Will Dan Ravenhill be back for the final? Itâs been a great 3 seasons of the Offaly underage hurling bandwagon and it should extend into a 4th season next year too youâd imagine. All the main protagonists have another year at this grade.
When you include the U20 football success in 2021 itâs been a great journey for Offaly. The ultimate destination for jersey pulling young wans in recent years. Whoâd have thought it?
The young Johnny Pilkington lookalike who was reffing it had an unenviable task at the end. Not a parent or mentor in sight. Youâd hope this success will drive on the young lads waiting behind the goal to further supplement it but it rarely pans out that way strangely enough.
A shambles at the end. @myboyblue and his oul fella should turn in their hi-viz bibs
Those bibs are in the bin in Supermacâs for last two hours , buried under curry and chicken bones
No important game should ever be in Portlaoise again. Road parking, posts condition, public address system and shambolic stewarding means itâs not fit for purpose. The sooner Dublin develop the Spawell the better - GAA should accelerate the funding.
Big Rob Ryan mustnât have ventured up.
Youâll pry it out of my cold dead hand
The Leinster Council just need to divert a few more bob to creating the midlands premiere venue and weâll be all set. The stand on the terrace side will be a fine job once itâs sorted.
Hope you all enjoyed your trip to Laois Hire OâMoore Park
Great win for Offaly. Bourke at centre forward is a great bit of stuff. Kavanagh at centre back a lovely hurler too. Screeney is box office. Every young lad in the county will be spinning their hurls before taking frees for the week.
Dublinâs first half indirectness cost them badly. Just hit the ball in! Then they take off the corner forward who had been playing as a third midfielder. Theyâre a seriously athletic team with decent hurlers but their tactics were mental. As has been said, the wing back was a classy hurler.
Ref was a bit too involved for my liking.
I thought that was bizarre given he had gotten on a bit of ball and had some nice link play which would have been needed agin the wind in second half.thought the full forward could have been left on too
Yeah he looked potentially dangerous. I thought he could have taken on his man a bit more.
Cork arenât getting into an AI final. Going to be Tipp/Offaly.
Just back from Portlaoise, congrats to Offaly. The better team on the night with the better individuals, Bourke was my motm.
Dublin however will feel they had chances to sneak it. They surely should have played with two inside with that strong wind. They have a rigid way of playing though and only deviated from it with 5 to go.
Dublin had a real good start with Kenny orchestrating things and their PO defence getting on top. However in a two minute spell it all changed. Offaly tweaked their short PO and then won a sideline for the goal. This invigorated them and they added another 4 points before Dublin got a score.
Offaly should have been out of sight ten minutes into the second half only for a spell of poor shooting. In fairness to Dublin they never gave up and by my programme scribbles actually outshot Offaly, but not accurately.
The pitch invasion stuff at the end was funny. The ref was clueless with it. A strange choice to ref it as he teaches in Dublin and Iâm fairly sure has one Dublin starter in his school. Also at half time Buff Egan was on the pitch and had the bones of a hundred kids around him. There was a great atmosphere and it really was a throwback for me to the Tipp/Lk under 21 games around 01/02.
@BruidheanChaorthainn , Tommy Costello has another two years at that level. Wasnât on the squad but was on the 19s development squad. A good hurler but needs to knock off a few rough edges. Lovely fella from a lovely family.
Iâd know his father well. Hadnât been talking to him in the past few weeks but was hoping to see him play. I Here the sister is a serious Gael as well.
Iâve never spoken to the Dad. Mum is a lovely woman, some woman for matches. Mrs Pox tells me the sister is going to be a superstar.
I think they brought dâunbelievables out of retirement to oversee stewarding for the evening. An absolute shit show. Leo o Connor beckoning the supporters onto the field with 3 minutes to go didnât help the situation either.
Is it any wonder electric picnic is on its knees?
Hes tremendous craic altogether loves his hurling
Anything laois people touch turns to shit. If they canât ride it or ate it theyâll break it.
Always nice to see the FODH slink away with their tails between their legs from LHOMP. You cant bate the pure stick men of the midlands.