A painful defeat but minors give Offaly plenty to build on

Kevin Egan Column

This one hurt. That moment when the net rippled in Nowlan Park will be indelibly marked on the psyche of those young Offaly hurlers for years to come, and even in the stands and on the terrace, it was a hammer blow the likes of which Offaly hasn’t seen since Eamon Taaffe’s first time pull in September 1995.

For supporters too, it was utterly gut-wrenching. An emotional bond has built up between these players and the people of the county, based around their wholehearted and full-blooded approach to games, and every single supporter in Nowlan Park felt Paddy McCormack’s goal as a stab to the chest, as if their own son, brother or grandson was on the field.

Given the manner of the build up to the goal, particularly the stonewall free that should have been awarded as Niall Furlong tried to clear his lines with 63:54 on the clock, it was easy to fixate on that call. After all, Shane Glynn got it wrong, and anyone who argues otherwise doesn’t understand the legal definition of the tackle. Hip to hip contact is fine, as long as it is incidental to the main tackle, which is shoulder to shoulder. There was no shoulder contact here, so it was a foul – that much should not even be up for debate.

However referees giving 50/50 decisions, and even a few 20/80 ones, to the team with 14 players on the field is as much a part of Gaelic games as umpires wearing white coats and corner-forwards getting substituted when the ball hasn’t crossed the 45 in ten minutes. It happens, and it will continue to happen.

Equally, if Cathal Robinson hadn’t been hit on the head by the flying hurl of Damien Corbett, it’s almost certain that he would score a goal, Offaly go up by eight, and they see it out.

However the rule about a penalty sanction for ‘denying a clear goalscoring opportunity’ is only in place at senior inter-county level, so Glynn didn’t have the option of making that call – his only mistake was the aforementioned sympathy to the team that was short a man from then on. To say that’s the nature of sport is completely true, and it’s also true to say that these players have their whole career ahead of them.

The future

Some people have also made the point that the hype that comes with being All-Ireland winners might not have been beneficial in the long run, though that mindset is probably not applicable to the modern generation. Such is the dedication and focus retired to compete at the top level, that unless any player can drown out the external noise and find that drive within themselves, they’ll never get there.

Everything that these young men have shown so far suggests that they have the right character to maximise their skills, and if they do, there’s no doubt that long careers at club and county level are on the horizon.

Yet All-Ireland medals in your county jersey are rare, precious things, and all the more so in a county like Offaly where talented groups like this don’t come along too often. It has become harder and harder to compete at the top level without a huge population base and deep reserves of funding, and while this county is doing a remarkable job of clearing those hurdles, aided by generous sponsorship and a very committed community and club network, a lot of stars have to align for All-Ireland final appearances to come along, and a lot more for those games to end the right way.

Other, similar counties are also ticking a lot of the right boxes, and they haven’t enjoyed two All-Ireland finals in 12 months, as Offaly have. So there’s no guarantee that these heady days will continue to come.

For a lot of these players, the transition to county U-20 hurling will be manageable. There is a considerable physical gap between what 17-year-olds can do and what 20-year-olds can do, but for players like James Mahon, Dan Ravenhill and Conor Doyle, they are built to hold their own in older company. A player like Adam Screeneys will be dwarfed by some of the markers he will meet at U-20, but then, the Kilcormac-Killoughey corner-forward is quite used to that and seems to thrive anyway, so he too should be well able to make an impact as well.

There are others, however, who won’t be ready for this in 2023, and are much more suited to 2024 and 2025, and for those, it is vitally important that a method is found to keep them involved and pushing on. It may seem unfair, but in some cases, a bias may have to be shown to players in clubs that are a little bit down the pecking order.

For the host of players who will graduate into adult hurling at Kilcormac-Killoughey, or the likes of Shane Rigney in St Rynagh’s, they will be looked after and developed at club level quite well, particularly if their strength and conditioning work over the winter months is overseen properly.

The same is not necessarily true of all the clubs in Offaly, and while it’s great to see some of those clubs that operate outside of senior A represented on any county panel, clubs at that level with elite-standard strength and conditioning programmes and elite-standard skills coaching are the exception, not the norm.

Whether it’s a shadow development panel that meets infrequently but has regular contact with coaches and experts, or perhaps the 2023 county U-20s start out with a group of 50-60 players, but either way, it’s too important for the county for the normal story to unfold.

Offaly SHC previews

There’s nothing like domestic club action to take the mind off inter-county disappointment, and the game in Rath between St Rynagh’s and Birr tonight (Friday) is certainly one to look forward to in that regard. A very competitive clash is likely to play out here, in part because of Birr getting a good game under their belt last week, and also with St Rynagh’s attack likely to be slightly blunted by the absence of Luke O’Connor.

In a group where the big three – these two plus Kilcormac-Killoughey will all expect to reach the knockout stages, Rynagh’s might not be as finely tuned as they need to be, so an upset is very plausible.

In contrast, there’s little or no chance of an upset in the meeting of Clodiagh Gaels and K-K in Tullamore, where we’d expect a handy win for Shane Hand’s group.

Saturday evening’s double header in Birr looks absolutely fascinating, however, with Seir Kieran desperate to build on their decent second half against Belmont in a crucial game against Ballinamere, while Belmont can all but lock down a knockout place if they find a way to overturn Coolderry.

Ballinamere probably deserved a bit more than a share of the spoils out of their Shinrone clash so they should have too much firepower for the Clareen men, but it’s harder to tell where Coolderry are at right now, and they certainly can’t afford to slip too far back from last year’s championship standards if they want to take something out of this game.

We’ll give a tentative vote to the 2021 finalists on the basis that Belmont are still short a couple of very important players due to injury, but this is one of those games where a breaking ball, or a contentious refereeing call could swing things one way or another. Not that Offaly supporters will want to see any more of that type of thing after last Sunday.