PREVIEW: Offaly footballers looking for much improved performance in Galway

OFFALY senior football manager John Maughan will be in no way writing Sunday's National Football League Division 2 trip to Galway off as a “lost cause” but his first absolute demand will be for a collective and individual raising of the bar by his whole unit.

Offaly have endured a torrd time so far in Division 2, finding the step up in level even bigger than they would have anticipated. They have suffered two heavy defeats at the hands of Clare and Derry, scoring a combined total of thirteen points in the process.

Their form has been nowhere near good enough and now they face into one of their toughest games of the campaign, a trip to Salthill to face the division's form team.

Already Galway look to be heading back to Division 1 football. They are top of the table alongside inform Derry, with four points and a scoring difference of +17 points. They have recorded convincing wins over Meath and Down and Offaly really are heading into the lion's den.

THE MAN BEHIND THE WIRE: Offaly GAA should consider on-site access for games

Offaly are at the other end of the table, bottom with no point and a negative scoring difference of -21 points. Down and Meath are also joint bottom with two defeats while Cork have just a point, having drawn with Clare. Division 2 looks like boiling down to a relegation battle between Offaly, Meath and Down while Cork could find themselves on icy ground.

While general expectations about Offaly's prospects in Division 2 were fairly tame, the poverty of their two diplays to date have been very disappointing.

They travel to Galway with a point to prove and there will have to be improvement from goalkeeper right up the field. It will have to start with the goalkeeper Paddy Dunican – the normally reliable Shamrocks netminder had a day to forget in the last outing against Derry. He was responsible for the two Derry goals, spilling the ball under pressure for their first one while he was lobbed for the second one after getting caught up field. Attacking goalkeepers is a regular occurrence in modern football and Dunican is potentially good in this type of role but minding the net has to be the first priority for any goalkeeper.

No player will be truly happy with the way they have played so far. This group of Offaly players may be trying hard but their football has not been up to the mark. If Offaly are not good enough for the higher division, people will accept that but if they are to go back to Division 3, they should at least do so with their boots on.

Maybe Offaly are just out of their depth in the higher grade and the results will determine this. So far the results don't look good and now they come up against a side who are playing very well and with great confidence.

Offaly might have an outside chance of a season changing win here, though you can't make a coherent case for this on what people have seen so far. John Maughan and his back room team will be demanding a general increase in intensity and commitment this week. They scored six and seven points in their opening two rounds and getting into double figures is a must hit target for them. You simply won't win games in single digits.

Galway are very warm favourites on home turf and for Offaly, the goal is for a much improved performance and see where that takes them.