thing and made a point back then i brush it off that night, but in the last few years his words has came true.

he said we are all giving out tonight about the final defeat, but i tell you he said you think we were bad today he said wait till them lads are gone and then you will see what we have
and he was dead right. we were spoilt rotten from 1980 to 2000 with great hurling sides and hurling men now sadly we are gone back to where offaly hurling was pre 1980.

i know i will get don't be talking sh.te and go way there is great work been done in offaly in which there could be but the bottom line is, we have fell way behind the pace of championship hurling its unreal how far.

i over heard men saying coming out of portlaoise isn't luck we didn't sneak a win over galway what would kilkenny or Dublin do with them in a final sure kilkenny would beat them like they did in 2005 if they got us in the leinster final, and the killing part after watching offaly hurl since 1979 when wexford pip us in the semil-final that year they were all dead right.

so they can look at DVDS till there blue in the face the fact of the matter is offaly don't have the skill or hurlers to compete in the leinster championship anymore which is sad to say

Being truthfully honest there are players that are currently on the offaly team & most of the ones that are on the sideline that I think would struggle to make the Coolderry or Birr team, not trying to wind people up but Brendan Murphy & Conor Mahon would probably not make it to name but a few & the three players that came on in fairness Sean Ryan has proven himself at club level but he needs space to utilise his speed, without the space he wont be half as effective. I would struggle to see Chris McDonald & Conor Hernon improve the setup either. Thats not the fault of those players its just that we have an awful lot of players in the county that are at the same level which unfortunately is a bit off what is required at intercounty level.