Clare looking for an Investigation!

[kingscounty]

As far as I remember Paul O Kelly didn't manage any inter county team but went on to do work with teams in strength and conditioning , tactics , stats etc. I think he worked with Tyrone and few other Ulster teams in the past. If he was available today and a county was looking for a manager with forward thinking ideas he would be the man for the job, he was way ahead of his time and if we had the cop on to leave him at it we would not be where we are today .

[the Untouchable]

Ah the old Paul O'Kelly debate...it's like looking back on the girl who you dumped all those years ago & wonder where you'd be if you had stayed with her. In all likelihood you'd be exactly where u are today...& the same is true of Offaly football & Paul O'Kelly!!

O'Kelly did nothing special in 2003 to show that we were building for the future or making progress...in the league we drew at home with the mighty Antrim as O'Kelly tried to bring through a lot of young players to replace the likes of Vinny, Finbar & Peter Brady...however just before the 1st Laois game he dropped a lot of the young lads & went back for Finbar, Vinny, John Ryan etc.

The drawn game was most noticeable for Ciaran mcmanus's wonder goal from about 35 yards out.
The replay in tullamore saw Finbar start at no.11 but played the entire game standing beside Ger Rafferty at centre back...Laois had 2 guys sent off if my memory serves me well & still won...granted I think Tom Kelly was only sent off in injury time but still!!

The great run in the qualifiers saw us overcome Clare & London...where we actually struggled for the most part in O'Connor park, sprung Vinny with 15 mins to go & London decided to put 3 lads on him...so everyone else got in on the scoring act after that!!

The Roscommon game...for those of us unfortunate enough to be there was 1 of the weirdest games I've ever witnessed...Meehan in goals killed us with his kick out which literally floated out to Karol Slattery every single time & his man won every ball...Seamie o'Neill looked like lord & master for every kickout that Curran kicked out as he caught everything that day...it was a phenomenal exhibition of high fielding and then u had Frankie Dolan kicking points from the corner flag...yet despite being almost completely outclassed for the entire game Pascal scored a goal right at the death & took it to extra time...which Roscommon went on to win & James Grennab got the line.

A few weeks later O'Kelly was writing his piece in the papers saying we were 3 years away from winning the all Ireland & highlighting all the problems with Offaly...but he had a year & nothing changed, what did he think was going to happen the year after, did he think all the young players he brought through then dropped for the old guard were just going to come back again the following year...no they weren't, because country football is a huge commitment & getting dropped a few weeks out from the championship for lads whose best days was well & truly behind them isn't a sign of progress, or building for an all Ireland!!

Like if Emmet came out after losing to Wicklow & said we'll be all Ireland champions in 2 years time we'd laugh...& in truth that's what I did when O'Kelly came out & said it In 2003, look at where Kerry, Tyrone, Armagh, Cork & Mayo were at that point & they were miles better than we were...it was just a bit of PR spin to get Offaly fans to think that we were in a much better place than we really were.

I hope people stop writing about the reason we're rubbish is because we sacked O'Kelly like everything went down hill after that...Gerry Fahy came in the year after...won the Division 2 league, the players kicked us out of it against Westmeath, bet Kildare in Kildare & ended up getting beaten by Wexford!!

Gerry got sacked because he overspent €30k on the players in the year, do I think if we had kept Gerry we'd be any higher than ranked 30th in Ireland for football...no I don't!!

[biffinbanner]

so in your opinion where did it all go wrong ?..paul and gerry were no good and we were better off shut of them?.not many would agree with you there but your entitled to your opinion i suppose.how long did it take eugene mcgee to win an all ireland from start to finish?..

[the Untouchable]

It's not that I think we should have got rid of either...my point is that getting rid of O'Kelly or Fahy back then has no relevance to why Offaly are struggling so much now which is what other people have made reference to in previous posts!!

As for the Eugene McGee comment...that's even dumber than the O'Kelly comments...so by your reckoning give every manager 5 years...we'd definitely have Sam Maguire back in the county after that!!

[turk]

Ah the old Paul O'Kelly debate...it's like looking back on the girl who you dumped all those years ago & wonder where you'd be if you had stayed with her. In all likelihood you'd be exactly where u are today...& the same is true of Offaly football & Paul O'Kelly!!

Great analogy untouchable.
While it was hasty to sack O'Kelly and Fahy, if you stayed with the girl you mentioned you'ld be trapped in a loveless marriage, drinking heavily, battling crushing personal demons against impossible odds, and living day to day with an inconsolable longing sense of regret and unfulfillment. Sadly Offaly football is in a comparable place right now.

[biffinbanner]

where did i say we would have an all ire in 5 years?i was making the point that offaly(co board mostly),,maybe since mcgee have been quick to blame managers and sack them without giving them sufficent time...and id be slow to label people dumb so quickly.a lot of offaly people would agree with the sentiments re o kelly /fahy...and we will never know either way what would have happened if they hadnt been sacked .judging by niall mcs comments on twitter its all the same whos over them they get no support from the top so until that changes...

[townman]

and who was the chairman in offaly back then ......................and his still there joke

[the Untouchable]

Bringing McGee into the debate is even less relevant...when Eugene took over he progressed 1 stage every year in the championship from the previous year...hardly progress but in the 3rd year we won a Leinster title so I presume the county board felt that was a sign of progress...then we won another Leinster title in 81 & 82 plus a Sam Maguire!!

Under Paul O'Kelly & Gerry Fahy...they probably got sacked because they lost to Laois & Westmeath respectively...which when u think about it, wouldn't have happened to Offaly since before Tommy Lyons turned up so I'm sure our county board really frowned on losing to those 2 sides.

I felt biffinbanner you were eluding to the fact that our county board gave Eugene 5 years to win an all Ireland, so how much time is enough time? the game has changed now, management is all about results now...there's very little "building for the future" crap anymore...now if u have a bad league as a manager you better get a good run in the championship because county boards expect...& that's the same for Dublin, Mayo all the way down to Carlow!!

The county board didn't feel that sufficient progress was made under Paul O'Kelly or Gerry Fahy & both got walked...if we had kept them, would we be in any better a place, I seriously doubt it...because as much as the county board have failed I think there's a massive drop off in the quality of players at senior level, our club football is gone to complete garbage & we're looking at this young Offaly minor side as maybe the glimmer of light for the future, but if Dublin beat them on the 5th July...then where do we look to? The county board don't have the money to get a big name coach in & like Galway found out with Joe Kernan & every county found out with Micko...expensive managers don't guarantee you anything other than a huge hole in your bank balance where once you had money, & the players we have outside of Niall McNamee & Alan Mulhall aren't fit for county football.
Like I suggested with the hurlers, you'd want to get the senior football panel together now, say here's a tailored 12 week training program & then look to be getting back doing hard group training by mid September when everyone has already done a lot of the bulking up & conditioning work that will lay the platform to build on...but instead lads will wander back to their clubs, eat what they want, drink as much as they want, whenever they want & sometime round December our county board will announce a 6 man blue ribbon group is being set up to go talk to possible candidates for the managers job, it's lack of professionalism from both sides that has us being complete sh!te, not firing a manager in 2003!!

Sadly this whole debate is futile because in 12 months time we'll have people writing on here again lamenting about Paul O'Kelly getting sacked & how that's why we are so bad today!!