New Offaly manager Pat Flanagan believed there were plenty of positives to take from his team’s performance despite going down 0-17 to 0-13 to Dublin in the O’Byrne Cup at Parnell Park last night.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport, Flanagan said: “I’m very proud of the way they played. We asked for honesty, commitment and effort and they definitely gave everything they that out there."
“We had a good game against Laois on Sunday. Coming towards the end of the second half we began to struggle, with tiredness more than anything else.
“Dublin are very fit and the number of players they brought on were equally as fit as those guys already on the pitch.
“With wind advantage behind them in the second half we found it difficult to deal with them.”
Offaly put in a solid display in the first half going into the break 0-10 to 0-07 up, with plenty of skill on show despite the unsavoury conditions.
“For 45 minutes or more we were in the game,” said Flanagan.
“I asked the boys to keep a clean sheet if they could for the first ten minutes of the second half, but unfortunately Dublin scored two points within the first couple of minutes and pegged us back.
“But we needed that couple of minutes to restore the confidence in ourselves. We went back up the pitch to score a point to our credit but it was always going to be difficult to hold Dublin out with the wind behind them.”
Even though Flanagan has only been in charge a short time, having only taken up the Faithful county's reins at the end of October, the former Westmeath and Sligo manager was more than satisfied with his players’ commitment even at this early stage in January.
“Each man that is out there has given a 100% and the effort is absolutely excellent.
"We did say at the beginning of this O’Byrne Cup that these were three training matches and we wanted everybody to expand themselves and get as much out of it as they possibly could physically.
“We put in a good brand of football in the first half but as they got tired that started to weaken a bit and we started to give away lot of ball near the end with bad decision making due to tiredness. But we’ll put that right.”
