Inside Track
Offaly hurling on its knees and prospects look bleak
Inside Track with John McIntyre
THESE are harrowing times for Offaly hurling and judging by what we saw in Tullamore last Sunday, the county’s slide into oblivion shows no sign of levelling off any time soon. Thrashed by both Kilkenny and Tipperary last summer – the latest in a long line of heavy championship defeats – the Midlanders remain in a full blown crisis.
Offaly’s gradual fall from the top tier of hurling counties is arguably the sport’s biggest problem on a national scale and things could conceivably get worse before there is any significant upswing in fortunes. Goodness knows, their plight is bad enough as it is and survival in the second division of league hurling will stretch them in the months ahead.
They fielded a team against Galway which contained a number of what turned out to be poorly equipped novices. They were over-run by the men in maroon at times and were really flattered to be only beaten by 12 points. It is obvious Offaly don’t possess the necessary depth of quality players anymore, but there appears to a lot of local apathy as well.
Granted, Joe Bergin and David Kenny missed the Galway match due to injury, but Conor Mahon didn’t rejoin the panel as he is due to go travelling while talented wing back Derek Morkam has fallen out of favour with the team management. Rory Hanniffy, one of Offaly’s great servants, has retired, while Brian Carroll didn’t feature last Sunday seemingly because he will be unavailable for the team’s opening two league matches.
The curious thing is that Offaly were reportedly very competitive in a challenge outing against Tipperary a few days earlier, but how often have we seen such encounters offering unreliable form guides? In reality, they were out of their depth against a Galway team missing several of their frontline players and, early in the second-half, trailed by 2-18 to 0-6.
What happened after that is largely immaterial. When Offaly needed to be competitive, they just didn’t possess the class, craft or technique to match up to their visitors. The team’s supporters were demoralised by what they were seeing with only a handful of players holding their own. By all accounts, Offaly have been committed on the training ground, but the gulf in standard was simply alarming last Sunday.
Brian Whelahan, the greatest hurler ever produced by Offaly, is now in his second season as team manager and he would have taken over from Ollie Baker with no shortage of enthusiasm or ambition, but the Birr man can only do so much with a limited deck. Publically, he has to stand by his men but, privately, he must be despairing of Offaly’s current woes.
It’s hard to credit that Offaly haven’t beaten Galway in a competitive match since a National League game in the spring of 2001. Hurling in the county was in a different place then, but they have gradually fallen off the pace in the interim. In my first coming as Offaly manager in 1997, I remember them also edging out the Tribesmen in a league tie in Birr, but they were backboned by some great men during that era, like the Dooley brothers, Whelehan himself, Martin Hanamy, Kevin Kinahan, John Troy and Johnny Pilkington.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Inside Track with John McIntyre
SOMETHING very odd happened to Tyrone in the Ulster championship in early April. On their home turf of Healy Park, they were doing nearly everything expected of them when leading Monaghan by five points at half-time. You couldn’t say for definite that the match was done and dusted, but the 2021 All-Ireland champions were in pole position.
You would have expected them to drive on against an honest if limited Monaghan outfit. Instead, Tyrone didn’t score for the opening 16 minutes of the second-half and in an enthralling finale, were left stunned by defender Ryan’s Toole’s stoppage-time goal snatching the honours for the Farney men on a 2-17 to 1-18 scoreline.
A couple of weeks later, Monaghan themselves had exited the Ulster title race when Derry comfortably got the better of them (1-21 to 2-10), leaving us more puzzled than ever by Tyrone’s dramatic decline since overcoming Mayo to claim Sam barely 20 months previously. Last year, they crashed out of Ulster by 11 points to Derry and subsequently came up six short against Armagh in the All-Ireland qualifiers.
Against that background, their recent loss to Monaghan shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. Tyrone may have made a shambolic defence of the All-Ireland title, but there is still a lot of quality in their ranks. They have an adventurous ‘keeper in Niall Morgan, while the long-serving Peter Harte, Darragh Canavan, Darren McCurry, Cathal McShane, Conor Meyler, Mattie Donnelly, and Conn Kilpatrick are all top-class performers when in the mood.
There’s hardly been a word about them for the past six weeks. Tyrone are lying low, desperately trying to rediscover the verve and cohesion which took them all the way in 2021. Their pride is on the line. It makes them dangerous opponents for Galway in the opening round of All-Ireland group matches at Pearse Stadium on Saturday.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Inside Track with John McIntyre
GALWAY footballers won’t get much credit for their easy victory over Sligo in Sunday’s Connacht Final in Castlebar, but when a team achieves something that hasn’t been done for 20 years, perhaps we should be a little more appreciative of the Tribesmen retaining the JJ Nestor Cup for the first time in two decades.
To be honest, if Galway were to live up to their standing as serious All-Ireland contenders, they needed to be doing a number on Sligo. In this year’s National League, the counties were three divisions apart and though Tony McEntee’s team achieved promotion and were on a nine-match unbeaten run, a serious rise in class faced them at MacHale Park.
Granted, Sligo made a bright start with three points in the opening five minutes from Pat Spillane, Sean Carrabine and the accurate Darragh Cummins, but they would only manage two more by the break despite having the wind behind them. Though wing back Luke Towey was catching the eye with his runs up-field, Galway rarely looked under pressure.
Sligo were bravely committing numbers to the middle third, which meant they were a little light in numbers around their own posts. They couldn’t afford to lose possession coming out of their own half, but that’s what happened in the build up to Galway’s second goal. Damien Comer overturned Cian Lally and from his counter-attack, Matthew Tierney expertly finished to the net at the near post.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Inside Track with John McIntyre
IS the Leinster hurling championship something of a sham compared to its Munster counterpart? Everybody knows who will end up in the provincial final in the east, but nobody knows the two teams who will feature in the ultimate battle for supremacy down south.
All-Ireland champions Limerick aren’t guaranteed to even make it out of the province, never mind reach the Munster final, after their narrow loss to Clare in Saturday evening’s epic at the Gaelic Grounds. Everything is still on the line for the five counties involved, although Waterford are again under serious pressure after losing their opening two matches.
In Leinster, there is little of that drama. Galway and Kilkenny are miles ahead of the rest; the only thing at stake is whether Dublin or Wexford – they meet in Croke Park on Saturday – will be the third team to emerge for the All-Ireland series. It’s a game which is hard to call. Wexford are going backwards while Dublin look callow as Micheál Donoghue is trying to build the nucleus of a new team.
Though Antrim are improving – they held the Dubs to a draw and only lost to Wexford by four points – the men from the Glens would be out of their depth in Munster; while Westmeath are proving cannon-fodder for everyone else. Since Galway headed east in 2009, they have clashed with Kilkenny in seven Leinster finals and another showdown is inevitable next month.
In contrast, every match in Munster is virtually do-or die. When Clare rolled into Limerick last Saturday, they knew another defeat after losing to Tipperary in the opening round would leave them on the precipice of exiting the championship. There’s a real dog-eat-dog appeal about all the games. In Leinster, there are two big hounds, and the rest are chihuahuas.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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