Offaly can banish league woe in season defining clash

By Kevin Egan

If the Leinster Council had been allowed to draw up the ideal set of circumstances for this year’s Leinster SFC, they couldn’t have hoped for much better than the way it has fallen.

The competition was already revitalised by Meath’s win over Dublin and Louth’s Leinster final success in front of nearly 70,000 spectators last May. And as we come into this year’s competition, Leinster didn’t have a team in either the top six or the bottom five teams of the National League for the first time in history. At a time when the League is a more accurate barometer of teams’ overall ability than ever before, all 11 Leinster championship teams are ranked in the middle 21.

The first round has thrown up three local derbies that all look like very competitive fixtures, and out of the ten Leinster championship ties that are set to take place this year, the only one that looks like a foregone conclusion is Dublin’s trip to the winners of Sunday’s game between Wicklow and Carlow.

Absolutely, Meath will be strong favourites against either Longford or Westmeath and will probably be similarly favoured to overcome whoever emerges out of the quarter containing Offaly, Laois and Kildare, but the other side of that coin is that right now, whoever does prevail out of that trio will feel very different about their form having reached a Leinster semi-final than then do right now, particularly if it’s either Offaly or Laois coming in on the back of two wins in the space of eight days.

For Offaly, the litany of injuries and absentees turned the league into an incredibly arduous campaign that never got off the ground. All seven games ended in defeat but there were patches of impressive play at times, including the first half of the Tyrone game, the second half of the Cavan match and the immediate response to Bryan Menton’s goal three weeks ago against Meath.

While Paddy Dunican, John Furlong, Jack Bryant and Cathal Flynn all remain absent and unlikely to feature until the latter stages of the Tailteann Cup (or the All-Ireland series) if at all, Keith O’Neill should make a return to the side after dropping out of the Meath game as a precautionary measure. Aidan Bracken and Kyle Higgins are both reported to be in the mix for some playing time, albeit the lack of match sharpness may limit their contributions.

Already the return of Dylan Hyland and Shane Tierney has been transformative, while there were success stories in the league too, with Diarmuid Egan, Shane O’Toole Greene and Aaron Leavy all proving that they have something meaningful to offer at this level, albeit Leavy is the latest one on the treatment table and under pressure to make the team due to a broken bone in his hand.

For their part, Laois have been desperately inconsistent. Across seven league games, they never put back-to-back wins or back-to-back losses together, but there still was a sense of progress through the spring for Justin McNulty’s side as well.

A fair amount of change was forced upon McNulty with Damon Larkin, Mark Barry, Seamus Lacey among a half a dozen players that opted out – those three lined out at midfield, full-forward and centre-back last year, mirroring the issues that Offaly have faced in having to operate without several key central figures.

In their absence, Evan O’Carroll has come back into the side to bolster the attack and serve as a more than able replacement for Barry. Rob Tyrrell has stepped up to the mark in the middle with Kevin Swayne and Conor Heffernan the primary kickout targets alongside him, while there is talk that defender Ben O’Connor and DCU’s Ben Dempsey could yet be asked to step up from the U-20s and make an impact. Killian Roche in goal, Trevor Collins and Paddy O’Sullivan in defence and others like Swayne add experience to a side that is balanced and solid all over the field.

Evan O’Carroll is always capable of shooting the lights out while Ronan Coffey is in the form of his life at centre-forward, but for Offaly to prevail, it is the greater spread of difference makers that will be the home side’s strongest weapon. Whether it’s Cormac Egan from the back, Jordan Hayes dominating all around him or Keith O’Neill producing some of his trademark magic up front, Offaly still have the stars that can edge this one.

If the psychological damage from the league campaign, and indeed the physical toll on a handful of key players who were on the field for more or less every minute of action, can be overcome, then Offaly can edge this one. But those are big ‘ifs’ and there’s a reason that the bookies are finding it very hard to split the two teams for this game.

Faith in the players means this column is ever so marginally giving Offaly a slight edge, but it’s one of those games where one lucky break could make all the difference.