Offaly hurling legend Joe Dooley has compared the Faithful County to a small club team.

The midlanders have consistently punched above their weight in both football and hurling down through the decades, winning All-Irelands in both codes against all odds. However, the well is dry at present and 2017 was another season to forget. The lull doesn't surprise their iconic former player and manager:

"I always equate Offaly to a small club in any county. We are never going to be up there all the time, we just don't have the numbers or the population," 1985, 1994 and 1998 Liam MacCarthy Cup winner Dooley told The Irish Independent. "Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary; they are big counties and they are hurling from top to bottom and they are always going to be there or thereabouts.

"We'll only come with a team every so often and then we are going to have a down period and come back again hopefully with a new generation down the road. At the moment we are in a valley and we need to get out of it. It's not going to happen any time soon.

"I suppose we have to go back to the drawing board, we have taken our eye off the ball big time at underage level and at schools level and I would say even at County Board level. We have brilliant facilities now. A great stadium at O'Connor Park and a brand new training facility but we don't have a great team, whereas before we had great teams and didn't have great facilities."

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