Offaly's progress planned

Thursday 14th Aug '97

Offaly's ascent from Division Four of the National Football League to this afternoon's Leinster final has been one of the football stories of the year.

Maybe it's because of the media's lack of familiarity with the Offaly players, but team manager Tommy Lyons has one of the highest media profiles of any inter-county manager at the moment.

In stock market terms, Offaly were undervalued last August when Lyons agreed to take over the team. There wasn't, however, any opportunity to sit back and wait for the stock to appreciate.

He brought to the job what he brought to Kilmacud Crokes's successful campaign for the All-Ireland club title - a brisk, cheerful personality, meticulous organisation, tactical clarity and above all, a firm belief in his own decision-making capacity.

A manager must make sense to his players and they must see the results of his ideas quickly. Then they have confidence in him. The radically stepped-up training and novel dietary regimes all lead to the one place - the sense of confidence in what they are doing.

Sunday 24th Nov 1996

Offaly's targets for the year were public knowledge from an early stage - win promotion and progress through the preliminary pool in the Leinster championship so that they could face Wicklow in the quarter-final.

Getting out of Division Four sounds straightforward for any team with viable ambition, but it's not that easy. Offaly had been in the basement since the 1994-95 season. It's the biggest division in the league and competitive.

This summer's championship has seen some of the teams make quite an impact. Tipperary ran Kerry to a few points, Fermanagh took eventual Ulster champions Cavan to a replay and Sligo were touched off by a point in the Connacht final against All-Ireland finalists Mayo.

For Offaly the season started in Ardfinnan against Tipperary. "I remember it well because it was an awful day and you always remember your first game as an inter-county manager," says Lyons. "About 20 people came to see us. I could still tell you who they were. Tipp weren't strong but it was a great day for us, the start of a little buzz.

"Our schedule wasn't bad at all. We started: Tipperary, Waterford, London and Sligo. We had to graft to get out of London, even though we flew out on the morning of the match. Anyway we had three wins under our belt by the time we played Sligo."

By the end of November, the panel was settling down and most of those unable to stick the training regime had dropped out. Having started with about 50, Lyons now had a panel of 37. Sligo would be the first real test of the team.

"Sligo were the best team we played in Division Four and we were lucky to beat them (1-12 to 1-9). They were the most organised, and played to a strict game-plan. That was the turning point.

"We could train over the break knowing that the League was in our hands and that there's be no problems with the players' belief in the game-plan. That really came through after Christmas when we beat Fermanagh and I'll never get it to work so well again. Game-plans don't win games but they can negative the opposition."

Sunday 6th April '97

There's winter training and winter training. At times in Edenderry, the temperature hit minus 10. It got so cold that Offaly had to abandon outdoor training and move inside. "Listen, do it now," Lyons told the panel, "and wait until you can feel the sun on your back."

As an hors d'oeuvre, the O'Byrne Cup was won, but even in the bad days, they'd seen that before in Offaly. It gets passed around needy counties like a Vincent de Paul hamper so there's not much to be said about it.

By the beginning of April, all league matches had been won and Offaly were in the quarter-final against Kildare. They could have won the match but lost it narrowly. Before the defeat, even Lyons's apprehensions were grandiose.

"I was afraid of my f. . . . . g life we'd win the League. We were good enough but we would have been playing in the championship three weeks after the semi-finals. I wouldn't have got them down again to play Longford."

Saturday 16th Aug '97

They were down in time to play - and wallop - Longford in the Leinster championship. The preliminary pool can be a dangerous place for teams with fancy ambitions and it nearly proved as much when Westmeath held Offaly to a draw.

"It brought everyone to earth," says Lyons, "back to the real world. We learned a lesson that day. I wasn't concerned. We'd missed five open goals and I knew that the second game would be different. We were clinical the next day."

A bloodless win over Wicklow as a curtain-raiser to Dublin-Meath had its compensations. "You know by the end of that game, there were 50,000 or 60,000 watching." In the semi-final, Louth's radar wasn't working and Lyons knew it had been a scrap.

"We struggled against Louth - with all the hitting. Not that we were afraid. We just struggled for a while with the concept. For the final we always felt we'd prefer Meath. It will give us a better idea of where we're at."

Tonight we'll all know.