Offaly U-20 football team named for tough championship opener

THE Offaly U-20 football team has been named for Tuesday evening's Leinster championship opener against Louth.

With injuries ruling out Tullamore's Ben Heffernan and Ballycommon's Ryan Kenny, Offaly will be hoping to get off to a winning start. They are drawn in group 1 with Kildare at home on Tuesday, April 2 and Longford away a week later.

The opening game is at Stabannon Parnell's ground, a few miles outside Ardee almost on the main Dublin to Belfast motorway. A talented Offaly team came back from the dead to snatch a draw up there last year but never really never recovered from not winning it as they made a disappointing exit in the group stages. They were the architects of their own misfortune in a one point defeat by Wicklow in their second game and then lost to Dublin in their final game.

This year's team does not look as good on paper as last year's which had been very unlucky when losing to Meath in the Leinster minor final three years earlier and had players of the calibre of Cormac Egan and John Furlong while injury really curtailed the involvement of speech merchant Keith O'Neill. However, they have been working very hard in training and challenge games under manager Ken Furlong, they have some excellent footballers, are completely honest with an exemplary work rate and they should give a really good account of themselves.

Defender Ben Heffernan and attacker Ryan Kenny are losses. Heffernan played last year as did Diarmuid O'Neill, Dylan Byrne, Luke Bourke, Geordi O'Meara, Niall Furlong, Luke Kelly. O'Neill, a brother of Keith, Byrne, Bourke, O'Meara, Furlong, and Kelly are all selected to start this evening.

Luke Bourke is joined on the team by younger brother and one of Offaly football's brightest prospects Cillian, who will be partnered by another fine talent, Marcas Dalton in a very strong looking midfield pairing. The McKeown's of Clara are another set of brothers on the panel with Christian at full back and older brother Darragh in the subs.

Geordi O'Meara has been named at centre half back after playing in both attack and defence last year. One of several Ballinagar players to make underage county teams in recent years, O'Meara will become the first player from that club to captain an Offaly team in a championship game.

The attack will be led by Niall Furlong with Ross Kellaghan, a son of former county star Paschal, on one side of him and hard working Ballinamere dynamo Steven Doran on the other wing.

Louth have a highly rated team and fancy themselves but Offaly will be confident of their chances. Scoring could be a problem but they will be very hard to beat and this game will dictate a lot for them – they will be underdogs against Kildare next Tuesday while the opener looks to be a real 50-50 one and making a winning start would really set them up.

OFFALY: Conor Melia (Bracknagh); Diarmaid O'Neill (Clonbullogue), Christian McKeon (Clara), Dylan Kilmurray (Rhode); Dylan Byrne (Edenderry), Geordi O'Meara (Ballinagar), Luke Bourke (Tullamore); Cillian Bourke (Tullamore), Marcas Dalton (Clara); Ross Kellaghan (Rhode), Niall Furlong (Tullamore), Steven Doran (Ballinamere); Sean Afolabi Joseph (Tullamore), Robbie Gallagher (Ballinagar), Luke Kelly (Doon). Subs – David Dunican (Ferbane), Adam Daly (Ballycumber), Cameron Egan (St Brigid's), Darragh McKeown (Clara), Cillian Foran (Edenderry), Ben Kennedy (St Brigid's), Cillian Lowry (Edenderry), Cian O'Reilly (Daingean), Eoin Smith (Rhode).

Extended panel: Eamon Bolger (Raheen), John Dunican (Ferbane), Adam Joyce (Ballinagar), Kevin Minnock (Clara), Brian Carroll (Ferbane), Ben Heffernan (Tullamore), Ryan Kenny (Ballycommon), Gavin Hand (Ballinamere).