Offaly manager John Maughan has confirmed that he will release his under-20 players for the rest of the season.
Maughan fielded three players, Lee Pearson, Keith O’Neill and Cormac Egan, that are currently under-20 in the recent Allianz League Division Two campaign though a bye law introduced in Offaly some years ago states that players cannot play in the senior Championship while still eligible for the under-20 grade.
While it could be revoked at a county board meeting if the will was there to do so, Maughan is happy to hand the players back to under-20 boss Declan Kelly, who led Offaly to Leinster and All-Ireland titles at that grade last year.
As well as Pearson, O’Neill and Egan, five others from that campaign - Ruairi Egan, Cathal Flynn, Cathal Donoghue, Jack Bryant and Kieran Dolan - featured for Offaly in this year’s League but they are available for the upcoming Championship as they are no longer under-20.
Offaly were relegated to Division Three on Sunday after a one-point defeat to Cork and open their Leinster Championship campaign away to Wexford on April 24, with the winners at home to Dublin the following weekend.
Maughan said: “We've had a great relationship, I think Declan would recognise and acknowledge that his campaign last year benefitted from the lads we had in the senior squad, the experience of training with the seniors, so it's a question of synchronising it and overlapping and making sure you don't burn them out.
“Rightly so, we'll let them play with their peer group, that's the way it should be but there's certainly a few of them I wouldn't mind having but that's the way it goes.”
