Un Cambio Es Bueno

[Offalys Future]

I joined this forum just over 7 years ago.

One of my main reasons was to highlight the problems that Offaly GAA (especially hurling) were facing and identify solutions. I grew frustrated with the lack of any type of planning from the people who were recruited to change the fortunes of Offaly GAA. In many of the points I made unfortunately I have been proven right. I really wish I wasn’t.
7 years on and Offaly GAA is in such a bad place. Offaly hurling has practically become irrelevant. One of the saddest things for me is that nobody takes responsibility anymore. Nobody puts their hand up anymore. It’s hilarious now to see the very people who have been given coaching roles etc. now come out and criticise. I’m sick of hearing from Daithi Regan, Johnny Pilkington, Michael Verney (incredible nonsense), Joe Dooley, Michael Duigan and a few others.

I would call on Offaly County Board now instead of wasting money on employing an administrator to carry out paper work (I would happily do this for free), why not employ an external sports recruitment firm or HR Firm to come in and conduct interviews with any person who is interested in developing Offaly GAA. I assure you this would be money well spent.

My own belief is that this won’t happen. The county board officials are out of their dept, as are every person who is managing a county hurling team this year. The u-21 management appointment is laughable and it is obvious that Brian Whelehan is not capable of managing a senior county hurling team (or any county team at any level in my opinion). The book doesn’t stop their though, every person needs to take a look at themselves, players, managers, parents, selectors and supporters. Ultimately though the county board are instructed to run Offaly GAA correctly. If they continue not to then they deserve to be criticised.

Now though is not the time to lay the blame and make excuses. Now is the time to get some external help to recruit some really good people that exist in Offaly and allow these people the opportunity to change our hurling fortunes. Is it achievable – of course it is. Will it happen – I live in hope!

[Kevin]

BY the way, that legend of posters, Offaly's Future....any of ye know him at all?
He disappeared from here also a good while back,

Ahlethimoutwithit, not a shabby turn around on your inquiry into the whereabouts of Offaly's Future!!

Nice to see you posting again Offaly's Future!!

[stand back]

Un Cambio es bueno. For the non spanish speaking among us means change is good. Anyone know why cb meeting was cancelled last tues. Now is the time to get your ideas to your club reps.

[Lean Times]

Great post Offaly Future and huge food for thought.

It annoys me the red tape that has to happen for change. Can the County Board not be wise enough to take on external advise on how best to change the fortunes of this county from the grassroots up? Can they not accept proposals on how to change structures, training, fundraising, look to how things are done in successful counties that have similar problems to Offaly in terms of finance, population etc?

For people who will simply reply go through your clubs bla bla bla. This is not possible for everybody who work away, or who play still for example.

I am talking for something different. A public meeting or series of meetings where people can come and discuss ideas and proposals for change. Why can the County Board be so delinquent to not realise that affairs in this county as they are are 1) old fashioned and stone age-esque 2) not working and never will 3) causing us and have caused us to fall miles behind most counties in Ireland.

If this was a business, the Directors would have been fired years ago and would never have been employed by anybody again due to track record.

We need a group of people, along the lines of people who formed Club Faithful who have only one interest and one common goal - To change things - To fix things - To improve things across every sector of Gaelic Games in this once proud county. Paul Kelly's proposals over 10 years ago spring to mind.

I get so down trotten by abuse from friends who cannot understand my love or passion for this county. I do often think of what I would do if I won the Euromillions (that's how sad I am!!) and I would hand on heart pay off county debts and invest in underage, training facilities etc BUT under a different set up.

I would love if we could start some good from this forum. Instead of negativity we cannot we be the instigators of change? And why oh why can the county board not be open enough and frankly man enough to take help and realise that they are not able for the job at hand.

[Kid]

Anyone know why cb meeting was cancelled last tues.

There wasn't one fixed.

[stand back]

Ok thanks. got the wrong info then.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Offalys Future, welcome back!
Fair post and along the lines that many would agree with.
But I would think that it is not only the county board, as you say, everyone needs to examine what are they doing themselves.

[Buck Face]

Offaly's Future - Now is the time to get some external help to recruit some really good people that exist in Offaly and allow these people the opportunity to change our hurling fortunes.

When you say 'allow', you would think that people are queuing up but being prevented from getting in. Simply not the case. The opportunity is there for everyone as it stands. If people aren’t presently putting themselves forward for involvement I fail to see how they would suddenly claim to be interested because there is a HR Firm involved.

And it is far from correct to say there is a lack of 'any type of planning in place'. This keeps being bandied about recently about Offaly having no plan or structure in place etc. compared to Laois or whoever. To say this discredits a huge amount of very useful and well planned effort that is put into place all over the county. It is time that this notion was dispelled as it gets widely reported.

People talk about Offaly Seniors not having carrying out strength and conditioning programmes and talk about us being in the stone age when the truth is that there are strength and conditioning programmes in place for little more than kids right up to adult level across the county which are being facilitated by the county board.

I'm not for a second saying the present structure is faultless but people should at least take enough interest in what is actually going on before throwing in sweeping incorrect statements.

The fact is that presently there is a huge disconnect between the clubs and the county board. There is a lack of communication between both. It is evident from this forum alone that the majority of ordinary GAA people have no idea how the system is even supposed to work. When I see ‘now is the time to get your ideas to your club reps’ gives me hope that people are at last beginning to take more of an interest as to how the whole system is supposed to operate. For some clubs just sending reps would be an improvement.

Can the County Board not be wise enough to take on external advise on how best to change the fortunes of this county from the grassroots up? Can they not accept proposals on how to change structures, training, fundraising, look to how things are done in successful counties that have similar problems to Offaly in terms of finance, population etc?

Of course they can and they do. So what are these proposals that you refer to? If nowhere else, here is a good place to put something new forward and get people behind them. We are all ears.

I am talking for something different. A public meeting or series of meetings where people can come and discuss ideas and proposals for change. Why can the County Board be so delinquent to not realise that affairs in this county as they are are 1) old fashioned and stone age-esque 2) not working and never will 3) causing us and have caused us to fall miles behind most counties in Ireland.

You are not talking about something different. It seems to me you are talking about a county board meeting or perhaps some of the regional meetings that were held at the end of last year. There is ample opportunity to get views and opinions across and even enact on them. The above tells me that you are disconnected from what actually goes on in the county and this is a big part of our problem.

And when it comes to ‘firing directors’ it needn’t be as dramatic as this if people were interested enough to put themselves forward for appointment. And what ‘set up’ would you put in place? A change away from a democratic one? How would you improve the set up?

And when you say –

And why oh why can the county board not be open enough and frankly man enough to take help and realise that they are not able for the job at hand.

Do you even know what the county board is or are you perhaps referring to one of the sub-committees? Do you mean the Management Committee? All this loose talk about getting rid of the county board etc. just shows how little people know about how things actually work.

So to anyone that thinks they will simply replace ‘the board’ has to go to the ‘management committee has to go’ please take a time out. Inform yourselves as to how things are actually done (under GAA rules and not even Offaly county board rules as their hands are well tied) and go and get involved in a positive way. Your county needs you (sort of).

[Plain of the Herbs]

The idea of a public forum would be a good one, if there was a possibility it would lead to some fresh thinking, correct identification of the several problems that afflict Offaly hurling and football, and if it led to the right people being put in charge to drive a process towards permanent solutions.

The first phase of problem solving is to identify the problems, and while many on this forum know that Offaly have failed to move with the times and failed to keep up with other hurling (and football counties), I am worried that the same voices will contribute the same noises. This forum needs to be well chaired as there is the strong possibility that the discussion will go off on a tangent and people will be there all night listening to proceedings going around in circles.

Those ancient voices will refrain –

- That the hurlers are not showing heart and pride in the jersey (perhaps give respect, get respect goes both ways too)

- That if Offaly would only play ground hurling, all those unsightly rucks would be eradicated and everything would be alright (if ground hurling leads to turnovers of possession, anyway if ground hurling was unbreakable and unshakeable the rest of the country would be swinging wildly at every loose ball.

- That the board is only interested in the promotion of football to the detriment of football (those with a preference for football possibly have mutual feelings towards the hurling brethren)

- That strength and conditioning takes the edge off a hurler’s game (I won’t even comment on that)

- That Offaly hurling was doing just fine until they started playing hurling matches in Tellamore (Birr closed for work on the pitch during 2007 by which time the rot had well and truly set in and Offaly had falling well behind the then top-eight, with Dublin about to overtake them)

- That Offaly will always have natural hurlers and there is no need for development squads and the like (again, not worthy of comment)

- That Offaly hurling should turn to previous All-Ireland winners to help out, after all ask the men with the medals, they know what it takes” ( a dangerous one this, they might know what it took 20 or 30 years ago and there are too many former hurlers who shouldn’t be left next or near development squads)

- That club hurling is of a good standard and inter-county success will surely follow (yes, a point I made in the Nowlan Park programme piece I penned, but this just means there is talent and a will-to-win to work with; it is still only of club standard and needs alot of work to bridge the gap to intercounty standard)

- That Offaly shouldn’t be looking towards Laois and Carlow, after all, what have they won? (again, not really worth commenting on but has the possibility of completely derailing a discussion. Put it this way, other than Brian Carroll (UL) and David Magner (UCG), how many Offaly hurlers have been Fitzgibbon regulars during the last decade? Hardly any, because they are way off the required standard).



One of the more worrying comments on the radio piece with Joe Troy and Michael Verney was the comment (I think by JT) “it (the set-up) wouldn’t entice you to go back”. It just seems there is no drive, no enthusiasm, no desire to succeed at any level.

Looking over the mountains towards Laois, we see the underage programmes are driven by a small number of individuals who seem to be mainly, Pat Critchley, Séamus Plunkett and Jack Nolan, and everyone reports to them. Offaly needs a figurehead who has the knowledge to lay down a successful model, the personality to win the respect of those who report to him (or her), and the drive to steer the project through.

The 2005 defeat by Kilkenny might have been the catalyst for change but the initial development squads had just been launched with much fanfare. Within two years Offalys Future, on these pages, was announcing that the squads had collapsed. Still, it has never been publicly been acknowledged that the underage system had failed and no effort was apparently been made to identify the reasons for failure and to rectify those failings.

Were the coaches not sufficiently experienced? Did the players and/or their parents not buy into the process, and why? Was there too much board interference? Or perhaps there was not enough monitoring by the board, because there should have been a constant feedback process where Flaherty was kept informed of progress and he in turn should have been held to account by the board.

As an aside, I heard a scéal at the weekend of an Offaly team who went to a Tony Forrestal underage tournament and were fed sausages for sustenance between their first and second games in the tournament. And we wonder why Offaly are falling behind.

The shambles continues. Earlier today we have an U21 selector tweeting details of an Offaly U21 challenge match. News that will be greeted warmly in Wexford who would welcome any chance to take a sneaky look at Offaly. You couldn’t make it up.

[offalys future 2]

I will try and keep this as simple and to the point.
including this year the last 14 years have been a failure.
different avenues have bee pursued and they haven't worked.

Change is needed and i don't believe and this is my personal opinion that the county board or the delegates are capable of this change.

Currently i know for fact that good people who will bring allot of value to Offaly hurling won't get involved because of the county board.

I believe that outside help is required, not to train teams but to recruit the people who can orchestrate this change.
A previous poster mentioned that no approach has been made to the county board. This is an un true statement.
there has been approaches and fresh ideas put forward which members of the county executive have ignored.

[Buck Face]

POTH – It reads like you want a meeting where new people turn up and only say things that you want to hear. Anyway, it may seem like a good idea on the surface to some but I think it is just a fanciful notion that all these new people that somehow didn’t have a voice until now turn up and enlighten us.

It is the equivalent of the lazy incorrect analysis that there are no development structures in place when not actually engaging with them.

How many more ‘figureheads’ do you want to run underage coaching programmes? We presently have 2 full time coaches and a Coaching Officer heading up our programmes. As above, we seem to be expecting a Messiah to turn up.

On a side note to try help clear something up, when people talk about reverting to our ground hurling style they are not talking about wild swinging neanderthals that send leather one way and the 'turf' from the ball the other. This was never the Offaly 'style' (just think or look back on the goal that won us our first All Ireland and you will see a short possesion game at its best without the ball being struck on the ground). When people talk about bringing back ground hurling they are referring to players having the ability in certain positions to move the ball on the ground equally as well as you move it from your hand. It is a skill that is coached less and less and when used properly in a possession type game will reap benefits. (Imagine what the likes of Ger or Eugene Coughlan would bring to a possession game with the wrist work they had). The game evolves all the time and I certainly wouldn't wilfully dismiss 'ground' hurling as being a part of a new successful system.

Offalys Future2 - Change is needed and i don't believe and this is my personal opinion that the county board or the delegates are capable of this change.

Currently i know for fact that good people who will bring allot of value to Offaly hurling won't get involved because of the county board.

How can you say the 'county board' is not capable of change. The county board structure, implemented by the GAA itself and not some half baked idea that we came up with in Offaly, is designed to facilitate change and give everyone a voice. What do these people want in place of the county board?

Do you stand over your comment that there is a lack of any type of planning in place? I agree that plenty of our spokes are broken but it seems to me that some people here are trying to re-invent the wheel.

I would love to hear some more of these new revolutionary ideas that people are holding back. Here is as good a place as any to come out with them (and you don't even have to go through the county board with them).

[Plain of the Herbs]

The current development structures? You mean the ones where sausages are served for refreshment at what is the All-Ireland championship of the grade? The development structure where we don't know what Offaly team we'll be sending so we don't have a team list for the programme? The one that is so shoddy that knowledgeable people are not enticed back.

If that's the programme then absolutely it needs overhaul.

And I know very well what the ould fellas mean when they lament the passing of ground hurling. When they say 'ground' they mean terranean. And I reiterate, any forum where the same voices carry loudest will be a waste of an evening. Which is probably why there is a proposal for a forum. If the hope was that the same voices be heard that could be done at a regular County Board meeting.

[Buck Face]

I thought you had accepted the reason for the 'anonymous' team list as not being the fault of those involved? And if only our problems would be solved by giving a 13 year old a handful of nuts instead of a sausage. If they are two of your major bug bears then things are better than I thought they were!

To say that knowledgeable people are not enticed back is an unnecessary slur on a lot of people that are carrying out a lot of good work.

Whether we like it or not the people heard at the county board meetings are the present club representatives. As i say, this needs a shake up but until the people on the ground in the clubs show an interest in how the structure works then things will not improve.

[Plain of the Herbs]

I am not referring to the recent Nowlan Park teamsheet. This happened at a Tony Forrestal tournament. And feeding sausages is laughable. You wouldn't feed sausages on a school trip to the zoo, never mind the county's top sports performers.

I am not stating those as an exhaustive list of my bugbears, rather as examples of the shoddy operation. I accept there are decent people involved but the whole thing is a waste of resources and effort if basic nutrition cannot be got right. So someone is fecking up, perhaps not deliberately, but they need assistance and they need to be monitored by someone who knows what they are doing.

I thought you had accepted the reason for the 'anonymous' team list as not being the fault of those involved? And if only our problems would be solved by giving a 13 year old a handful of nuts instead of a sausage. If they are two of your major bug bears then things are better than I thought they were!.

[ryot]

Some terrible rubbish here

Note:::::::: The DELEGATES are the County Board.................... with the couple of Officers.



As for a Company being brought in....... any suggestion from them would still be subject to the Delegates unless the Official Guide is changed & that involves making a proposal at a club meeting, the club adopting it & its Delegate proposing it at CB/Convention. Offaly CB adopting it & then getting it through Congress. There has to be an easier way.


Its stated that new ideas were put to CB but ignored............... Was that In writing to County Sec or verbally at a CB meeting

If verbally they should be recorded in the minutes & can be dug out & if in writing Publish them..............

As for new people getting involved: For CB positions there is only one way.............. Get ur club ( or any club) to nominate u when the nomination papers have been sent by CB Sec to the Club Sec................. which is very easy if u have taken on the job of club sec & CB delegate ..................

Of course, in the county where I live, I have heard plenty lads mouth about what they would or could do after a few pints on a Saturday night but they were noticeable by their absence at the Club AGM when jobs in the club & CB were on offer.............I took on plenty of the jobs over the years, even when I was still playing............

I have lived away from OY for 47 years but I suspect its not very different......................

But please, if lads have seriously said they would take on a job NOMINATE them................................Then its sh1t or get off the stage ..................