Pre-match 'nonsense' inflamed Offaly as thrilled McNamee sets sight on Louth

A PRE-match bust up during the warm up inflamed the Offaly players and was a factor in a sensational first half display as they sent a shocked Meath into the Tailteann Cup in the Leinster Senior Football Championship quarter-final in O'Connor Park on Sunday.

The stand off happened as the teams prepared for action in the warm up area behind the terrace in O'Connor Park. It was played down by one of the heroes of the afternoon, Ruari McNamee afterwards but he did admit that it angered them considerably and helped them get into the right mood for an afternoon of bone crunching, high intensity, relentless football.

The Rhode forward confessed: “There was a bit of nonsense out the back in the warm up and that kind of set us alight in the dressing room. It was nothing major but it just kind of set the tone for us for the day and we hit the ground running. We built up a bit of a lead and we did well to defend it.”

It was an extraordinary game in many ways. Offaly were magnificent in the first half as they built up a dream half time lead of 1-8 to 0-2. Out on their feet in the closing twenty minutes after emptying the tank, Offaly defended as if their lives depended on it to hold on for a 1-11 to 0-10 win. One of Offaly's most natural forwards, McNamee's silky skills and ability to make room set him out as a man apart. He scored two beautiful points on Sunday but one of the abiding images of the day was a banjaxed looking McNamee back hunting down players in his own defence late on and then diving in to get his hands on a ball that had spun away from it.

That particular ball may have ended up in Meath hands but all of those blocks, tackles, body on the line stuff when the players were in the red ensured that the losers never got it down to a score in the scond half.

“I suppose overall it was a day for stuff like that, the conditions set the tone for the day. I think we came out of the blocks and were 1-4 to no score up. Everything just seemed to be going right. I think we got a bit of a run on them.

“We probably did most of our work in the first half. We had a chat at half time and we knew they were going to have the majority of the ball but we still kept them to a two score game in the end. It was a four point win. I wouldn't say it was comfortable but it was what we set out to do at half time so we are happy enough.”

Did you have to pinch yourself after that dream first half?

“To be honest I never looked at the scoreboard until half time and when we came in, I saw that we kept them to two points. They probably kicked a good few wides but they were more or less outside the shooting zone and we were after working our socks off. Even on the more positive side of that, we got 1-8 in the first half and we had been struggling to rack up scores like that in the last few years so that is something we were happy with.”

McNamee was asked about the way Offaly kept going when they had almost worked themselves into the ground in the second half.

“It will be interesting to see the GPS stats. I would say we did a lot of running in the first half. The legs were a little bit heavier in the second half. There was a lot more bodies on the line stuff than hard running and fast paced running compared to the first half.”

Now Offaly find themselves preparing for a shot at a Leinster final place with a semi-final against Louth in Croke Park on Sunday. It will be his first Leinster semi-final to play in and McNamee spoke about the targets their late manager Liam Kearns set out for them.

“In fairness to him, he is not with us any more but Liam Kearns set out at the beginning of the year back in November that we want to get to Croke Park in the Leinster championship this year.

“Unfortunately, he is not here to see that but we are after fulfilling something that he set out to do. We said to the boys at half time, this isn't something we have been waiting all week for, this is something we have been waiting six months for and in some cases, for me personally, I'm waiting eight years for this and a lot of lads even longer.”