Offaly county team managements 2014

[Sharp Eye]

It will be huge challenge for Offaly to acquire the services of a top inter-county standard hurling manager. Due to our very poor underage structures, Offaly have performed very poorly at minor and under 21 level for the past 10 yrs. I do not believe that the Offaly Co Board are willing to pay for the top quality support (sports science qualified personnel etc ) that most modern managers now expect to have. Offaly hurlers do not have any training facilities as O'Connor Park does not seem to be available during winter & spring. I think they are dependant on clubs and Crinkle Barracks. No modern manager wants to have to ring club officials for use of a pitch. Clubs naturally do not wish to have their pitches destroyed by county panels training on them, when weather conditions are unsuitable.

[Kevin]

I think they are dependant on clubs and Crinkle Barracks. No modern manager wants to have to ring club officials for use of a pitch. Clubs naturally do not wish to have their pitches destroyed by county panels training on them, when weather conditions are unsuitable.

All you mention is going to make the situation challenging, but this (assuming you are correct) seems like a BIG hurdle to clear. It also sends a dangerous message to anyone considering the job (or should). Dunno if other counties need to negotiate their training venues and times, but it just seems unsettling.

Hopefully a stable 'training environment' can be worked out.

[jimbob17]

I think they are dependant on clubs and Crinkle Barracks. No modern manager wants to have to ring club officials for use of a pitch. Clubs naturally do not wish to have their pitches destroyed by county panels training on them, when weather conditions are unsuitable.

All you mention is going to make the situation challenging, but this (assuming you are correct) seems like a BIG hurdle to clear. It also sends a dangerous message to anyone considering the job (or should). Dunno if other counties need to negotiate their training venues and times, but it just seems unsettling.

Hopefully a stable 'training environment' can be worked out.

Isnt it absolutely shocking that this is what we are actually dealing with when other counties are actually dealing with real issues concerning their development.... No wonder Offaly GAA is so far behind when simple logistical issues such as a place to train cannot be organised by a totally inept county board......

[Slieve Bloom Man]

Would you believe one of the richest counties is in the same boat. Dublin hurlers! Anthony Daly has complained a few time about having to use club venues and not have a permanent base for training.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

I would say many counties are in the same boat? Westmeath and Laois for example?
I know Meath/Louth and Kildare have their own facilities.

[Sharp Eye]

I think Laois have a formal agreement with Portlaoise GAA Club for use of their former grounds, which are located near O'Moore Park. Portlaoise GAA Club have new grounds developed about 4 miles from the town and no longer require their former grounds. As far as I am aware, most counties have proper training facilities available for their county squads. Team Managers have enough to do, besides contacting club-officials for use of club-pitches.

[KillougheyGoBragh]

Kilkenny are in the process of building their "Training Facility".
National Sports Campus in Blanchardstown
A list of projects published in 2011 for Congress

[Toxicity234]

As some readers on this site will know, I've recently moved into a new house and I couldn't say enough good things about the painter we got to do all the internal paint work. He was meticulous, hard working, well priced and took no short cuts. I'd recommend him to anyone.
That doesn't mean I'd hire him tomorrow to do some electrical or plumbing work.

I'm moving back to Tullamore from Dublin at the moment, After spending 17 years in Dublin. just buying my first house. when i live in an apartment in Dublin i came across a sparks, a polish lad who did some work for the landlord. the man was a genus, spoken almost no English but my wife to be, is polish so we became friends, Now most of the Work he does in Dublin is on Apartments but i don't mean to be clever but this is the only Sparks what will set foot in my house if i get my way. What I'm trying to say is I know he is great at his job. i don't need to see his work on other house first. we have seen the job Owens has done with Kilcormac Killoughey.

What I'm driving at there in a roundabout way is that saying Danny Owens has done a good job with Kilcormac-Killoughey is both accurate and fair, but it doesn't qualify him to take on the Offaly job, which is a completely different type of task. K-K were a disheveled mess when he took over and he got a talented bunch of hurlers fit, strong and ready to work hard for each other. You couldn't say that they do anything extraordinary in terms of tactics, but the fact that they have good capable hurlers in every position and almost every hurler is able to win their own ball and do something good with it when they have it means that they don't have to.

Over the last two years i have being to every Offaly Hurling match (and also every club game that i can) i have watch us run around like headless chicken and if you look back over my post you will see i have call for a game plan in almost all of them. Owens is not the greatest manager in the world but he understands that if you give a team structure your half way to have a team. As for extraordinary tactics. I remember what Alex Ferguson said after winning the European cup with Aberdeen, tactics should be simple after all your not dealing with rocket scientist here. I'm not sure what it would take to qualify to be an Offaly Manager But if Owens isn't qualify we have a huge problem find someone who is?? Compare Danny Owens to Eddie Brennan and Donal Og as manager Owens wins hands down.

It also has to be said that when it comes to injuries, they've been incredibly fortunate. I'd say they've had 13/14 first stringers fit for every game in the last two years, which is incredible when you consider the amount of games that some of them have played at club, intercounty, football and hurling, adult and underage. In fact their only loss came in the only game where one of their front line hurlers was unfit to start. This year their intermediate hurlers have gone through a long campaign and I'd say if they've lost one or two hurlers to the senior panel in that time, that was the height of it.

This is a very good point and a massive Plus to the man management of Danny Owens. He keep the whole of the Kilcormac/Killoughey panel full fit of the most part of a year. Owens and the management team in kilcormac/killoughey must be the envy of every management team in the country. This would be a Massive Plus for any team in any sport ever.
Partly lucky, Partly good management.

Finally, managing K-K takes very little by way of decision making on the sideline. Essentially once the ball is thrown in, management's work is done. If somebody gets tired or hurt they replace them, but you can be pretty confident that the 3-6-9-11-14 axis will be largely the same at the end as it was when the game started, while there won't be too many other changes on the fringes. The move of James Geraghty to midfield for the semi-final felt like the first switch I'd seen K-K make in a central role in forever. Again, lest there be any doubt here, this isn't meant as a criticism of Owens or his selectors. If it's not broke, don't meddle with it, he's right to let good hurlers continue to do their job in a settled fashion.

Again a massive plus here for Owens. The good manager set up his team so that he doesn't have to make a chance after 5 mins. A good Manager does his work on the training pitch and get his team ready for big days. you point here is hard to see.
This is what a good manager does. Brian Cody is a master at this. My god the last thing anyone want from a manager is to name a team and be trying to set up a tactics while the team is on a match day or worst still in the middle of a match.

Where K-K are now - i.e. fit, strong, capable, committed and united, with a very settled team - is more or less the starting point for the Offaly county team at the moment. We've all made some criticisms of the Offaly hurlers over the past few years, but no-one could argue that they haven't been physically ready for championship hurling in the summer. Where they've fallen down has been in a lack of tactical innovation, some poor decisions from the sideline, and in their mental ability to close out some strong positions, or to deal with some setbacks. (e.g. vs Waterford this year, vs Galway last year) This is the deficit that needs to be addressed. We don't need someone to round up a bunch of underperforming miscreants. Essentially we'd be hiring Owens on the strength of his proven ability to do all the things we don't need, and despite his lack of experience in all the areas where we do need help.

This is a good point. but your first sentence if by far and away the most important. Offaly for the last number of year have being miles away from that starting point. If a manager can getting us to that starting point we will have improved by 1000% over that last few years. To get us to that starting point is the big thing, Is this not what Owens did with Kilcormac Killoughey. you can't win anything without taking the proper steps this is the first step.

I had a good chat with Colin Egan for an Offaly Indo piece a few weeks ago and a lot of what he said was revealing. Of course he's just one voice, but he spoke about how the panel all knew that they had to be back in the gym in October, how there were different programmes that needed to be completed before the start of the league and again in between league and championship, how they know what they need to do and that they didn't need to be led like children to do their work. He also said that pre match belief hasn't been an issue, even in advance of the game against Kilkenny. Where he felt the shortfall existed was in terms of a tactical plan to maximise the resources that Offaly had, and the ability to make changes as a game progressed in order to respond to what was happening on the field. He wasn't looking for us to mimic what Davie Fitz is doing in Clare, but to implement a similarly planned out approach, designed to take full advantage of the skill set within the county.

i haven't read your piece but i will find it and have a read but to me Colin Egan is a man that would love the style of hurling that Kilcormac Killoughey play, His biggest problem in Offaly is that support players don't get close enough to him when he wins the ball. Kilcormac Killoughey style of play he could turn him into the most dangerous forward in Ireland.

When I listened to him, and when I read that opening line from Toxicity above (please tell me you took that username from SOAD btw!) I realised that Owens might be a good Offaly manager, but not for the senior hurlers. For the senior footballers, maybe.

That said, Owens hasn't demonstrated a lack of ability at "next level management" - but I would say that when it comes to modern intercounty hurling, he'd be the inexperienced one, not someone like Eddie Brennan - for example.

I like this comment but every county team in the last 10 years compares itself to Kilkenny and if you Look at Kilkenny they appointed a person called Mick Demspey a football man to they management team. This might not be a bad thing. Brian Cody when he was appointed to Kilkenny there was question mark about where he be able to step up to the inter-county management. and you might say the same thing about Hogan is being an U21 manager the same as senior?? As for Eddie Brennan If he want to be Offaly Manager, he can come work with us as selector or work with one of the clubs and learn about Offaly Hurling. he is too young and has no experience at management. Eddie Brennan in 5 years maybe but not today and not this year.

Nothing against the third member of management in the KK senior team but if your gonna get Danny Owens then you gotta get Jimmy Dunne too.

This is the a very important point. you put the best you can around the manager "Management Team" repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

My point is, if Danny gets the job, will some of our senior players (rightly or wrongly!) see it as a lack of ambition on the part of the county board and decide they have enough. Or if he gets the job, will he have a backroom team that will encourage the senior players to come back in for another year?

Thats one of the key things that needs to be answered in advance.

Key point certainly. However the unfortunate part of this is that you can argue till the cows come home about how whoever gets the job should be given a chance - a truism that no-one can debate - if the man that is installed is perceived by the players to be the wrong choice, too much damage will be done by the time the man in question gets around to proving otherwise. For example if a certain man is given the job and the players decide that there's not much chance of impovement, then you could see a scenario where Rory Hanniffy has retired, Shane Dooley has emigrated, Conor Mahon and Seán Ryan have decided to concentrate on football, David Kenny takes a year out to deal with long term injuries and a handful of others have decided not to answer a call up to the squad all before he even gets a chance to introduce himself. In that environment, it wouldn't matter if the new manager was the best person we could have hired - he's working with half a team and poor results will follow.

I'd like to stress there that I haven't spoken to any of the players named above and I have no reason to believe that any of them would respond like that, I'm just hypothesising!

It might not be fair to say certain people are the wrong call before anything happens, but it's no less true.

This is a very tough question to answer. the idea of players think that Danny Owens appointment be a lack of ambition is a idea i have never considered. Jesus what did they think when Ollie Baker was appointed?? and if Eddie Brennan was appointed what would the players think??
So in that case. who would be a good appointment. Hogan could well be seen in the same light. i mean Liam Sheedy and John Allen. But Sheedy is not interested and we don't have "Sporting Limerick" to bank roll us.

For the first time in as long as i can remember Offaly Hurling is in a great position we have two outstanding Managers that look like they want the job. But most important they both Hogan and Owens know Offaly hurling inside and out. Everything i have said about Owens can be said about Hogan(and i will repeat this again everything i have said about Owens can be said about Hogan). If the county board appoint one of these two (or both) and we appoint good Coach and Selector around them we can explode into a powerhouse again. We have the hurlers. our Hurlers have the skill, our hurlers have the physique(we are far the biggest team in Leinster, physique wise ). We can be successful.

P.S. SOAD Rule.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Fair Play Toxicity.

When you get settled in Tullamore, I want to see you get involved down here at committee level. Tullamore could well do with you on board.

[Lone Shark]

(1) The point of my painting analogy was that just as you found a great electrician, I found a great painter - however I wouldn't hire my painter to wire the alarm system any more than you would hire your electrician to paint the walls. I'm not going to try and argue that club management is completely different to county management, but certainly I think that managing KK is very different to managing Offaly.

(2) If you're going to give Danny Owens credit for KK's incredibly lucky run with injuries over the past 18 months, then conversely it's Owens' fault that Currams got injured before the AI final. That's clearly nonsense. Yes, bad training regimes can affect players and cause un-necessary injuries, but these KK players have played football, they've played intercounty hurling and they're always fit to line out. Ultimately, there has to be a huge amount of luck attached to that.

(3) If a team has a plan A that works well, then great. No reason to change for the sake of change. However in the intercounty game, you will need a plan B and a plan C as well. Due to the increased physical demands of the intercounty game, most counties have used three of their five substitutions with twenty minutes to go. For God's sake KK have used 19 players in total in seven games this year. I'm not saying that KK should start chopping and changing for the sake of it, but it's naive to think that a similar approach would work with Offaly.

This goes back to the complaint I had with Kevin Kilmurray, in charge of the footballers. He did a lot of stuff well, and quite often the team that took the field was well set up and gave us a good start. The problem was when changes were needed, he was hopeless, and that cost us several games - most notably against Laois in Croke Park and against Carlow in Dr Cullen Park.

(4) Rightly or wrongly, Eddie Brennan would be perceived as a good move by the few players I've talked to. That's a small sample, but generally speaking they'd be delighted to see him come. I think Ken Hogan would probably go down well too, but I'd be a lot less sure that Owens would. I'm not saying that players should get a veto or anything, but it makes sense to go with someone that would be a popular call if that's possible.

(5) I saw SOAD in Germany two years ago - quality gig. Chop Suey is a thing of absolutely beauty, one of the best singles of all time.

[Bord na Mona man]

Dunno what paper Hogan Stand ripped this from.

Hogan and Fogarty out, Owens in
25 September 2013

Danny Owens celebrates with Tomas Geraghty after Kilcormac's Leinster Club SHC final win over Oulart at Nowlan parkKen Hogan and Martin Fogarty have ruled themselves out of the running for the Offaly senior hurling job - but Danny Owens is in.

Former Tipperary goalkeeper Hogan and Fogarty - who recently stepped down as a selector with Brian Cody in Kilkenny - won't be allowing their names go forward for consideration.

However, Kilcormac-Killoughey manager Owens has declared his hand and he is 'interested in taking the post'.

"I think anybody that played, trained or has a strong interest in Offaly hurling would be lying if they said they didn't want the opportunity to do the job," he told the Irish Examiner.

"I am no different, but for now my only focus is on winning a county title.

"The board have a new system this year where they are not accepting expressions of interest so it will be interesting to see what happens next.

"But yes, I would be interested in taking the post."

[Plain of the Herbs]

Can Offaly be the first county to win an All-star award in every position in hurling, football and rounders?

If Danny Owens is the pick we'd be as well off concentrating on the rounders.

[GreatDayForTheParish]

I echo Loan Shark's comments on this.
1: For what exactly the Offaly Senior team need to be successful, Danny is Owens is most definitely not the man to 'get it out of them'.
2: Perception. This is key. Whether right or wrong , the appointment of Danny Owens would only reinforce the pervading sense of apathy and pessimism around Offaly hurling, especially among players. Take last year for example, the second year into Ollie Bakers desperately average reign. Stephen Egan, Sean Coughlan, Diarmuid Horan and James Ringey all absent for varying reasons. Count them up, it's practically a brand new defence. Needed is an appointment that generates enthusiasm among all players, to persuade them to put their lives on hold for unending months, to encourage Shane Dooley not to gain the by now traditional winter stone and, most importantly, to motivate Rory Hanniffy to give it one more year.


Anybody hear Padraig Boland on 'd wireless' over the weekend? He didn't sound too optimistic.

[Kevin]

I echo Loan Shark's comments on this.
1: For what exactly the Offaly Senior team need to be successful, Danny is Owens is most definitely not the man to 'get it out of them'.
2: Perception. This is key. Whether right or wrong , the appointment of Danny Owens would only reinforce the pervading sense of apathy and pessimism around Offaly hurling, especially among players. Take last year for example, the second year into Ollie Bakers desperately average reign. Stephen Egan, Sean Coughlan, Diarmuid Horan and James Ringey all absent for varying reasons. Count them up, it's practically a brand new defence. Needed is an appointment that generates enthusiasm among all players, to persuade them to put their lives on hold for unending months, to encourage Shane Dooley not to gain the by now traditional winter stone and, most importantly, to motivate Rory Hanniffy to give it one more year.


Anybody hear Padraig Boland on 'd wireless' over the weekend? He didn't sound too optimistic.

Was it what he said or his general tone that didn't sound optimistic GDFTP? Either way I'd be disappointed if that was the impression people were left with (not having heard the comments from the man or the specific context of what he was referring to).

Serously though, there are a lot of things that need fixing, but we are Offaly! How can he not be positive?

You don't have to look too hard to find something to be excited about. I agree that it is dangerous to look back 20/30 years for inspiration so let's fast forward a bit:

1. Camogie winning Junior, Intermediate and now becoming a team to be reckoned with in Senior.
2. Ladies Junior Football ALL IRELAND Champions 2013
3. The basis for a solid Minor Football team forming for the coming years based on results this past summer.
4. Senior Footballers gaining promotion for the next season.
5. Back to back Leinster Championships and All Ireland Club Final Appearances by Coolderry and K/K.
6. Offaly Senior Hurlers giving Kilkenny something to think about for the first time in 15 years with a performance to build on this year.
7. Add your own here. I'm sure stuff is missing...

How is this at all relevant? Well, because good things are happening. We are picking up momentum in general and we are looking to put some more pieces of the puzzle together. Its a GREAT time to take over the Offaly Senior Hurlers and see how much can be got out of them.

The right manager can make an immediate impact. As we've been on the fringes for so long the man who comes in and gets us winning again will come away with an enhanced reputation. This is a chance to succeed where others have not. Here's hoping that some fearless person with ambition and a plan says to hell with the downside risk and jumps at this very intriguing opportunity.

Good luck to all involved in the effort to get the right man aboard

[Slieve Bloom Man]

Not the ideal draw in Leinster Hurling championship for the new incoming manager. Would have to beat Kilkenny(a wounded animal) away and then Galway just to reach a Leinster Final.