Offaly hit new low with Dublin defeat
NOT even Our Lady of Consolation church situated next to Parnell Park could provide any silver lining for Offaly after this. Four straight weekends of Leinster Championship action and four sickening defeats consigned them to relegation to the McDonagh Cup.
Boss Kevin Martin mused afterwards that maybe the powers that be will reconsider the merits of sending an improving county down to a lower tier. But it’s hard to see it happening and a season that began with such promise after a League win over Dublin at Croke Park ended on the lowest possible note.
Things are naturally brighter for Dublin who are guaranteed MacCarthy Cup hurling in 2019 after goals from Paul Ryan and Fergal Whitely in a facile 17point win. They pulled clear after a poor first 30 minutes or so to win at their ease though even Dublin manager Pat Gilroy was keen to shed light on Offaly’s difficult situation.
‘It’s rough on them to be relegated,’ said Gilroy. ‘Certainly in their first two Championship matches they gave everything and those games could have gone either way. To see them relegated out of it now, it’s difficult, because they’re well able to compete at this level in my view.
‘I think, like ourselves, Offaly have progressed this year. Now to drop them down a level, I don’t think it’s going to bring on hurling for them. It’s very harsh.
‘To be fair to Offaly, to get four games in a row, they weren’t going to be that fresh and once things started to turn in the game, you could see they were flagging,’ he continued.
‘I think the round robin thing generally is brilliant but certainly these things can be changed and I’d be all in favour of somebody coming up (from the McDonagh Cup) and trying to make the Championship bigger and bigger, if you can.’
Gilroy was left a little frustrated regarding his own team’s situation too. He felt they were only hitting top gear in the season just as it ended. There’s still a final round game in Galway next weekend to play but that’s effectively a dead rubber with nothing at stake for either team.
‘It feels like, to a large extent, we’ve been motoring well since the middle of April,’ said the former All-Ireland winning football manager. ‘You’re starting to pick up a bit of momentum and now it’s over. But look, that was in our own hands.’
Dublin let Kilkenny and Wexford off the hook in previous rounds and Gilroy acknowledged that’s what ultimately cost them progression to the knock-out stages.
‘We have to learn how to finish games and close them out,’ he said. Dublin drilled 18 wides overall, and 13 in the first-half, which kept Offaly in the game until the half hour mark.
There was just two between them then but the hosts finished the half with an unanswered 1-3 to lead 1-10 to 0-5 at the break. Ryan snatched the goal and Whitely their second after the restart, both coming from long Chris Crummey deliveries.
Captain Crummey was terrific and weighed in with 0-4 from play, the same as fellow wingback Shane Barrett.
DUBLIN: A Nolan; P Smyth, C O’Callaghan, E O’Donnell; C Crummey, S Moran, S Barrett; R McBride (T Connolly 55), J Malone; F MacGib (J McCaffrey 63), C Keaney (D Treacy 57), D Sutcliffe; F Whitely (C Boland 51), L Rushe (P Winters 64), P Ryan.
Scorers: P Ryan 1-5 (4f); F Whitely 1-1; C Crummey, S Barrett 0-4; J Malone, C Keaney, L Rushe, C Boland 0-2; F MacGib, R McBride 0-1.
OFFALY: E Cahill; D O’Toole Greene, B Conneely, T Spain; D Shortt, P Camon, D King; D Currams, D Egan (P Murphy 48); S Kinsella (K Dunne 48), C Egan (R Hughes 48), T Geraghty; S Ryan (S Dooley 42), C Mahon, J Bergin (J Gorman 55).
Scorers: J Bergin 0-4 (4f); D Currams, S Dooley (2f), P Murphy 0-2; E Cahill (1f), K Dunne, J Gorman 0-1.
Referee: C Lyons (Cork).