Fascinating minor battle against Meath
by Kevin Egan
Followers of Offaly football won’t need to be told that while there were plenty of incredible moments in last year’s successful minor football championship campaign, it was the away win against Meath in Navan at the quarter-final stage that really seemed to push the group onto another level and feed the panel’s belief and confidence, enabling them to go on and pick up those big wins over Kildare and Louth.
Fast forward to this year’s campaign and once more Offaly face into a game against Meath in the quarter-final stage.
If formlines were applicable at minor level, it would be hard to say that the Royals are anything other than favourites. In the round robin stages, Offaly were in with Westmeath and Dublin, and all three teams had one win and one loss against each other, as well as beating Longford.
Then in the preliminary quarter-final round, Westmeath and Meath played Carlow and Wicklow, two teams who were closely matched in the weaker group. Westmeath needed a strong late surge to come back and beat Carlow, Meath travelled to Aughrim and put Wicklow to the sword, 5-10 to 0-3.
At schools level, St. Pat’s of Navan recently won the Leinster Junior “A” championship by beating Knockbeg in an entertaining final, with several of this minor group involved.
On the other side of the coin however, Offaly have clearly trained on and made some positive adjustments since that first round defeat in Parnell Park and Adrian Farrell has put together a group that is aggressive and fast in defence, fiercely competitive under the kickout at midfield and with a decent array of sharp, goal-hungry forwards.
At a time when there has been a lot of talk about the lack of support for adult teams, it’s at this level where the few extra voices can make all the difference in the case of a tight finish and in as much as it’s possible to predict anything in U-17 football, this game looks very tough to call and could well be decided by a point or two either way.
Do with that information what you will.
It’s not long ago that this column strongly disagreed with the concept that supporters should every feel obligated to spend their time and money going to any game where they don’t feel a strong desire to attend out of their emotional connection and interest.
So in the interests of trying not to be any more hypocritical than necessary, we’ll simply say that if there was to be more than a 1,000 Offaly people at any game before Sunday week and the Kilkenny visit in the Leinster SHC, then Tuesday night is probably the one where that crowd would have the biggest chance of swinging the result in favour of a Faithful County team.
Offaly v Meath, Glenisk O'Connor Park, Tuesday 6.30pm