Maughan: Offaly 'haven't lost faith' in survival battle

Offaly manager John Maughan said they "haven't lost faith" in their ability to remain in Division 2 after an encouraging display in a four-point loss to Galway in Salthill this afternoon.

With Galway boasting an 100% record, while Offaly sit bottom with one point, it was widely assumed that it would be one-way traffic in today's re-fixed Round 3 game in the west.

However, Offaly, with three U20s featuring, were highly competitive, keeping the margin to just two points at the break and racking up a scoreline of 3-10 in the finish.

"If I was told we'd score 3-10 against Galway, I'd have felt we'd be in the winners enclosure," Maughan told Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1 afterwards. "It was quite impressive from us in many, many ways.

"Our Achilles heel was our unforced errors, our turnovers. We turned over the ball 11 times and Galway capitalised on that because they're a very formidable outfit with a lot of class and talent on the pitch.

"We were in touching distance at half-time, there was a bounce in our step. Galway are a little bit ahead of us but nonetheless, I'm very proud of the performance today."

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While Offaly shipped heavy losses against Clare and Derry in the opening two weekends, Maughan insists that the evidence is there that his youthful outfit is coming into its own as the weather improves.

"We haven't lost faith. I think as conditions improve, we will get that bit stronger and better. We saw examples of that in the last two performances against Meath and Galway today."

"But it's all about the results. There's no guarantees. But nonetheless, we will go up with a bit of confidence to Newry next weekend. We've Roscommon at home after that, we've three opportunities, the last