Elated Murphy salutes return of old Offaly spirit

AN incredible work rate coupled with a willingness to put bodies on their line saw Offaly repel stiff Meath resistance in the second half of Sunday's Leinster Senior Football Championship quarter-final win.

These were characteristics of great Offaly teams of the past and manager Martin Murphy spoke about them as he reflected on a great 1-11 to 0-10 win to set up a semi-final battle with Louth.

“It's unbelievable to say the least. We came here today more in hope than anything else against a Colm O'Rourke-led Meath side. Having not won a championship game, to win two on the trot is a big ask and a big thing for us.

“We're delighted, we're elated. The players have made huge sacrifices and worked very, very hard over the last four or five weeks since poor Liam (Kearns) passed and we brought that bit of doggedness that Offaly are renowned for back into Offaly football.

“We just said today that with the hurling and underage going so well that we weren't going to be left out so we were coming here with all guns blazing to win this match as best we could.”

He had an indication during the week that this performance was coming.

“It has been brewing. We had probably the best week of training this week in terms of intensity, effort, the communication between players on the field at training was savage, it was just really peak, top-class stuff.

“Myself and John (Rouse) and Alan (Flynn) came into the game really enthused by that and I know the Offaly public probably wouldn't have overly expected us to go out and win that game as comfortably today but we knew coming into the game that we had a serious chance of winning and the players believed in themselves. That's where we are now. We're going to Croke Park on Sunday and we're looking forward to it.

Rory Egan went off at half time after a brilliant first half while Bernard Allen had to go ten minutes after coming on following a heavy jolt to his knee. Murphy is hopeful that neither injury is as bad as feared.

“Bernard is not as bad as initially thought but at the same time, he'll probably get a scan during the week and we'll know the extent of it later on. Rory is a soft tissue injury, a Grade One hamstring tear. The only injury we had coming into the game was Conor McNamee, he had a bit of a dead leg.”

The Gracefield man talked about Offaly's first half display.

“We've been trying to set up defensively over the course of the League and I suppose we tightened up a bit more as the League finished and as we worked on it intensely going into the championship.

“We know that if a team are off and they're going to shoot from 40 or 45 metres out that the chances of them scoring are limited enough so the whole thing was not to concede goals today.

We went out with the same attitude against Longford, we didn't want to concede goals but it worked well today for us.”

Peter Cunningham returned early from honeymoon to play and the manager praised his commitment.

“It's savage and you have to thank the County Board for looking after things there and getting him back. Peter has been mainstay of the team throughout the year, he's been one of the leaders in the dressing room and on the field so it was important that we had him back today. People will say that to a man everybody fought the great fight today and we were delighted with that, there was a few mistakes but you'll have that under the conditions that were out there.”

The Louth game is a great opportunity for both counties.

“Of course it is a great opportunity. The last thing that I said to those lads in there was the last time they played in Croke Park they didn't do themselves justice so they're getting a chance to go back to Croke Park in a Leinster semi-final and hopefully get a big performance and add to today. There will be a step up and there will be the Mickey Harte factor in it as well.

“It's a big thing for the Offaly footballers to win two championship games in a row and I'd say we set our targets low enough this year in that we wanted to maintain our status in Division 3, win the first round of the championship and then give the Tailteann Cup a bit of a run.

“We ticked both boxes two weeks ago against Longford and we've added another tick in terms of beating Meath today, irrespective of how Meath were going or not, it's a big scalp to take so it's a great day for us all and lads are over the moon.”

What does it mean to be leading Offaly to Croke Park?

“It's a great privilege, it's a great honour to be involved with Offaly in the first place. I'm looking forward to it, it's a great occasion, irrespective of what stage in the championship it is. There'll be a big crowd there for a double header and the atmosphere should be brilliant. That's where players are going to learn moving on and moving forward, their development is playing on those big occasions in front of big crowds.”

He was asked again about late manager Liam Kearns.

“We never play a big game without mentioning Liam and the targets and goals that he set for us, where we were when he left us, he knew that there was more in this team and that we needed to build on it and that's what we have been doing.”