Pearson keeping the Faith’ that

OFFALY captain Lee Pearson believes they can still aspire to compete with Dublin — despite their recent heavy defeat by the AllIreland champions.

Although there were some encouraging signs in Offaly’s performance, they were still swamped on a 3-22 to 0-11 scoreline, with the Dubs running in 1-5 without reply in the closing minutes.

It was Pearson’s first exposure to the Dubs at senior level and he reflected: “You can really sense the difference. In terms of their fitness, their power, strength, speed, it really does tell.

Levels

“It’s one thing when you’re in the stand looking at them but when you’re on the grass and they’re running at you, or running by you, and you’re in the tackle — you know they’re tough in the tackle — that’s when you really see the different in the levels.

“But it’s level we probably need to get to in terms of the S&C side of things, we probably have quite a few young lads in the panel now so we need a couple of more years of strength work , power work, speed work, fitness work to be able to properly compete with those teams.”

Realistic

When asked if it is realistic for a small county like Offaly, split roughly evenly between hurling and football, can aspire to that, Pearson replied:

“I think it is. If you want to look at the likes of Monaghan, Cavan, Roscommon, who put up good results in their provincial Championships and in the latter stages of All-Ireland Championships, counties of similar size, probably similar resources.

“So it is possible. It can be done. Now it will take time. It’s not going