IrelandNet.ie

Kildare Next Up As Offaly Make Winning Start

Thursday, 12 January 2012

Alan Mulhall was impressive during Offaly's win over Westmeath.

KILDARE will provide an early season test for Offaly senior footballers after they got their season off to a satisfactory start with a hard earned 3-6 to 0-7 win over neighbours, Westmeath in the Bord na Mona O'Byrne Cup in Tullamore on Sunday.
Some clinical finishing in front of goal helped Offaly to the win despite surviving on limited possession for long periods. Indeed Pat Flanagan's Westmeath will be wondering how they ended up so badly beaten as they had four good goal chances in the first half but failed to breach Kevin Meehan's line.
It was a decent win for Offaly, but they certainly will not be getting carried away and a new look team has a long road ahead of them.
Westmeath were a quite poor side but Offaly will be happy with the commitment and desire shown and they played some very good football in the opening quarter - When their full forward line of Willie Mulhall, Alan Mulhall and Ken Casey were on fire as they scored 3-4 of their overall tally.
Behind by 2-4 to 0-5 at half time, Westmeath cut the deficit to three points within three minutes of the restart but failed to score again. The introduction of Niall Smith at midfield helped wrestle control from Westmeath and a second goal from Ken Casey with seventeen minutes left finally put the home side out of sight.
New Offaly manager, Gerry Cooney was not in Tullamore as he was in Africa and the reigns were taken by selectors, James Stewart and Tony Kenny.
Afterwards, James Stewart remarked:
'Westmeath and Offaly is always a deep rivalry.  We went out with an attitude of looking for a performance from the guys.  We are only a week back training and we needed to see the lads put in a decent effort and commitment and that's what we got regardless of the result but it is nice to get the result as well.
'The pitch is a bit heavy but not as heavy as it could be for this time of year.  There is no substitute for getting out and no amount of gym work can prepare you for the heavy under foot conditions.'
Stewart revealed that Offaly are operating with an open panel:
'We have our panel but it is open ended.  We have a couple lads college bound but Kildare will have that as well.  We are looking forward to going up to Kildare and seeing how we fare.  They have four years under their belt while we are only starting out fresh as we have a new base of a panel.   It will be a good test but we will have one eye on later on in the year.'
The Clara man was pleased with the performance of some new players, particularly last year's goalkeeper, Alan Mulhall who was an effective ball winning full forward.
'Alan plays very well no matter where you play him.  He plays there for his club and we have goalkeeping choices so we said we would try him out there and it's another option.  He fought for every ball and got some scores.  We are happy with him and I'd say he is too.'
He is also delighted that Daniel Currams has committed to football this year after being on the hurling squad in recent years.
'Daniel has committed to the footballers this year which we are delighted with.  He has a lot of pedigree with underage football in Offaly and he is working very hard with us.
'We had Dan, Lorcan Hiney, Fergal Daly and Brian Hanamy all wetting their ears today.  They are all options and they will learn from it,' he concluded.
Offaly will receive a much sterner test from Kieran McGeeney's Kildare in Newbridge next Sunday. With Tomas O'Connor, a son of the former Offaly midfielder of the same name, playing a starring role, Kildare got the better of DIT by 2-11 to 0-9 in St Conleth's Park last Sunday and they will be favourites to advance this Sunday, when Offaly will be hoping for another solid and committed performance.

Subscribe to read full newspaper »

Send this page to a friend »