Tame Tailteann Cup exit for Offaly

By Kevin Egan

For an example of what happens when a side that is laser-focused on a certain goal runs into a team that is stumbling through the final lap of their season, last Saturday’s Tailteann Cup tie in Glenisk O’Connor Park was eye-opening.

A Wexford panel that was ravaged by injury all year long but is now healthy and full of depth, met an Offaly group where a significant number of players were ruled out by injury and suspension. Add in all those that stepped away from the panel since the Louth defeat for one reason or another, and there were as many as a dozen players unavailable for selection.

In that context, the result was predictable (with Wexford winning by 1-22 to 2-14). Wexford dominated Offaly in terms of power and athleticism, and the five-point margin at the end flattered the home side. Ian Duffy’s selection on the GAA.ie team of the week is a fair indication of how many times the Walsh Island goalkeeper bailed Offaly out of trouble during the game.

Martin Murphy said afterwards: “The bottom line is the teams that are doing well in the competition seem to be the teams that went out of the championship early and have had time to assess, readjust themselves and maybe have a short sojourn away from football for a week or two. They come back then revitalised. It is very hard to revitalise something when lads are on the road every weekend, week in, week out.”

Given everything that has happened, it’s hard to imagine a more forgivable, understandable backdrop to a desperately sub-par performance. Finishing with 13 men on the field two weeks in a row is another manifestation of the sense of frustration within the panel, and when we consider that Wexford were drawn to play Meath in Navan in their quarter-final, it’s probably best that Offaly didn’t find a way to stumble through, only to then (in all likelihood) hand back the mental boost that was the Leinster championship win over the Royal County a couple of months ago.

What we can say for certain is that overall, the Offaly senior football panel looks to be in a much healthier place than it was a year ago.

A significant cohort of the 2021 U-20 panel will hopefully get the chance to play an uninterrupted summer of club football, ideally without any of the injury issues that have plagued young players like Cathal Donoghue, Kieran Dolan, Keith O’Neill, Cormac Egan, John Furlong and others.

Many others have got meaningful experience this year, and while no Division Three county will ever have a full deck to choose from, whoever wears the bainisteoir’s bib next year would be incredibly unlucky not to have a much deeper panel from which to select.

Those that were there throughout this year, developed a very welcome habit of winning tight games.

Sure, the Louth game was the one that got away, but outside of that, there is a real sense that Offaly won every game that was there to be won, and in the case of the Laois fixture in Portlaoise, they got a draw that they were in no way entitled to get, based on the team’s performance. That winning habit alone, is a huge addition to this team’s armoury. Next year, the ceiling will be a lot higher.