New Offaly manager Emmet McDonnell is looking to the positives while also committing to blooding new talent as his Faithful county reign begins.
McDonnell takes over with Offaly playing Division 4 football and although he has no inter county management experience, he brought All-Ireland colleges' glory to St Mary's, Edenderry, winning the Hogan Cup this year.
McDonnell told The Irish Mirror: “Some of the preparation we put in at colleges level this year was probably on a par with senior county level.
"From that point of view, on the coaching end of things, I think we're ready for that.
"For the game against Kildare, we had ten of the panel togged out that went to school at St Mary's, Edenderry, so from that point of view it would be a help.
"At the same time, we'd also be making sure that we cover every inch of grass in Offaly to get the best players out on the pitch.
"We've already identified a couple of players that haven't been involved that we'd like to see involved.
"We're certainly going to spread a good scouting network around Offaly the next five or six weeks.
"We've identified ten or twelve people that we're going to talk to and put in a scouting network around Offaly as well as travelling to games ourselves."
