Mickey Harte wants to create 'growth culture' in Offaly

“Expectation is a good thing. I would rather have expectation on your shoulders than no hope."

HARTE BEAT: New joint Offaly managers Declan Kelly and Mickey Harte with Offaly County Board chairman Michael Duignan. Picture: ©INPHO/James Crombie

This year’s Offaly senior football championship has been a much-maligned competition, with all eight teams qualifying for quarter-finals regardless of their performances in the group stages. As one supporter was heard to remark after a particularly lifeless encounter, ‘there’s about as much edge in those games as there is on the football they shoveled around the place’.

There was no such grumbling heard on Sunday afternoon for the last set of group fixtures.