Preview: Round 1A - Waterford v Offaly
Preview: Round 1A - Waterford v Offaly
Preview: Round 1A - Waterford v Offaly
Saturday, June 20
All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Qualifier Round 1A
Waterford v Offaly, Fraher Field, 2pm
Both of these counties have horrendous records in the All-Ireland qualifiers so one of them will, at least, have the chance of improving their numbers this weekend.
Once Offaly fall out of the Leinster Championship they seem to struggle to keep the show on the road while perennial football strugglers Waterford have only won one game in the backdoor - and that was against London in 2011.
Waterford, where hurling is riding high once again, were hoping to give Tipperary a bit of a rattle in their recent Munster quarter-final and ended up getting a real hiding, which was a set-back for this team.
According to manager Tom McGlinchey, this game offers his team the chance to prove that they are better than that. He said: "That's a big incentive. You want to redeem what happened a few weeks ago and put in a performance.
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"Anyone who would have followed the footballers throughout the year would have known that the performance against Tipperary wouldn't have been a true reflection on other games they have played.
"For the players themselves, they are eager to get a chance to redeem themselves and hopefully they will."
At this stage of the season Offaly are often hit with a spate of withdrawals from the panel as players head towards America to play football for the summer, but at least this hasn't happened this year.
"Our next goal is to take on this and get as far as we possibly can," said boss Pat Flanagan. "I asked the players to be totally honest and to give 100 per cent commitment or pull out and no player pulled out apart from Keith Mullally, who we knew was going to America.
"That is very encouraging. They are working very hard. They are hurting badly after the Longford game and this is an opportunity to put things right for supporters, who we feel we let down."
Just like Waterford, Offaly will be unhappy with the way they crashed out of their province last month. They appeared to be cruising against Longford in their Leinster first round game only to blow up in the second half.
Perhaps it was a good thing though, as Longford went on to be blown out of the water by Dublin in the next round, 27 points the eventual winning margin. For the record, Offaly hammered Waterford when they met in Division IV of the League earlier this year.
Preview: Peter Sweeney