"A Bit Of Dog Ignorance": Nigel Dunne On Key Ingredient In Offaly Minor Win

Offaly’s 2-20 to 3-14 victory over Louth in Monday's Leinster Minor Football Championship final was a night of resilience and raw emotion. It ended a 35-year wait for provincial success at the grade and confirmed the county’s growing reputation as one of the GAA’s most promising underage stories.

But for selector Nigel Dunne - the Offaly football great who only retired from intercounty football last month - the triumph meant far more than just silverware.

“The feeling last night was, I don’t know if it’s relief, but it’s, it’s more relief than absolute elation… it was amazing to see the colour on the pitch and what it means to Offaly football people… it gets inside you, and it touches the hearts, a little bit emotional in one sense, but it’s brilliant.”

Dunne and his fellow management team, led by manager Roger Ryan spoke about “Offalyness” — a hard-to-define quality that underpinned everything this group achieved. Dunne laughed as he attempted to find a definition for the newest word sweeping across the midlands.

What did Roger describe it as? You know what it is, it’s a stubbornness, it’s a bit of ignorance. It’s never knowing when you’re beaten, and it’s funny, when we spoke about Offalyness, we all knew what it meant, even though none of us described it, if that makes sense. A bit of dog ignorance, to be honest and sometimes it’s better to be ignorant than good.

That dog ignorance was on full display as Offaly just refused to lose on Monday night and despite Louth's best efforts their Offalyness shone through.

'Offaly-ness' @Offaly_GAA #LOUvOFF

Smaointe ó champa Uíbh Fhailí tar éis an bua stairiúil sin!

BEO/LIVE AR @TG4TV 📺 #GAABEO pic.twitter.com/s6U9FlS5j8

— Spórt TG4 (@SportTG4) May 19, 2025

The journey to Leinster glory began long before the first round.

We met as a management on the first of September. We set out plans. We worked backwards from a Leinster final, hoping that we’d, you know, somehow, be there,”

We said we’re capable of it. We didn’t shy away from the fact that we think we could do something like that. But it wasn’t the case of… we weren’t re-emphasising that point, night in, night out.

Their focus, he explained, was process-led: “We literally took every session, session by session… we did have the bigger picture in the back of our mind, but it was referenced very little.”

Dunne says the recent wave of underage success across both codes has given younger players something tangible to chase.

“We’re very lucky in Offaly that we can reach out and touch recent success,” he said.

We needed new heroes. We needed another generation for our kids and the young supporters of Offaly to look up to and the last five years have been amazing Seán. When I think of what Lee O’Connor and his hurlers have done at minor level and 20 level, and Declan Kelly’s U20 footballers, it was huge. And that inspired our minor football team of yesterday to want to emulate that.”

Offaly’s underage revival hasn’t happened by chance, the county’s recent success has been built on a solid foundation of investment and excellent structures.

There’s been good structures put in place under age. So no point saying otherwise, good, good structure, and that has helped. And then, look, we’ve had, we’ve had nice financial backing by Glensik, Condron Concrete, Shane Lowry. So like, it’s kind of all married itself together in a nice little cocktail.

That blend of hard work, planning, and targeted support has created a sustainable model that’s now delivering results on the pitch.

More magical scenes from the Offaly dressing room last night. I think it was the manner of the win and recent games but I've rarely seen as many older people and former players as emotional. It showed these young men what their great win means to people in Offaly. 1 special night pic.twitter.com/MAXQacZgT4

— Kevin Corrigan (@kevcorrigantrib) May 20, 2025

It was far from plain sailing for Offaly in this competition. They had to dig deep early in the campaign, suffering back-to-back losses to Louth and Dublin. This left them needing a win against Laois to progress to the knockout stages.

“Yeah, look, it was a difficult time. There’d be no point in saying otherwise. We did a lot of soul searching, and there was a lot of questions to be asked, but we never lost faith,” Dunne said.

There was so much learning from a coach and a management standpoint. And then players were kind of over the nervousness of maybe playing minor football for the first time, and they realised, like, this is just a game of football.”

With the buzz building before the final, the management team made a conscious decision not to shelter the players from the hype.

No, let them enjoy it, let them have it. It’s part of the development. You can’t shy away forever. You’re going to have to be exposed to this. You’re going to have to deal with the pressure,”

Your family members, your friends are going to want to chat about it — so just, you’re just going to have to be able to talk, but take nothing in. So just nod, agree, and just move on.”

His own experience will have proved crucial for this young group. Dunne represented Offaly for 15 years and played in a Leinster minor final in 2006, losing to Meath. He emphasised to the players that the game would be a big occasion but it was still a football match.

You can build these things up in your head, but it’s never like that. Like, it is a game of football. There’s two goalposts. There’s a white thing in the middle… ultimately, that’s not the important thing. It’s the game of football.”

With an All-Ireland quarter-final against Mayo to come, Dunne revealed preparations were already underway — even at 3am in the aftermath of Monday's victory.

“I was up at half three in the morning, watching Mayo. So that’s my sole focus. So that’s the next big thing for me, for Roger, for the management team, and for the players, is Mayo.”

Dunne was quick to stress that minor success isn’t the end goal.

This is all a development. We’re trying to develop our senior football and senior hurlers. So while underage success is brilliant and really important, it’s far from the be-all, end-all.”

With Jack Ryan flawless from long-range frees, Tony Furey hitting 1-6, and Dylan Dunne bagging 1-1, Offaly had individual brilliance, but it was that intangible sense of Offalyness that carried them over the line.

And as Nigel Dunne summed it up, sometimes, that little bit of ignorance is all you need.