Realistic Kelly disappointed at Offaly's second half display

A PHILOSPHICAL Offaly manager Johnny Kelly did not hide from the harsh reality when questioned after Saturday's 2-25 to 1-14 defeat by Galway in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship on Saturday evening.

After a very promising display in an opening round defeat by Dublin, Offaly could get little going after a flying start in O'Connor Park.

2-14 to 1-9 behind at half time, Galway full back Daithi Burke was sent off just before the start of the second half for an incident after the half time whistle but the extra man failed to ignite a recovery as Offaly were outscored by 0-9 to 0-5 in the second half.

That was the most disappointing aspect of the evening for Kelly, who admitted:

“Yeah, we didn’t use that extra player, and we’re really disappointed with the scoring return in the second half. I think we missed 1-6 on the trot after half-time and at that level, you’re not going to get any success out of it. So yeah, disappointing.”

Killian Sampson's excellent goal gave Offaly an early foothold but the concession of two soft goals meant they had a mountain to climb at the break.
“We were going reasonably well, then we gave away two goals. Obviously these are two good players those young fellas, but those goals were completely avoidable and that completely gave Galway a lift when we didn’t necessarily need to give them away, so that was disappointing. We were down eight points at half-time, and I thought that apart from those mistakes, we were right in the game. But we didn’t turn up in the second half at all.”

The first goal came after a short puckout was overturned and the Portumna man confessed:

“Terribly disappointing. But there will be no blame game, these are young players, they’re learning their trade just out of U-20, so we’ll back these lads 100% and go again.”

Offaly U20 hurlers are playing Dublin in the Leinster quarter-final on the bank holiday Monday and he agreed that it is a balancing act with these players.

“Oh yeah, those lads will go back to the U-20s and get ready for that game against Dublin on Monday, that’s an important game for them. That has been the way all through.”

Adam Screeney came on for his first action of the year after missing the entire league campaign with a groin injury, scoring three points, one from play.

Kelly remarked: “He’s suffered terribly right through from Christmas and it’s well-documented that it’s an overload injury, but he seems to be coming good right now.”

With Kilkenny up next in Nowlan Park after a week off, Kelly is under no illusions about where Offaly are and the likelihood of needing a win over Antrim in their last game in O'Connor Park to retain their top flight status – they travel to Wexford in between but even if they win there, they will probably still have to beat Antrim.
“We trusted the guys that went out today, but honestly we’ve two losses now in the campaign and even if we get a win along the way, it’ll probably come down to the last day, unless we win two games on the trot. You’d say after today that it’s not impossible, but there’s work to do.”

A win over Antrim will more than likely keep Offaly up but Kelly is not banking on that.

“Yeah, but two points mightn’t be enough, it’ll still come down to the last day. Everyone is aware of the nature of this. If you finish bottom of Leinster, that’s it, you’re back in Joe McDonagh, whereas if you finish bottom in Munster, there are no consequences.”

He acknowledged that Offaly will learn a lot from Saturday's game and the physicality and power running of Galway.

“It’s a common theme that when those teams start to power up across the half-back line and get their running game going, they’re extremely difficult to stop. We are somewhat authors of our own downfall on that over the last two games, it’s something that we’ve looked at in training and tried to address, but it’s still there.”

He was asked why Offaly didn't push up and create more chances with the extra man.

“It didn’t stick inside the ball went in. We did create those chances, we did have those chances. Charlie (Mitchell) threw one across to Cillian (Kiely) and the ball went wide. We missed a couple of frees and a couple of shots on goals, and even after we got that goal in the first half we missed a couple of easy chances. I think we missed four or five points on the trot and it’s no reflection on them, they’re great guys, they’re trying their best, and that’s all we can do.”

Offaly's defence was in bother in the first half with Jason Sampson and Padraig Cantwell replaced by the 24^th minute. The manager explained:

“Pádraig (Cantwell) was suffering from flu during the week, we thought he’d be okay but it was looking like he was out of steam at that stage.”

Galway manager Micheal Donoghue was happy with the result after their first round mauling by Kilkenny.

“First and foremost with the result. We wanted to get a good bounce back after last week. We were disappointed with our performance and that's not withstanding anything from Kilkenny. In fairness to the lads, they took a lot of ownership of it during the week, and I think that was reflective in their performance today.”

They were told at half time that Daithi Burke was going to get a red card before the resumption and had time to plan for it but he was uncertain about what happened.

“We weren't given any explanation on it. For us, we just have to review it and see where we go from there on it.”

Donoghue was understandably happy with the way they controlled the game in the second half when a man down.

“We knew it was coming before we came back on the pitch, so that gave us the chance to restructure the team in the way we needed to. In fairness to the lads, all the credit has to go to them. I thought they were savage. They had laid the foundation in the first half and put in a massive workmanlike performance in the second half and used the ball really well. And when the chances came, they took them.”

Was it difficult to pick up the players after the Kilkenny defeat?

“It's a big challenge. When you go week-on-week, it's very hard especially when you know you have two away games. It's testament to the players. They owned it, literally when we met for a recovery session the following day. The two training sessions we had during the week, they were really good. They set the tone for today in those.”

Donoghue admitted that they had worked on winning puckouts.

“It's something that we have been working on for the last four months and we just executed it a lot better today than we did the last day.”

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They have Wexford next in Galway and he is glad to have a home game.

 “Huge games for us and most importantly for us, they're home games. We haven't been at home since the end of January which is tough, and we have played some really quality teams. We acknowledge the support we had here today, it was fantastic and we're looking forward to having huge support for the next two home games.”

Donoghue saluted Galway's work rate.

“There's a really, really good spirit in the group and at half-time, they spoke about that and working for each other. They brought that out onto the pitch for the second half and gave a great second half of workmanlike performance, so really happy with that.”