Offaly manager reflects on another win but laments 'inconsistent' performance

OFFALY took another big step towards promotion to Division 1A of the Allianz Hurling League for 2026 with a six point victory over Westmeath at Glenisk O'Connor Park on Sunday last but while he was delighted to get the win, manager Johnny Kelly wasn't happy with a number of aspects of Offaly's performance.

“It was really inconsistent,” he said. “We were in control of that game on two separate occasions and we let it slip, we forced goal chances that weren’t really on and didn't take the points. But then again when you’re playing poorly and winning you’d be happy enough, and it's one of those games where we’re happy enough to get the win and move on,” he told Midlands 103 afterwards.

“When we got the goal early in the game, you could sense that we were in control. But from that point on until half-time, we were two points down at half-time, we just seemed to be coasting around the pitch, not really getting the tackles in in the same manner as we did in the second half at Croke Park last weekend.

“It just led to that sort of stop-start, poor game where Westmeath had a lot of chances. To be fair to Donal Shirley there at centre back, he got back from his position on a couple of occasions to make tackles, so we’ve to be thankful to our defence who held solid. But I’d ask questions of the entire team to be honest, we need to hold on to more of the ball up front and help out the lads that are going well up there. But it’s a win, and we’ll move on,” he said.

Offaly have a three week break before facing Waterford and the other teams will all be in action in the meantime, so depending on results in those games, Offaly will either have secured promotion already or will know that they will have to avoid defeat in Dungarvan to secure promotion.

“What is skewing things at the moment is that Laois and Carlow have still to play – that was a game that was called off a few weeks ago. There are a number of teams there that have more games to play than we have, so we won't be really sure where we are in this league until possibly next weekend or maybe after Patrick's weekend. For us, we have one more game to go against Waterford. We have to look at the under 20s on the panel now and see can we get them back to Leo (O'Connor) and those guys and get some prep for the first round against Galway in April as well, so there is a bit going on but we will manage it and do the appropriate thing.”

Offaly have had to play most of their games without some of their more experienced players. Ben Conneely returned for his first game on Sunday while Cillian Kiely has only seen some action off the subs bench but the younger players from the under 20s have come in and done a really good job.

“Donal Shirley has done really well. Cillian Kiely has had that injury and he has been out of training for quite some while, but at this stage we're nearly turning our attention towards Dublin in the first round of the championship in Parnell Park in five weeks time. We'll probably start focusing on that now so for all the guys that got game time in the league, even though there is one game left, we still need to get more into the other guys in terms of training and that, so we have a break of three weeks until the Waterford game, so we'll look at some of the guys that need to catch up a bit and try to get them into some games and hopefully by the stage we play Dublin in the championship we will be pulling from a full hand,” Johnny said.