The man behind the wire: Year of steady progress for Offaly football and hurling with plenty of road to travel

THE 2025 inter-county season has finally ended for Offaly football and hurling teams with the GAA fraternity in the county able to reflect on a year of solid, incremental progress.

As always, there is a need for realism to undercut everything and no one is under any illusions about the huge body of work that lies ahead as Offaly bid to become true contenders in either code.

There have been low points along the way, particularly in underage ranks, but taken in its entirety, 2025 has been a satisfying one for Offaly GAA.

The county's two flagship teams achieved their primary objectives with the footballers exceeding pre-season expectations while the hurlers did exceptionally well to win promotion into the top flight of the National Hurling League and also succeeded in their most important task for the season, retaining their status in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship.

Winning promotion from Division 3 of the National Football League and capturing the Division 3 title was a serious achievement for Offaly senior footballers. Despite the appointment of Mickey Harte as joint manager to bolster up Declan Kelly's managerial reign, no one anticipated either at the start of the season as they came in on the back of a traumatic 2024.

The new rules suited some of Offaly's flying young players as 2021 U20 stars, Cormac Egan, Keith, O'Neill and Cathal Flynn really came of age as county senior footballers. The quality of their football just took the breath away at times and with Lee Pearson, John Furlong, Rory Egan and Jack Bryant having very good spells along the way, albeit searching for true consistency, these young stars are the way forward for Offaly football. It is also clear that they are now becoming leaders within the group and it all augurs very well for the future.

Football also enjoyed a spectacular high as Offaly won the Leinster Minor Football Championship. The performances of this young team captured the hearts of supporters as they recovered from bad early beatings by Dublin and Louth to embark on a sensational run. It was knockout from here on and they survived on their wits in some games before running out of road in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Mayo – the game was there for the taking but after snatching dramatic late wins against Laois, Wicklow, Meath, Kildare and Louth, in the Leinster final, Offaly finally went into the red.

Still, their performances were hugely encouraging. Firstly they showed that they were made of the right stuff, that they had the character to take bad defeats on the chin, to ensure horrific spells in games and to keep going, to stay trying to do the right thing. They also produced some sensational football and supporters will be watching the progress of players such as Dylan Dunne, Cian McNamee, Eoin Rouse, Tadgh Kelly and others with great interest.

Offaly seniors could yield a very healthy dividend off this team and others, including Eamon Maher, Ruari Woods, Cormac Farrell, Tony Furey could really develop if they have that desire. The emergence of this team is a great boost to Offaly football, coming so close to the 2021 All-Ireland U20 win. The stars of 2021 will be in their prime when these young players begin to emerge at senior level in the next two to five years and it certainly enhances optimism about where Offaly football can go – there are also exciting footballers emerging further down the ranks in the Offaly development squad system.

There is also a tinge of regret that they could have went further and at least reached an All-Ireland final. Mayo were ahead of Kerry going into injury time of the semi-final last Sunday and were only overhauled at the death. Offaly would have had a great chance against the Munster champions but having said that, their season could have been very easily ended by Laois, Wicklow, Meath, Kildare and Louth and they certainly had their share of good fortune – the refereeing decision not to give Wicklow a clear penalty near the end of their preliminary quarter-final was arguably the biggest break they got while goalkeeper Jack Ryan got them across the line with some breathtaking late two point frees in a few of those games. They couldn't keep rimming it and winning a Leinster title is a bigger boost than losing an All-Ireland semi-final or final.

Offaly GAA has enjoyed a fairly sensational turnaround in the last few years. At the turn of the decade, a lot of supporters were resigning themselves to not seeing Offaly capture silverware for a long time but it has changed spectacularly. The 2025 minor football win was Offaly's fifth Leinster provincial title in five successive years, following on the 2021 U20 football, 2022, minor hurling and 2023 and 2024 U20 hurling.

All-Ireland honours have been captured in U20 football and hurling and the importance of what is happening now can't be downplayed. It is huge, it is igniting a younger generation that grew up in a barren spell. It is sending young supporters wild and inflaming the passions and desire of young footballers and hurlers at all age groups.

There are of course grey areas, and grounds for concern. There have been questions asked about how well the Offaly development squad system is truly working at all grades and ages. There are real concerns about the survival prospects of some clubs as population and numbers become a real issue. Players from one of Offaly's most cherished hurling clubs, Kinnitty have been given permission to play minor hurling with Na Fianna – that is a very questionable call as Na Fianna has a big parish and have or should have adequate numbers themselves and you would wonder if Kinnitty should have been facilitated elsewhere: all of that, however, and much more is for another article and we will delve into that in the coming weeks.

There were disappointments on the inter-county scene for Offaly. The senior footballers missed a very definite opportunity of a huge win in the Tailteann Cup, losing narrowly to Kildare in the quarter-final – had they survived, wins over Fermanagh and Limerick would have won the Tailteann Cup and Offaly would have been favourites against both of these.

The senior hurlers didn't manage to take a big scalp in the championship. They were very close against Dublin and Wexford and should have beaten Dublin in particular but their only win was in the relegation showdown against Antrim.

The senior footballers coughed up a ten point half time lead against Meath, over-ran and over powered in the second half of a Leinster championship thriller in Navan.

Yet there are way more positives than negatives for both teams – Meath's progression to the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship quarter-final and Dublin's to the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship semi-final gives Offaly further grounds for hope. It would have taken very little more for Offaly to have beaten both those sides in the championship and there is clear potential to make further progress.

You would certainly be stretching your optimism levels to suggest that Offaly could reach the All-Ireland senior hurling semi-final at the moment and a quarter-final for the senior footballers takes a bit of a leap of imagination. Yet, Offaly can now dream of making this type of progress in both codes – as things stand, the hurlers may be a bit further away from an All-Ireland semi-final than the footballers are from a quarter-final, but that is where both are aiming for.

It would take a huge amount of work to get there but it is possible and that is a great starting point. The outstanding generation of young hurler has probably two or three years of serious physically developing to do to get up to the physicality of the top teams. They are not there at the moment and only a handful of players are there. The Ballinamere contingent has begun to lead this development with Ross Ravenhill and Brian Duignan doing the work that is required to be as strong as they can possibly be – Ciaran Burke is a very strong, consistent full back while Ben Conneely is another example of a person whose strength is where it needs to be.

Offaly hurlers did what they set out to do. They won promotion against the head, with a great win over Dublin in Croke Park setting them up and they survived in the championship. The championship went more or less as we expected. Kilkenny and Galway were way too strong and defeated Offaly very easily while they were very close to Dublin and Wexford and too strong for Antrim.

Dublin and Wexford and third in Leinster is the first target for Offaly and next year, it will be very important to maintain progress by beating one or them or somehow shocking Galway or Kilkenny. There is a long road ahead but at least they are clearly travelling in the right direction.

The performances of both senior footballers and hurlers also means that there is no debate about the future of either manager. Johnny Kelly has earned another year as senior hurling manager and Mickey Harte and Declan Kelly will be automatically re-appointed as senior football joint managers unless something unexpected happens and Harte either decides he has enough of management at this stage of his life or ends up elsewhere.

That is a very nice place to be with managers.

There were other disappointments in 2025. The U20 hurlers had a great chance of retaining their Leinster and All-Ireland crowns but it was clear from early in the year that it was unlikely. Retaining senior status was the big priority for Offaly and Johnny Kelly had first access to players on the U20 squad but apart from that, the same hunger just wasn't there. The same ferocious work ethic and intensity that distinguished them last year was absent and no one was really surprised when Dublin ended their ambitions.

The fallout was rightly minimal as these young players had brought such joy and pride to their county and it was always going to be hard to maintain the same sky high pitch they reached in 2024.

The most thought provoking performances were by the minor hurlers and U20 footballers. Neither got going and made innocuous championship exits. We knew from their development squad results that the minor hurlers were unlikely to make an impact and you had to admire Brian Carroll and the players for the work they did to improve things, even though they were swimming against the tide into a gale force wind.

The U20 footballers were a bit different and it was a very underwhelming year. It just never happened with withdrawals from the panel at various stages not helping while their star player, Cillian Bourke was injured for most of the campaign and then didn't play at the tail-end of it as he fought his way back to fitness. It was a pity to see a player of this quality not play U20 football this year but Bourke showed what he has to offer when playing for Offaly seniors in the Tailteann Cup. The Tullamore man did his Leaving Certificate at Colaiste Choilm this year and his emergence in the middle of the 2021 U20s and 2025 minors, is a terrific help to Offaly. Bourke is very much the real deal.

It is of course unrealistic to expect Offaly to perform very well every year in minor and U20 football and hurling. It is too small of a county for that and there will be years when either the talent is not there, the work hasn't been put in and it just doesn't happen. That is par for the course and Offaly can only hope to pick off the odd provincial title, notwithstanding their current great run.

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The next challenge for Offaly is to translate this underage success into senior level. Both teams are making progress but the target now is a Leinster senior provincial title in both codes. You couldn't say it is within touch but it is within view and that is where Offaly football and hurling now needs to go.