HoganStand GAA Football and Hurling

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New Offaly Hurling Manger? Big name required now?

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Replying To preddan: "The club scene in offaly has never been as bad, which is a factor why the county is doing so bad...birr are a shadow of their former selves,a poor enough rynaghs team won offaly,any club that wins intermediate are out of their depth completely every year in senior,showing the gap. There is no hurling club in north offaly now where once was ballyfore,edenderry,croghan,raheens,so things are at an all time low.." competitive club games, only 2 out of last weekends (21/22nd July) games were competitive, the rest were horendously lob sided with some teams loosing by almost 20 and 30 points respectively...no team that has come up from Intermediate in recent years has even got to a county semi-final if they were lucky enough to stay senior for 2 years in a row..teams are comming up from Intermediate to senior and getting hockeyed which is doing no one any good..some of the traditional senior teams are just about holding onto Senior Status...there are 12 teams in the Offaly Senior Championship, and realistically only 4 have any realistic chance every year of winning a senior county final, the other 8 battle it out for quarter final spots and relegation...I see lads scoring 1-06 or there abouts for their clubs and people think that is great, their equivalents in Kilkenny, Tipp, Cork, Wexford and Galway are hitting double that nearly in their equivalent games in their county championships and hitting average 4/5 points from play when representing their county...Offaly players are scoring 1 or 2 points per foward on good day (seldom) for their county with the rest comming from frees..give a good free taker 10-12 points on a mediocre day (Pat Horgan and Joe Canning and their likes could hit 14 or 15 when their teams are on song) and throw in around 6 points max from from play and you get around 18 points and such tallies are no where near good enough to win most games now adays at senior level..this is no slur against any team or player, its just stating the state of affairs as I see the watching games around the country week in week out and on tv etc...the days Kilkenny, TIpp and Cork and Clare etc. have their top players hitting a mediocre return other players seem to be able to chip in with 1-02 or 1-03...Offaly dont have that fire power at the moment.. Fairplayalways (Offaly) - Posts: 1034 - 19/07/2017 20:33:53 2019538 Link
Replying To Pinkie: "Just like what we did in Wexford, Offaly need to start at rock bottom and work up. It will take a minimum of 10 years before they are even remotely competitive. I know this because we had to take the toughest of medicine in Wexford, and got rid of the outsiders and focused all the efforts on underage. I know we are not there yet and this year was bad at U21 and minor, but we've had good success at that age group. But you need your U12, U14 and U16 teams competing and from what I have heard, at most of these competitions, blitzes, etc, Offaly are not at the races. I think nobody takes any pleasure in seeing where Offaly hurling is at, but there are no quick fixes. Hurling, ballwork, getting heroes involved, are the only answers." Ej (Wexford) - Posts: 355 - 19/07/2017 21:05:34 2019565 Link
Replying To Pinkie: "Just like what we did in Wexford, Offaly need to start at rock bottom and work up. It will take a minimum of 10 years before they are even remotely competitive. I know this because we had to take the toughest of medicine in Wexford, and got rid of the outsiders and focused all the efforts on underage. I know we are not there yet and this year was bad at U21 and minor, but we've had good success at that age group. But you need your U12, U14 and U16 teams competing and from what I have heard, at most of these competitions, blitzes, etc, Offaly are not at the races. I think nobody takes any pleasure in seeing where Offaly hurling is at, but there are no quick fixes. Hurling, ballwork, getting heroes involved, are the only answers." Pinkie I couldn't agree more. Yes the medicine was very tough to swallow but it was and is the only way. Looking from the outside in, the problem Offaly will have is that the likes of Duignan are more than content to bemoan the state of hurling in their county rather than trying to do something about it. From 2007 we had fitzhenry, dunne, cushe, George O'Connor and Tom dempsey all involved at underage level. There is a fierce passion for hurling in Offaly and I genuinely believe that if a few heads can be banged together, everyone pulls in the same direction and the GAA money men help then they can be a force to be reckoned with again Ej (Wexford) - Posts: 355 - 19/07/2017 21:30:38 2019586 Link

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