Two changes on Offaly senior football team as sudden death of brother rules out defensive stalwart
TWO changes have been made on the Offaly senior football team for Saturday's Tailteann Cup opener against Wicklow in Tullamore.
The sudden and traumatic early death of a brother has ruled out defensive stalwart Aidan Bracken, who had been playing very well at full back, scarcely putting a foot wrong in the league campaign and Leinster Senior Football Championship defeat by Meath.
The Ballycommon club man buried an older brother Noel on Friday and understandably, he has been left off the panel for this game. Noel died suddenly early in the week and his passing has devastated his home area – and Roscrea, where he was very highly regarded vet, hugely popular among the farming community in the surrounding rural areas.
From Bracklin, the wider Bracken family are very popular in the whole area – another brother Barry is well known as a firsts team rugby player and captain with Tullamore and has also starred for Ballycommon, alongside Aidan, during what is a golden era for the club.
Aidan Bracken's place goes to his Ballycommon club mate, David Dempsey who has returned to full fitness after an injury lay off. Another medium term absentee, Tullamore's Diarmuid Egan is named at wing back instead of Edenderry's Rory Egan. He is on the half back line alongside younger brother Cormac with their Tullamnore colleague John Furlong in the centre. Diarmuid had really impressed early in the league game before missing most of the games with a hamstring injury and he has been going well since getting back to full training.
Apart from those two changes, Offaly have named the same team that got themselves into a great position in the first half of their championship game against Meath before being over powered in the second half.
There will be a lot of interest on seeing how Offaly perform here. Their appetite for second tier competitions has been notoriously poor in recent years and supporters are getting increasingly impatient with this. They have lost their last five games in the Tailteann Cup in 2024 and 2023, they drew with Laois in round 2 in 2023 and their last win was in the first round against London that year.
They did reach the semi-final in the first year of the competition in 2022, where they were well beaten by Westmeath but their recent run has been quite horrific. They sustained heavy defeats by London and Limerick last year before performing a bit better in their dead rubber loss against Down. 2023 was not much better, though they at least managed to put London to the sword. After drawing with Laois, they sustained a whopping 2-25 to 2-9 beating by Cavan and went out with a whimper in the preliminary quarter-final, losing 1-22 to 2-14 against Wexford.
Their attitude and desire in many of these defeats has been way below requirements and is something that needs to change. You never end up in the Tailteann Cup by accident and Offaly need to treat it with championship like intensity. They have performed much better in 2024 than 2023, playing some great exciting football with the new rules suiting their flying younger players. They did really well to win promotion to Division 2 and the Division 3 title in the National Football League and it would have taken very little more to have beaten Meath in the championship – and Meath subsequently ended Dublin's long reign of dominance.
Offaly returned to basics quickly after the Meath loss, they have beaten Cavan in two challenges and the word of mouth coming out of the camp is positive. However, the truth will only become apparent on Saturday (the game has a 1.30pm throw in) and we will know what Offaly's mood is after twenty minutes.
Wicklow is a real banana skin for them and they will be up to it. It is a Division 2 team against a Division 4 one and Offaly are favourites but their attitude needs to be right and the onus is on the players to perform. Their is an opportunity for them to continue their good work by winning this competition and the minimum requirement is to qualify from the group – anything less will leave a very sour taste after what has been a very good year to date.
OFFALY: Paddy Dunican (Shamrocks); Lee Pearson (Edenderry), David Dempsey (Ballycommon); Daire McDaid (Tullamore); Diarmuid Egan (Tullamore), John Furlong (Tullamore), Cormac Egan (Tullamore); Jack McEvoy (Clonbullogue), Jordan Hayes (Edenderry); Kyle Higgins (Ferbane), Cathal Flynn (Ferbane), Keith O'Neill (Clonbullogue); Dylan Hyland (Raheen), Jack Bryant (Shamrocks), Shane Tierney (Daingean). Subs – Sean O'Toole (Shamrocks), Cillian Bourke (Tullamore), Marcas Dalton (Clara), Cathal O'Donoghue (Kilcormac-Killoughey), Rory Egan (Edenderry), Aaron Kellaghan (Rhode), Oisin Keenan-Martin (Tullamore), Aaron Leavy (Tullamore), Ruari McNamee (Rhode), Shane O'Toole-Greene (Shamrocks), Morgan Tynan (Ballinagar).