Offaly show major progress with dismissal of Antrim

By Kevin Egan

With half an hour gone last Sunday in Tullamore, Offaly led Antrim by 0-10 to 0-7, having played with the aid of a breeze that feels like it’s worth four or five points at least. The home side had been the better team, but in terms of scores on the board, it’s Davy Fitzgerald and his players who look like they’ll be the happier team at the interval.

Then Antrim midfielder Niall O’Connor carries the ball into the tackle at midfield at the stand side of the pitch, where James Mahon and Killian Sampson combine to secure a turnover ball and to send it back towards the Antrim goal. Dan Ravenhill finishes off a goal, and from then on, a comfortable Offaly win was inevitable.

It felt appropriate that the decisive play in the game came from Offaly’s energy and tackling in the middle third, because the most satisfying aspect of the victory, and the source of the most encouragement in advance of the trip to Croke Park on Saturday week, was how dominant Offaly were in all the aspects that aren’t about natural ability.

Touch, accuracy, high fielding, all of these skills remain critical in the sport of hurling, and every skill in the game can be improved with practice. However there is a limit to how far each player can go. No matter how motivated they might be, not every hurler has the potential to be the next Tony Kelly or Patrick Horgan.

But aspects such as making life difficult for the opposition, making the right choices on the ball and working on physical and mental strength to tick those boxes is very much in the control of players and management, and even allowing for an anaemic Antrim display, Offaly’s defending from the front, and the clear progress that has been made when it comes to shot selection, was great to see.

In all likelihood, relegation is off the table now. Even if the next three games end in defeat, it’s hard to see two out of Antrim, Laois and Westmeath overtaking an Offaly team that has five points in the bank and a positive scoring difference, not to mention head-to-head wins over two of those three teams.

Promotion is still an outside chance – at the absolute least, Offaly will have to pick up three points from the last three games, and that includes road trips to Dublin and Waterford. But with a team ethos and structure in place that ensures that no-one will rack up easy scores against this team, and scope for further improvement as this young group gets further minutes into them and players like Ben Conneely and Cillian Kiely come back into the fold, it’s hard not to feel excited about where the county is right now.