Offaly hurling boss Fennelly delighted with “really good performance”

OFFALY recorded an impressive victory over Kerry on Sunday afternoon in Division 2A of the National Hurling league. It was a perfect performance. 2-28 scored, five out of the six starting forwards on the scoresheet and no goals conceded. Offaly were dogged. They did not allow Kerry any time to settle. When Liam Langton scored the game’s first goal of the game, Offaly smelt blood. They scored nine out of the subsequent 10 points and when Jason Sampson’s shot hit the net just before half time, the game was effectively over as a contest.

They did not let up in the second half scoring a further 12 points as they popped them over from all angles with relative ease, tormenting the Kerry defence with their quick passing, support play and general fitness levels, something which has significantly improved over the last 12 months.

Speaking after the game, manager Michael Fennelly was very pleased with his side’s performance highlighting the second quarter as the foundations for the impressive win,

"It was a really good performance. The lads did very well today. I think the second quarter is where they got the score line up quickly enough and that gave us a bit of comfort at half time, so it was a really good performance. We got all seven subs on today as well and they all got minutes too, so it was brilliant’.

Since coming in, Fennelly has given the some of the younger lads a chance and they have taken it with open arms. Brian Duignan scored five from play, Ciaran Burke was superb at corner back while John Murphy also came off the bench and pointed twice. Fennelly referenced a “three to five year plan” for Offaly hurling as one of the main aims of his tenure,

“I suppose we are looking maybe at a three to five-year future for Offaly more than anything to be honest. We need to be looking forward and these boys need game time and they need to learn and get that experience so there’s no point in keeping them on the sideline and waiting for it but there’s a good mixture of youth and old. Brian Watkins, Shane Kinsella, Shane Dooley are all on the other side of the age spectrum and they offer huge experience, so the blend is nice at the moment.

“I think our age profile at the moment is 23/24 of the overall team so that’s positive. We have two wins, two out of two, but that’s all it is. There’s still three games left to play, two Joe McDonagh teams (Carlow and Down) and then we have Wicklow at the end, so we have a huge amount of work to get through still”.

Kerry were runners up in the Joe McDonagh Cup in 2020, losing out to Antrim in the final. Offaly dominated in all sectors of the field against the Kingdom and won comfortably in the end against a team who will play one tier above them in Championship hurling. Fennelly feels that Offaly are more than capable of going toe to toe with the likes of Kerry and the teams in the Joe McDonagh,

“I think we are very close to it. We can compete with these teams without a doubt, but silverware will dictate where we go this year. Last year, I think we lost one game, drew two and won the rest of them so the margins were quite fine but look this is a fresh year, a new year, we have a lot of younger lads coming through.

“We will have to reassess on Wednesday with the bodies and how healthy they are. We picked up a few more injuries so we will be missing a few for next weekend but that’s part of the parcel so it’s good to get lads in there and get a bit of experience.

Lads are loving the games at the moment. We will have a hard session on Wednesday and we’ll sharpen the sword then on Friday in training with a short session and then we will get ready for another game so I think it’s nice to have them coming thick and fast. Injuries are making life difficult but that’s just a challenge we have to face.”

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