'It’s everyone’s job to defend' insists Blues stalwart

By Kevin Egan

In five championship games so far this year, Tullamore have conceded a total of 4-23, or an average of seven points per game. It’s a defensive record without parallel anywhere in Offaly, and there are very few clubs that could come close to it all across Ireland.

As the team’s full-back and the man invariably deployed to man-mark the leading scoring threat from the opposition, Declan Hogan could easily be pinpointed as one of the strongest blocks in that defensive wall, but he sees things a little bit differently.

“It’s everyone’s job to defend on the team, that is the way it is. The way the game is played these days, it is very much a team effort, it has always been the same for us.

“Everyone attacks and everyone defends and it is everybody’s responsibility to get involved in every aspect of the game,” he told the Offaly Independent.

“We are very lucky that there is a group of players that are putting their shoulder to the wheel in an attacking and defensive sense, and we just hope it is the same in the final.”

Atrocious weather conditions were blamed for last year’s low-scoring county final, which Tullamore edged by 1-5 to 0-6 – but it has now been five years since any team scored more than 1-9 in an Offaly SFC decider.

The fact that there is absolutely no novelty to the pairings certainly doesn’t help in that regard. Tullamore, Ferbane and Rhode have between them contested every final since 2017, and Hogan knows there will be complete familiarity on both sides this Sunday afternoon (throw-in 4pm).

“There are no real secrets within Offaly circles anymore because a lot of the same teams have been playing each other over the past few years. We have had great battles with this Ferbane team over the past five years. Obviously 2020 went to a penalty shootout. A really tough game against them in 2021 and since then we had some really good battles with them in the league and we had a league semi-final against them this year.

“We know each other inside out and it will just come down to getting the rub of the green here or there.

“Last year, with the weather conditions the way they were, it was a really tough day for football. For our group it was nice to get over that dogfight. In 2020, we played in similar conditions (against Rhode) and lost out. I don’t know what it is about GAA matches but when you lose a dogfight, it hurts even more. It is just the nature of the game when it is played in those conditions, it really just becomes a war of attrition.”

The early stages of this year’s championship didn’t feel like a war of attrition, so much as it was a stalemate, with no meaningful action and no casualties until the quarter-final stages.

The announcement that Mickey Harte would be joining the Offaly senior football set-up as joint manager in 2024 lit a fire in the county, however, as players suddenly became a lot more invested in putting themselves in the shop window. Hogan, who held the captain’s armband in 2023, summed up the mood among the players since the appointment.

“Mickey Harte is one of the greatest managers of the modern era so there is a lot of positivity from players, supporters and anyone involved in Offaly GAA. You can only admire what he has done with Tyrone and since then we have had good encounters with his Louth team. We had good battles with them in 2021 and 2023 in particular. People tend to forget he won a Division One league title with Derry and that was no mean feat. It is an absolutely massive appointment for the county.”

Just the minor matter of a county final to be dealt with first, and Ferbane’s attempt to break down one of the meanest club defences in Ireland.