Recent results leave Offaly a bit short on match practice

By Kevin Egan

Watching the Walsh Cup action from Tullamore last Sunday, in as much as that was possible due to the heavy fog, it was easy to see the reason why there is a small, but not insignificant cohort of Gaelic games followers – and hurling fans in particular – who pay no heed to early season inter-county action, and who only resume their interest towards the end of February.

There are nuggets of information to be gleaned at this time of year, and it’s certainly easy to see Johnny Kelly’s argument that Offaly would have benefited from another tilt against Galway in advance of what’s sure to be an incredibly tough league schedule.

But it’s also true that when games take place in the very worst of conditions, entirely different attributes are required to those that tend to be most important later in the year.

The day when players would get selected for a county panel with real doubts about their appetite or desire to play at the top level are long gone, so the time when competitions like this were helpful in discerning which players “want it the most” are gone the way of the dodo as well. Physical strength and power comes to the fore, but that can be assessed by any number of scientific metrics too.

The things that are important at this time of year are getting into a collective rhythm and learning to play in different roles, adapting to different tactical structures, and playing alongside new colleagues.

All of that can only be done on the field of play in match situations, and the fact that Offaly initially wanted another game, before eventually acquiescing and allowing the 4-15 to 1-11 result to stand, shows that challenge matches are still very limited in terms of what they can offer.

Disappointing O’Byrne Cup exit

For the Offaly footballers too, defeat to Dublin last weekend means that there is no competitive fixture for Declan Kelly’s side this week, and presumably they too will want one more game before the opening round of the league against Westmeath.

In the case of the footballers, a more positive performance to reset is badly needed after a disappointing outing against Dublin in Gracefield last week, when a commanding position was let slip against a very inexperienced group representing the All-Ireland champions.

Such is the depth in Dublin football that even as Dessie Farrell goes deep into his second tier, he’s still going to have some very capable players to choose from, but some of the more experienced Offaly players should have been able to take control of that game much more effectively.

Plenty of players put their hand up for consideration with strong performances in the Sigerson Cup during the week, particularly Keith O’Neill (Maynooth), Diarmuid Finneran (TU Dublin) and Cian Farrell (SETU Carlow), and while they will all be in action again on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, something is clearly required to get Offaly out of this torpor.

Already Down are catching the eye and they look like clear favourites in Division Three, while there is little or nothing separating the other seven teams, with the possible exception of Westmeath, based on championship form of last year.

Winter games might not tell us as much as all that about who will be the big performers in the summer, but for the Offaly footballers in particular, there are games in the league that will be played in Winter conditions, and they will still be hugely consequential, given the importance of staying in the third tier of the Allianz Football League – at the very least.