Psychologically Offaly will have none of the baggage that Laois always do whenever they play in Leinster and they’ll have big support behind them.
A history of success matters, it raises the ceiling of what players imagine they can achieve. No Laois player would imagine they could ever win an All-Ireland. Offaly do imagine they can. Development paths get altered on the basis of expectations.
Of the established players (23-32 years old) on the Offaly team I think the Sampsons, Cillian Kiely and Connelly are the only ones that would even make a top tier panel.
Dan Bourke, Chalie Mitchell, Donal Shirley are all young but could be ready. Dan Ravenhill was injured today but if he gets himself fit then he will be too.
Adam Screeney, Cathal King, Colin Spain and a couple of more of those 18/19 year olds will get eaten up next year.
Cork will beat them by 25 points in two weeks time.
He’s been fucked with injuries all year. Never got a run at all. He hurled on memory out there and it showed. Him, Willie and Roddy to a lesser extent didnt do what they were brought in to do.
Probably but Clare beat Dublin by 18 points last year. Dublin could win a Leinster title this evening. Will Offaly win Leinster next year, no they won’t, but it is to say that teams can improve if they have expectations of competing and winning and a proper set up in place.
Because of Offaly’s history of success and recent underage success, the demands and expectations that will be in Offaly as regards senior hurling are far, far greater than they would be in Laois. Laois had they won today would have had no greater hope in the Leinster championship than to finish fifth on a perennial basis. This is true of the Laois team and public. Westmeath and Carlow would have lower expectations again.
Even the game today demonstrates this. Laois were in position A1 to win it and any rational reading of the game with 68 minutes gone said they would win it. Offaly were in freefall. But there were three points scored from then on and all of them were scored by Offaly, why, because Offaly are Offaly and Laois are Laois.
Offaly is a totally different ball game to Laois or the other Leinster minnows. They are a hurling county.