Offaly senior football manager Stephen Wallace says the new Faithful Field training centre south of Tullamore will be a crucial building block for football in the county.

Kerry man Wallace was appointed the Faithful County's new supremo in September, succeeding Pat Flanagan in the role, and has cited the U21s' Leinster final appearance this past spring as an early stepping stone in what he hopes will be the rival of Offaly football.

"Every young player in Offaly should want to come into the Faithful Fields and if they're coming in you've a chance," he is quoted saying by RTE Sport.

"You've got to have something to aspire to and I think by making the senior team project a bit sexier to these guys we'll see the benefit of it in a few years' time.

"At the end of the day we'll be judged on the games of football we win by the fans and the media but all I'm concerned about is the 26 or 28 lads who want to come in here and put Offaly number one and make the Offaly senior football team attractive to the development squads that are coming in.

"It won't happen overnight, we can't pluck footballers off a tree. We've got to work with what we have. There's a promising Under-21 team that were in a Leinster final last year."

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