Offaly senior hurling manager delighted for all the older players on the panel

OFFALY manager Johnny Kelly was extremely delighted for all the older players who have ploughed a furrow for Offaly hurling in more difficult times after his side captured the Joe McDonagh Cup with a dramatic three point victory over Laois at Croke Park.

“I know we have young fellas coming through but I have to talk about the Ben Conneelys, the David Kings, Jason Sampson, Cillian Kiely, and I’m leaving out a couple of guys there. These guys have soldiered down through the years, they’ve been to places all over the country. What they’ve done for Offaly today has been outstanding, and not just today. It’s been over the last number of years, it’s not easy to keep coming back in every October in the mud, the wind and the rain and face into another challenge. For that alone, I’m entirely grateful to the effort they put in, and how they supported me over the last two years,” he after the game.

The victory completed a great week for Offaly after the under 20s won the All-Ireland title the previous weekend.

“Hugely important for Offaly that we put back to back wins together. Obviously the U-20s was brilliant last weekend, but to do the senior today has copperfastened everything that everyone is doing in Offaly over the last two, three years, and maybe before that. Everyone in Offaly needs to take a bow today.”

He also had praise for some of the players who had gone through tough times, like Oisin Kelly who had has suffered some serious injuries.

“Two cruciate ligament injuries in the space of 12 months, on both knees. Oisín being such a proud hurler who lives for the game, it absolutely devastated him. I can’t speak highly of him and his display today when he came in. He’s a huge threat, he’s a big man, but above all else he’s a really quality Offaly man.”

He also said that is was great to Cillian Kiely back involved in the panel after he had taken a break.

“To get Cillian back on board was absolutely vital to Offaly’s chances of regaining Liam MacCarthy hurling. He’s such a big, stout-hearted guy. He takes a bit of managing, there’s no doubt about it, but you have to manage a guy like that because Offaly need every single player to put their shoulder to the wheel, especially players of that quality. If they do, they’ll get the reward, like they got there today.”

Agreeing that it was hugely satisfying to win, he said it was for everyone else and not himself.

“Hugely satisfying! Not for me, but for everyone in Offaly. It’s really satisfying because the backroom team put in so much work. I know ye guys know that management teams put in a lot of effort and a lot of hard hours, and it’s not just on the training field. It’s every single waking hour of the day, and even some of your sleep gets wrapped up in it!

“You give everything and sometimes it works. Last year it didn’t work, we were bitterly disappointed after going to extra time last year, it took a while for us to get back into the saddle again. But more than anything, I’m just happy for the older guys who went to Ballycran, who went to Castlebar, and to previous management teams who put their shoulder to the wheel and it didn’t work out. It’s been a long, hard road, but I hope the journey is only beginning,” the manager said.

It has been a long journey from Christy Ring to getting back up to compete in the Leinster Championship next year.

“We had some brilliant players along the way who stepped away from the panel for different reasons, because the commitment levels are absolutely horrendous! I mean that in the best way possible.

“To be an intercounty hurler, for the likes of the second tier teams where there’s no guarantee of silverware at the end of the year, it’s twice as difficult, so huge credit to them all.”

Johnny has enjoyed a lot of success with different teams and was asked did this rank up there with those?

“Of course it does. All of the other ones are club. I’ve been with an U-21 panel in Galway when it was the old system, you got one game in Thurles against the Munster or Leinster champions. I had good enough success at club level, but it’s not about success. It’s about helping young fellas and helping players that are a bit downtrodden and maybe need a bit of a lift coming in, and doing your absolute best for them. Whatever I’ve achieved, it pales into insignificance when compared to the joy on Ben’s face there, David and Jason and these lads.

“The nature of it is that the Joe McDonagh came in a number of years ago and unfortunately Offaly found themselves dropped into that pretty quickly. It’s not to say that the previous Offaly teams of the past weren’t outstanding players that will go down in history, but there may have been times in the past when teams would have been in the Joe McDonagh if it was out at that stage.

“So for these lads who have ploughed that furrow for the last six years and to come back again, it’s been really tough times.

“I have to credit the county board as well, to Michael, Dervill, Colm Cummins and Brendan Minnock, every one of those down to the last man – Eugene and Christy in the Faithful Fields – what Offaly are doing is on par with the best counties in the country and that’s with limited resources. That feeds directly into my mindset, which is that you don’t have to have a lot of resources to make things work. They really are squeezing everything out of their people, their fans and their players, particularly for the last few years. Massive congratulations to everyone.

“It’s a great competition the Joe McDonagh, I agree with it, I think there has to be a tiered structure. But I’ve said it before, the GAA has to do more for the squeezed middle, it’s just not making sense.

“We had a tremendous battle with Carlow last year, and now they’re back down again. What good is that to Carlow?

“If we go up next year and we don’t succeed and we’re back down again, yes it’ll be a downer. But for now, we’ll just concentrate on today and enjoy this moment,” he said.

Offaly had to show a lot of character late on when Laois fought back to level.

“Laois brought on their players that we knew they would bring on with about 20 minutes to go. I think we were six or seven points up. They’re really top quality players and they were unlucky with a couple of the chances that they missed, and we have to acknowledge that as well, it wasn’t all rosy. We struggled to get our hands on the ball and couldn’t get messages onto the field. I want to say this genuinely, that it’s impossible to manage the team. Even today, when it wasn’t a full house. You just want to be able to help young fellas. And to get a simple message onto the field is incredibly frustrating. We had a full-forward line at one stage that was 50 metres from goal and we couldn’t get a message into them to stay back in and hold their positions.

“So when we got our subs in, after Laois had emptied their bench, we could get the message in with the subs. That’s the small things at this level that makes a difference.”

Asked what the solution was to that he said “I don’t know, but what about a runner going around the sideline, that isn’t going to invade the pitch area. What about the referees having authority over that runner so that if he does go in there and messes around with a player or interferes in any way with play, that he gets a yellow card, a red card and you lose your privileges. But to just blank it and say it’s over to the referee, it’s just not good enough. Particularly when county boards are investing a lot of time and money into backroom teams, we should be allowed to coach and manage on the day.”

Now Offaly have to face Cork in Tullamore next Saturday.

“We might bring it to Birr!” he quipped. “It’ll be a great occasion, Cork are an outstanding team. I know what happened in the league, and it’s going to be a difficult week. The reality is that these lads are going to be on a high. They’re going to have a few beers tonight, they’re going to have a few beers tomorrow, and then you’re facing into the third place team in Munster,” he said.

Laois manager Willie Maher said his side were very disappointed with the result, but said conceding 1-1 at the start of each half cost them dearly.

“Our players died with their boots on, we really came into it. And congratulations to Offaly, they had a really good week and fair play to them.”

It looked good for Laois late on when they drew level and seemed to have the momentum. “Yeah, that’s the way it looked. I thought our fitness levels were excellent, I thought the few subs we brought on made an impact. When you go level, the mindset changes on the field which you can’t control. You’re chasing something, then you get to the top of the hill and it’s a case of what you do from there. We weren’t able to push ahead and I suppose that was our downfall today.

“Offaly are a fine side and have competed unbelievably well. It steps up two or three notches when you get to a final in Croke Park, lads were out on their feet on both sides and still gave us everything. 18 wides were a big drawback, but I think we missed a couple of big goal chances that we needed.

“It was probably a replica of the match we played earlier in the year as well. We came with momentum and got the goals, this time we had the momentum and didn’t get the goals, and Offaly were able to see it out. We’ll review it, we’ll have a look at it, but the initial emotion in our dressing room is that we’re devastated, we’re really disappointed and we’ve to pick ourselves up, but it’s not from lack of effort.”

He said the goal after half time was a bit of a sucker punch particularly “when we haven’t been conceding goals all year. We conceded one goal prior to the Westmeath match and it was something that we were very proud of and worked on a lot. But Offaly are a fine side and were able to get in for goals, and goals win matches. Paddy’s one off the crossbar was at a vital stage of the match, James Duggan could have had a goal, he had half chances as well. They’re the moments in big games, and we’re unbelievably disappointed not to get over the line today.”