Offaly senior football managers used great minor win as motivation for Tailteann Cup

OFFALY'S great win over Kildare in the Leinster Minor Football Championship semi-final on Wednesday night was one of the big things used by senior football joint managers, Declan Kelly and Mickey Harte to make sure their players' heads were in the right place for the Tailteann Cup opener against Wicklow on Saturday.

Kelly was the manager on his own last year as Offaly endured a sensational Tailteann Cup malfunction with horrible defeats by London and Limerick the abiding memories of the campaign.

The squad played infinitely better this year, winning promotion to Division 2 of the National Football League and the Division 3 title while they were agonisingly close to taking out Meath in the championship. The new rules suited a young squad with pace to burn as many of the 2021 All-Ireland U20 winning heroes came of age as county senior footballers. However, the memory the whopping defeats to London and Limerick last year meant that there was an air of trepidation about the Tailteann Cup campaign this year. Drawn in group 2 alongside Wicklow, Waterford and Laois, Offaly were favourites to progress but a lot of people were fearing the worse for it.

The game against Wicklow in Tullamore was a big one as a result of that and while the reports coming out from the camp were positive after their narrow championship loss to Meath, we just didn't know if Offaly would produce a performance.

Kilclonfert man Declan Kelly was delighted with the minor wins over Meath and Kildare in recent weeks, and from a number of perspectives. He has always spoken about the importance of county U20 and minor sides competing well and feeding players into the senior set-up. He has also overseen the football development squads in recent years and almost all of these players have come up through that from 13 years of age. And he has one more powerful reason for wanting the minors to do well: one of the defensive lynchpins and centre back is Tadgh Kelly, the son of Declan and Eilish Kelly.

The nature of the minors recent wins over Meath and Kildare, the spirit they are showing, their honesty is warming the hearts of supporters and Kelly and Harte told their players that they had a duty to those young men to perform.

Kelly explained after the 2-13 to 0-11 win over Wicklow:

“The one thing we did emphasise was the minors had a good win on Wednesday night and they are in a Leinster final. Football is on a bit of a high at the moment and we didn't want to be losing today to take a bit of the gloss of Wednesday night. That is something we would have spoken about. Ultimately, this is where we are at and to make progress, we have to win matches. This is where it is. If you are looking forward to Division 2 next year, to me you look at this as getting yourself ready for that.”

Offaly weren't brilliant against Wicklow but their attitude and overall performance was on a different planet than this time last year when they were humiliated by London and Limerick. Offaly started well with a a great Diarmuid Egan goal but were 0-7 to 1-1 behind before a Jack Bryant goal helped them to an interval lead of 2-6 to 0-8.

The Kilclonfert man agreed:

“Yes an important win. Firstly the conditions, it was a swirling enough wind. When we came out initially, it was sort of blowing across the field and then it was blowing down the field. By the end, it was back the other way. They elected to play against it initially and we got the goal early on but we made it difficult.

“We gave the ball away quite a bit at times but it was one of those, you had to work your way through it. We had a four point lead at half time which was a good spot to be in after 35 minutes.”

For a brief period in the first half as Wicklow took that three point lead, memories of the London fiasco were rekindled. It wasn't as bad as that but Offaly were letting the visitors have a huge amount of ball, their own energy levels were not quite right and there were enough grounds for serious concern.

Kelly was worried but not unduly so.

“It was more, you knew coming in Wicklow had put in a right good performance against Dublin. You knew, they were going to come here and perform. There is a good bit to work on and that is the one thing you take out of it. The important thing today with us was to get a win. To get two points on the board in your first game and it is in your own hands at this stage, which is important.”

Offaly were very happy with their four point half time lead.

“You had the four points and you definitely would have taken it with the way the game started. If someone had said after 10 or 15 minutes, you would be four points up at half time, you would have been quite happy. We kept them at arm's length, missed a penalty that would have made it a little bit more comfortable. That was important, we missed the penalty and they came down and missed a two pointer. That could have been a big turning point but once we got our nose in front, we sort of kept them at arm's length for the remainder of the game which is what you needed to do.”

Kelly's mood was the same as supporters – not jumping for joy at the football they played but happy that they had performed, won and were up and running.

“You are happy just to get a win. To make progress, you need to be winning matches. We are gone up to Division 2 for next year. It was a home game for ourselves, I don't think we have been beaten at home yet this year which is important and we wanted to keep that run today. We done that, it could potentially be our last home game of the year. We are away next week in Waterford, it is a neutral venue for the last one and it depends on whether you are in or out.”

Offaly's last game is against Laois and while there has been some talk about tossing for venue, the Offaly management are happy to play on neutral ground.

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“There is a bit of debate around it. I don't even know if you could toss, if it would be allowed. It is what it is and you would be thinking Newbridge or whatever. We will worry about that in a couple of weeks time,” Kelly concluded.