Daunting challenge facing Offaly hurlers against Limerick

By Kevin Egan

Put the first half of Tipperary versus Limerick alongside the first half of Offaly against Galway, and this Sunday’s game in Glenisk O’Connor Park (2pm) starts to look intimidating, bordering on terrifying.

The return of Killian Sampson and Donal Shirley from injury helped to bring a healthy crowd to Grant Heating St Brendan’s Park for the visit of Galway but with a strong wind at their backs, Offaly produced their weakest 35 minutes of the league so far to effectively lose the game by the interval.

Galway were able to move the ball through the lines with relative ease and create good scoring chances, even though anything outside the 45m line was outside the scoring zone, given the strength of the wind. In possession, Offaly were underwhelming too, with a lot of long deliveries sent into areas where Daithí Burke was sweeping up in front of the full-back line, giving Galway the edge when it came to trying to win turnovers.

There were positive signs after the interval when Offaly’s remade half-back line performed well, Brian Duignan scored three fine points from play and the tally of 0-12 into the wind was very creditable, but there was never a question of the result of the game being in doubt. Not unlike the Leinster championship game against the same opposition last summer, the sense of hope and optimism in advance of the throw-in was long gone by the final whistle.

All of this was on the back of Limerick’s incredible display at the home of the All-Ireland champions the night before, where John Kiely’s troops sent the message of “we haven’t gone away, you know”, in all caps, bolded, underlined and with highlighter pen all through it.

A tally of 0-36 is impressive, 0-32 from play even more so. Tipperary were reduced to 14 men early in the second half but the die was cast at that stage as Limerick had controlled the game all over the field, setting up the chances for Aidan O’Connor and Shane O’Brien along the spine of the attack. Over the course of the game, that duo proved why they are arguably the front runners for All-Star Awards in their respective positions, albeit it’s still only February so the bulk of the season still lies ahead of us.

So what can Offaly supporters hope for this Sunday? Well for a start, if there is a weak link in this Limerick side, and that is an ‘if’, then it is that the levels of performance they dial up for grudge matches against Cork, Clare and Tipperary tend not to be replicated against the rest, as evidenced by the mental lapse that cost them last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin. Neither do they get many goals. But after that, we’re drawing a blank.

For Offaly, the pressure of trying to avoid relegation is effectively gone now, and it would take a remarkable pair of results to climb above any two out of Waterford, Kilkenny and Galway – so that alleviates some pressure.

This game represent a huge physical challenge, and the issue about the team’s lack of goals (one from four games) should also have come up in training since Sunday. These are among the targets that could be set for this game.

A couple of green flags, a competitive showing in the hook/block/tackle count and in the contest for primary possession, and that’ll represent a decent day’s work against a side that was nothing short of awesome in Semple Stadium.