McDonnell: Advantage rule is crucifying us

Offaly football manager Emmet McDonnell believes his "naive" players are being crucified by the new advantage rule.

Offaly suffered relegation from Division 3 this spring and McDonnell says his side’s honesty in adhering to the advantage rule was central in their drop to the fourth tier. The manager now fears the regulation will derailOffaly’s championship campaign which beings against Longford this weekend.

If a player is fouled under the new system, a referee, by raising their arm upright, may award the offended team a five second advantage as opposed to a free. The advantage rule has been far worse than the black card to Offaly. The Offaly players seem to be more naive than other counties, they seem to be more honest,” he said.

“Our lads are trying to play on when they are fouled. With other counties the foul is committed and they are going down straightaway to get their free.

“Our lads are trying to play on and get their advantage where you could have got a free from 25 metres out from goal and kicked it over the bar.

“We found in the Longford game during the national league the advantage rule didn’t work to our advantage at all.”

Jack Sheedy’s outfit provide the opposition in Sunday’s Leinster first-round clash, but McDonnell is hopeful of catching out a Longford side low on confidence.

“It is a big challenge. It would have affected them that they went from Division 2 to Division 4 in the league in the space of two years. We went from four to three and back to Division 4, but they went from Division 2 down to 4 and that will have dented confidence. There has been no negativity in our camp stemming from relegation. We came from Division 4 and we probably got up too soon based on the plan we had. Our young players found it too physical. To be fair to the players they have been fantastic. You see in bigger counties, players have walked awaybecause they are not getting game time. We are very lucky because the lads have taken a lot of criticism and they have come back every night. They are a young team that haven’t got good results, yet they continue to apply themselves very well.”