"I can't tell you how proud I am of the footballers in that dressing room"
June 10, 2018
An Offaly team huddle
After guiding Offaly to an eight-point qualifier victory over Antrim, interim manager Paul Rouse hailed the positive approach adopted by his players.
The Faithful County bounced back from the disappointment of their Leinster SFC defeat to Wicklow in fine style against the Saffrons and, speaking to RTE Sport, Rouse - who replaced Stephen Wallace at the helm - enthused: "Offaly footballers turned up for the first round of a qualifier and scored 2-20 and that's no bad achievement.
"We played attacking football, we went for it right from the beginning and like any team at any level we made mistakes but we made those mistakes trying to be positive.
"I can't tell you how proud I am of the footballers in that dressing room."
Rouse is now looking forward to tomorrow morning's round 2 qualifier draw.
"It was my ambition to do something for Offaly football, to not look at the past, to not worry about negatives and just play the next game.
"It's not an attempt at redemption, it's not an attempt to change anything that had happened before. It was just a determination to actually deliver a positive, attacking, I think I would say stylish performance at some level.
"The ambition of any team that wins the first round of the qualifiers is to win the second round."
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