Four Offaly teams featured in new GAA book

Four Offaly teams are featured in John Scally’s new book ‘100 Great GAA Teams’.

The famed Offaly hurling team team of the 1990s is among those featured in the book.

In the memorable 1994 All-Ireland final against Limerick, Offaly staged an incredible recovery to score 2-5 in the final five minutes en route to their 3-16 to 2-13 victory.

Five points clear in the 1994 All-Ireland final with as many minutes to go, Limerick had looked certainties to end a 21-year drought and return home with the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

“Less than ten minutes later, they could collapse in despair after an extraordinary turnaround,” writes Scally.

“For 65 minutes of the 70, Offaly had been uncharacteristically listless, with even a ‘spirited’ half-time bollocking from their manager Eamonn Cregan, himself a Limerick icon, doing little to stir them from their slumber. ‘He really ripped into me,’ said Johnny Pilkington, one of several players whose fondness for ‘a few scoops’ had long been the subject of folklore,” Scally continued.

“Enter Johnny. He was one of three Dooley brothers on the pitch. Socks around his ankles he stood over a 21-yard free with a battalion of Limerick defenders across the goal-line; he glanced to the sideline where management signalled him to pop the ball over the bar for a point that would reduce the lead to four. With the insouciance that only an Offaly player of that time could muster, Dooley blasted low towards the corner and Offaly were a mere two points behind.

“As RTE viewers watched replays of Dooley’s goal, Johnny Pilkington dispatched the puckout back goalwards with Pat O’Connor catching it on the bounce with a swing of his hurley. Another green flag in in less than a minute and suddenly Offaly were leading. Then for an encore they hit five unanswered points, with Billy Dooley chipping in three of them from almost identical angles.”

For an insight into what makes Offaly teams tick, Scally spoke to Eugene McGee, the now deceased manager of the All-Ireland-winning Offaly footballers of 1982.

In particular, McGee recalled Offaly’s All-Ireland hurling success of 1998, remarking how they had to play eight games to win that title in what was a highly controversial campaign. It was the first time a county won the All-Ireland crown having lost a provincial final.

‘Once again they broke away from the shackles of GAA history and tradition,’ said McGee. ‘Offaly had to put on a super show to silence the knockers who were saying that they should never even have been in that final.’

Highlighting how Brian Whelahan recovered from “a disastrous start” in the 1998 final, Scally writes: “Heroics and Offaly hurling and football teams seem to go hand in hand in the modern history of the GAA. One of the truest tests of a great player is his ability to recover from adversity during the course of a high-profile game. Most players are not able to do that.”

As McGee recalled of the 1998 final: ‘The Offaly mentors made the first of a few brilliant moves when they switched Brian to wing half-forward and put Michael Duignan to the half-backs to mark Brian McEvoy. In the second half Brian was moved to full-forward. This switch was the winning of the game. Whelahan scored one goal and two points from play and showed how a great player can overcome disaster and still triumph.’

“Offaly simply had too many heroes on the day for Kilkenny to cope with like the Whelahans, Duignan, Kevin Kinahan, Pilkington, Joe Errity and the Dooleys. It was a parable of Offaly’s talent and their capacity not just to win but to do so with polish and plenty of drama,” continued McGee.

As Scally writes: “Myths abound about that Offaly side. Johnny Pilkington suggests the perception and reality were somewhat, if not completely, different.”

Scally quotes Pilkington as follows: ‘We seemed to be kind of easy-going, but when Kilkenny were on top, their A versus B games were this, that, and the other - their indoor (in-house) matches were better than any championship matches. Kilkenny didn’t invent that. That was going on with every All-Ireland team.’

‘I remember there would be odd arguments there in matches inside our training games. I know I was on (Daithí) Regan at one stage and even though he’s a foot taller than me, he still managed to pull across my ear and we had words, so you had that intensity there,” continued Pilkington.

‘I suppose what was a bit unique about it, we had a laid-back kind of an attitude in a way. If you take a look at the ’94 All-Ireland and you see Offaly running out onto the field, it seems as if the first lad comes out fast and the others just jog out one after another and Limerick are sprinting out into it. We had some kind of laid-back characters,’ added the Birr hurling legend.

‘100 Great GAA Teams by John Scally is available in all good bookshops now.