OFFALY STARING INTO RELEGATION ABYSS
Colm Keys, Page 41
LAST Sunday the Offaly hurlers won competitively for the first time in over a year when beating Carlow in a game that had no other relevance for them, other than determining it would be Carlow and not Laois who they would meet in this weekend’s Allianz HL Division 1B relegation play-off.
Their losing streak lasted 12 games, from a last-round league fixture in 2018 against Antrim, through a Leinster round-robin campaign (Kilkenny, Galway, Wexford and Dublin), into a three-game Walsh Cup campaign (Laois, Dublin and Carlow) and four rounds of this year’s league (Waterford, Dublin, Laois and Galway).
That they required four goals from two of their most experienced players to bail them out in Netwatch Cullen Park last weekend wasn’t lost on anyone.
Between them, Joe Bergin and Shane Dooley, both 33 this year, plundered 4-4. But soon the lights will go out on their inter-county careers too.
Beyond that, who knows? Much of the hand-wringing over Offaly’s steep decline in the last two decades has abated and acceptance that the two previous decades of glorious success was the exception rather than the rule has manifested among the more pragmatic views in the county.
Offaly isn’t for recovery any time soon. They’ve known that themselves for some time now but their credit line was so strong from what they banked through the 1980s and 1990s that hope sprang eternal that they could somehow be resuscitated as a powerful hurling force again.
There have been days and nights when there’s been a flicker of light. In their opening league game against Dublin last year they won by 13 points, 2-25 to 1-15, but it gave a false impression that has been fully exposed in the intervening 13 months.
The turnover of players has been extraordinary. From that Dublin game to the first league game against Waterford in January only three players survived and while more have returned it’s a change in personnel that few counties could deal with.
They’ve been in Division 1B for the entirety of its existence since 2012, eight campaigns with five regulation games where they’ve won just 40pc.
Seven of those games have been against Laois; four wins and three defeats illustrating how the balance of midlands power has shifted between them.
With the league reverting to the previous two equal-merit groups in Division 1, the challenges will get steeper for those counties at the basement end of the old 1B.
But whether Offaly are even there presents the most pressing question of the weekend’s hurling fixtures.
Last year they slipped out of the top 10 when they lost their Leinster championship status. Lose on Sunday and top-12 status would slip too.
If it comes to that, it shouldn’t be viewed as the end of their world. Five years ago they needed to beat Kerry in a play-off to avoid the drop but that was after a more promising campaign than they’ve had this year, with a draw against Limerick who were Munster champions and a sixpoint defeat to Cork, the previous year’s All-Ireland finalists, covering over a first-round loss to Laois.
Manager Kevin Martin implored his players to step up their commitment in the wake of their latest defeat to Laois and he also made backroom changes during the campaign, introducing a new strength and conditioning coach among other things.
When it comes to it, with home advantage they may well beat Carlow at Tullamore on Sunday to maintain their fingertip hold of top-flight status. But for how long more can they beat the waves back?