Kelly wants Offaly to embrace every game they play this year

WITH Dublin likely to face the winners in the Leinster Senior Football Championship semi-final, to not ask about Offaly's appetite for the Tailteann Cup would be very like turning a blind eye to the monkey trying to listen in on your conversation.

Offaly senior football manager Declan Kelly and his Laois counterpart Justin McNulty will be thinking of nothing only their derby clash in Portlaoise this week. It is a game that both counties are desperate to win and the result could dictate the success of the 2024 season for them, to a significant degree.

However, the winners face Dublin or Meath in the Leinster semi-final and with Dublin still looking invincible at provincial level, both Offaly and Laois are very likely to have to reset for the Tailteann Cup, no matter who wins on Saturday – if the winners did somehow manage to get into a Leinster final, they would go into the qualifiers instead of the second tier competition.

Since the qualifiers were introduced way back in the early 2000s, Offaly have shown an often disgraceful appetite for the second chance saloon. They have had some shocking results in the qualifiers, went down with a whimper to Wicklow in the ill-fated Tommy Murphy Cup and have displayed no change for the Tailteann Cup.

Asked about Offaly's likely foray into the Tailteann Cup in the coming weeks, Kelly did not try to answer with platitudes about not looking any further than the Laois game or a Leinster final being a possibility.

“I would have said from day one whether it be Tailteann Cup or qualifiers in Offaly, we have not embraced either. Ultimately that’s been the issue for a number of years. We have not embraced anything once we are beaten in Leinster, it was a case of that’s it no matter whether it be Tailteann Cup or qualifiers.

“As a county we have to engage and embrace whatever competition we end up in and that’s what the aim will be this year.”

He has seen counties like Westmeath and Meath go flat out to win the Tailteann Cup.

“It’s more games. It’s where you end up and you have to embrace it. You just can not decide oh the hunger is gone now, that’s it and we can down tools for the remainder of the year. That won’t be this year. Wherever we end up it’ll be fully focused on the players to play in that.”

Last year, Rory Egan, Jack Bryant and Bill Carroll opted out of the panel after the Leinster championship campaign was over, heading to America. Carroll didn't join the panel this year but Kelly made sure to get a commitment from every player who did that they would see how the full season to the end of the Tailteann Cup.

“That’s part of it. I’ve no issue with lads going away but it was one thing that we did ask from day one. If your intention is to go away for the summer, fine, but we want players that are committed to the end of the year.”

How is the mood in the camp now?

“It’s a quick turnaround, only three weeks since the league. I suppose the mood is good. We have a few injuries and trying to clear up a few and see where fellas are over the next few days in relation to getting them in contention for next week but overall the mood is good in camp and they looking forward to the game next week.”

You are six months in the job now, how are you finding it in terms of the commitment and everything else?

“You probably had a fair idea of what the time associated with it was. I suppose it’s only when you get into the middle of it you see. One thing is it’s very compact, the league and it’s very hard to get the balance right from a fixture perspective. You have two in a row, a week off, three in a row, a week off, two in a row. It’s just very very tight. In an ideal world if you could have a week between each game it would be great.

“You find definitely in between matches, especially the three, you are trying to get organised for the following week. Looking at tapes and bits and pieces. There’s a lot involved in that even from a player’s perspective. We would have taken a couple of sessions off after the Limerick game just to try and recharge fellas a bit.”

Was that needed mentally as much as physically?

“More than anything because it’s fairly full on. From the players' perspective it is fairly full on. Another thing from a players' perspective is lads do pick up injuries; hamstrings or bits and pieces. Players could miss out on a chunk of league or championship on the basis of that injury. That’s just the way it is.”

A bit of noise was beginning to emerge from a very small minority of supporters after you lost the first four league games. Did you feel any of that pressure?

“Internally, there wasn’t any pressure. There was a lot of positives from a lot of the games. The one thing you definitely would of got out of it was we introduced a lot of players in the league. You could see the lads that were stepping up and coming on; that was positive. Obviously the results hadn’t gone our way. There’s no doubt after four rounds of the league having no points on the board, we needed points; that’s the way it had gone and I would say in fairness to the lads when the pressure was on in matches they delivered.

“Sligo was probably one where it wasn’t looking good ten minutes into the second half but in fairness to them they dug that out and probably finished stronger up there. Then you see Sligo beating Westmeath the week after. It's fairly competitive. There are teams in division four that would more than hold there own in division three as well. You have a lot of teams around the one standard, that’s just were it is. The results were needed.”

I know you would have talked about promotion but realistically in your first year, staying up was the target?

“Obviously you would have taken it in stages and in an ideal world you would have liked to have been in contention for promotion with three or four games to go but ultimately with the way results had gone we were at the other end of the table at that stage. Then we had to survive in division three.”

The big positive was young lads like Cormac Egan, John Furlong, Keith O'Neill, Jack Bryant and Cathal Flynn emerging as county players. How important was that?

“There’s no doubt. That’s the thing with the league, especially when your in division two three and four. If you are in division one you can probably can win a couple of matches, hold your status and your fine and maybe look at introducing lads. Where we are at the minute, we have to look at fellas and you have to give game time to fellas and you have to back them in the league. That’s ultimately what we had to do this year and I suppose the environment that you are in is unforgiving if you start losing games. But you would be happy with where a lot of those lads are at the moment and you know they are pretty well able to handle themselves at that level.”

How hard is it to get a balance between the younger lads and the older lads? You need the experience but some of the younger lads are at a different pace? 

“Yeah it is a balancing act. You are trying to integrate lads that are new to the panel this year onto the team and just trying to get the balance right. From a physical development wise I’ve no doubt the older fellas would be further on down the line on that end of things. We’ve got options in the middle. We are probably lucky Eoin Carrol is back involved this year. By the end of the league we had Jack McEvoy back and lads like that. At the moment you’d be happy enough of were the balance is.”

Laois is a local derby. It is probably a 50-50 game?

“In fairness to Laois they have a good record against Offaly in Leinster championship or qualifiers and it’s a good number of years since we beat them there. Obviously they were one division further back this year but they are back in division three next year. I’d say it’ll be a tight enough game. They have a very good full forward line, they are scoring quite heavily in there so it probably fifty fifty will be the talk.”

Dylan Hyland has been brilliant for Offaly but has picked up cards. Is that a concern for this game?

“Dylan is an excellent footballer, a great attitude and a great lad to work with. He knows himself there’s been a couple of black cards this year. With the way cards are now, it’s easy pick up yellow cards and I suppose that’s where you are at the moment. It is just quite easy to pick up yellows, he’s been probably unlucky in a couple of games that he got a second one and that’s just it.”