Offaly Senior Football Management 2015

[Lone Shark]

I think that while Sligo won't be happy, from an Offaly point of view he's made an excellent start. He's after walking away from a gig where he did moderately well, where he'd be playing division 3 football and where he had an outside chance of a provincial title, admittedly something in the 3% to 5% range, to take on Offaly at a time when we're going to be playing basement division league football and where winning a Leinster title is way out of our range. On that basis alone, he's made it clear that he really wants to take on the gig.

He's proven before that he can win the support of players - you won't hear a bad word said about him by anyone who played ball under him in Westmeath, Sligo or Clara for that matter, and that he has the patience to develop a team and to let them learn and grow into a style of play. I honestly would have said that when they got promoted to division 1, they were a division 1 team from numbers one to twelve. Unfortunately for Pat, with the exception of Dessie Dolan (who was injured or unavailable for a lot of the time while he was there) he had division four inside forwards and that was always likely to let them down.

Most people in Westmeath would try to tell you that his championship record was poor, but jaysus, he lost to Kerry by a point, he got hockeyed by Dublin (hardly a crime for any county outside the top ten) and he lost to Fermanagh by a point when his usually-reliable keeper threw in two soft goals. Looking underneath the bonnet of it all even slightly would suggest that this is overplayed. A lot of it is covering anyway - it was more that he didn't help himself when he went on the Sunday Game the night of the Dublin defeat talking about a second tier championship. That might have been fair comment, but it was badly judged - "B" championships are like public transport, everyone thinks they're a great idea for someone else. Nobody actually wants to be the person using them, they just want to have them there to clear the traffic.

All of that is more good news for Offaly - he didn't lose his job because of bad management, he lost it because of poorly chosen words on a night when the pain of a heavy championship defeat was still raw. By far the lesser of two evils.

I think we'll have faith in him and I expect that we'll show real improvement under his tenure.

[Toxicity234]

Best of Luck to Pat Flanagan as manager.
Lets hope he get a good management team around him and we start moving in the right direction.

[hopper82]

Best of luck to Pat . It will be interesting to see who he will bring in with him , reports in the star suggest that he will have different management teams for the senior and U21 gig.

Its great to see him taking the job when he could have stayed with Sligo who have an outside but realistic chance of been promoted fro the DIV 3 league.

I would agree with lone shark I think Westmeath were mad to let him go. Another year with Flanagan would have served them better than the option they took taking on Paul Bealin.

I'm looking forward to 2015 however division 4 proves like it will be a tough nut to crack . We will have to go back to the grounds of the two teams who beat us in the championship last year Longford and Wicklow .

Neither of these teams are world beaters and I think we looked a better team than Longford last year for 40 minutes but they will hold a physiological edge over us hopefully we can steal points from one of them.

Prematurely I am predicting we should scrape by London away and the other teams in Tullamore , if we manage to do this we will be in the shake up for promotion .

February 1: v London (a); February 8: v Waterford (h); March 1: v Wicklow (a); March 8: v Leitrim (h); March 15: v Carlow (h); April 5: v Longford (a).

Personally i am happy with this appointment and looking forward to 2015.

Hopefully my positivity i hold in October will continue into July or August of next year.

[kaiserchief]

Best of luck to Pat Flanagan. I hope he is giving the relevant time to make the changes required. He needs at least 5 years with the under 21's and Senior's with Pascal Kelleghan givin the same timeframe with the minors.

[Kevin]

Not sure I understand how these things work, but what is the point of delaying the appointment for 2 weeks so he can organize his backroom team?

If he's the man for the job, wouldn't we just get him in place and get out of his way/support him where necessary?

[Abercrombie Fitch]

Kevin I think they just want to ratify a management team as opposed to appointing a manager only for a row to erupt over selectors. Anyway best of luck to Pat and his team. Offaly football is at a low ebb but Pat is definitely the top candidate in my eyes.

[jimbob17]

Good choice with Flanagan......best inside guy available......the key now will be to equip him with the support structures and personnell required for an intercounty senior team.....cutting corners will only serve to undervalue the potential of the team which could easily get up to division 2 within 3 years in my opinion..... Offaly have reached 3 Leinster minor finals in last 8 years - more than anyone bar Kildare and Dublin so plenty of talent if it is harnessed and brought through.....just hope the intermediate and junior clubs are really looked at as their are easily ten players for a squad capable of coming from these clubs......

[Kevin]

Kevin I think they just want to ratify a management team as opposed to appointing a manager only for a row to erupt over selectors. Anyway best of luck to Pat and his team. Offaly football is at a low ebb but Pat is definitely the top candidate in my eyes.

Thanks for that AF.

Hard to not be excited about an Offalyman and proven manager who passed on continuing in a decent position in Sligo so he can be part of bringing Offaly back.

Best of luck to Pat and all involved!!

[townman]

Best of luck to Pat Flanagan. I hope he is giving the relevant time to make the changes required. He needs at least 5 years with the under 21's and Senior's with Pascal Kelleghan givin the same timeframe with the minors.

did i hear right on the radio as i drove home from the hurling semil-finals that Pascal Kelleghan is not over offaly minors 2015, and that he would like to be over them again sometime in the future.

[Abercrombie Fitch]

Championship Draw 2015 on Rte tonight. I'm always at my most optimistic in the hour after the draw. Then the League slowly saps it out of me. I'm sure Pat will be watching on with interest. Carlow at home would do for me

[kingscounty]

Best of luck to Pat , he did great work with Westmeath and Sligo didn't want him to go . For the first time in years I'm a bit excited about this appointment, at least he has experience both club and county with adult players so hopefully he can improve things over the next few years .

[kingscounty]

Offaly v Longford , and if we get over that it's the Dubs !!!!

[Bord na Mona man]

Offaly v Longford , and if we get over that it's the Dubs !!!!

Playing Longford in Tellamore, hopefully win that and make the Dubs come down to Tellamore as well.

[Plain of the Herbs]

A busy early summer in store for OCP anyway.

SFC v Longford will be in Tellamore, as BnMM noted, and if Leix top the round-robin group Offaly would play them in OCP too. The Galway v Dublin SHC game would likely be in OCP too (unless there is a chance of Leinster council policy and Galway get to host matches and enter 'home and away' arrangements).

Hosting Dublin footballers would be a great occasion. That's if the Dubs followers can desist from vandalising cars parked on the main street, as happened in 1980 and 1981.

[sam88885a]

good appointment by county board . pat flanagan was a good club manager with clara and did well in westmeath and sligo . he knows how to manage players which is important , know his footbal too.
offaly need ever player to put in 100 per cent .
i hope he can restore pride in offaly football . best of luck pat