County Management Stability

A forum to air your views on Offaly GAA matters and beyond.
True Red
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by True Red »

Yeah I doubt Flanagan would stay on, as he has been sacked.
If you don’t stand for something you fall for anything

jimbob17
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by jimbob17 »

If there is anything that you shouldn't do in this type of business, it is not to make a rash decision. Do people forget where we were before Pat Flanagan took over. We were rock bottom with lads unwilling to even play for our senior team

For the record, I believe that pat and Co were doing a good job and that things had improved drastically from where they were under macdonnell. There was a plan, consistency of selection and overall a fairly positive vibe within the squad. Players were reasonably happy with how things were going and there was a sense of unity among them.

I am not saying for a second that things didn't need to improve but I feel we have just thrown the baby out with the bath water. I think players should have been consulted (maybe they were). I think management should have been consulted of what was happening (maybe they were). I think a review with player reps and management of where they were and what they needed to add to coaching set up should have been done to see if it was doable should have been the first option. If review committee were unhappy after this was addressed then yes by all accounts, look for someone else and relieve current management of duties.

Such a judgement should only be made IF the management received all the support that they needed from county board with regard to backup support structures / gear for players etc. I don't know this but I doubt it's the case. If they weren't fully supported, then how can you expect manager to get most out of players and that's all you'd be looking for.

However, a radical overhaul is the likely answer when it appeared to me that a lot of things were being done fairly well. Will be very interesting to watch potential fallout from this decision and how this is perceived by players over next few months.

I fear we might have just jumped off a cliff face with a broken bungee chord on this one and the people that cut that bungee chord have nobody to answer to. I hope the county board and it's committee is as accountable for its decisions as they expect Pat Flanagan to be for his results.
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Bord na Mona man
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by Bord na Mona man »

I agree that a lot of this motivated by the display in the 2nd half against Westmeath in the drawn game. Though from some of the mud slinging that followed the Armagh game where you could see there were factions (albeit lunatic ones) in the county with Flanagan already in their cross-hairs.

Flanagan was definitely hitting all the targets in terms of preparations and keeping players on board. In the course of his tenure, he fell short of notching up wins over Westmeath or Kildare.
In those games we fell just short. How much of this is the manager's fault is up for debate? I feel that in the last 15 years, Offaly teams in both codes have a mental block about seeing out tight games. Psychologically we pull the handbrake when in winning positions.

From 2003 on, I could easily think of a dozen games in each code where Offaly should have won, but didn't.

LooseCannon
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by LooseCannon »

It would be interesting to see the minutes of the meeting
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biffinbanner
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by biffinbanner »

i thought pat flanagan ,an honourable man,was doing a good job.
were the team prepared as good as they could have been with the resources available?id say yes

has the county board a better person to take over?id say no.

the common theme has been to blame the manager since tommy lyons..
paul o kelly and gerry fahy being the 2 most notable

we havent got the players , were div 3 .maybe div 2 for a year an odd time.

thats where its at.but the co board dont seem to realise that

timber
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by timber »

I agree, a number of good managers got a raw deal because of our county board down through the years. O' Kelly, Fahey, Kilmurray.

As for Pat Flanagan. Yes it is fair to say he probably was working with limited resources and did give it a good go to be fair to him. My own view is 3 years in, Offaly were still losing games to Longford and Westmeath. No progress there. They never pushed on from the Division 4 league win. Yes they showed a bit of character to stay in division 3 this year when the pressure was on. but I cant but help be frustrated at losing to longford and westmeath so often. Neither team is anything special. Obviously westmeath are a bit ahead of longford but they are very beatable and should without question have been put away in OCP this summer. The replay again was another performance very hard to stomach even though westmeath were flattered by the final scoreline which probably was a bit unreal. Probably the players should accept alot of responsibility more so than the manager for the lack of improvement and going the extra mile to get there.

After 3 years and similar results, anyone who has played senior football will know that the whole setup can get pretty stale and the atmosphere in the group a little flat. Regardless of who is managing that can happen after a few years so a change can help spark things. Like i say its no fault on Flanagan.

I think Kelleghan will be the one that the CB will go for but I sincerely hope he outlines his plans and that we are not going down the road of just a park the bus tactic as I really fear will be the case with 14 players playing inside our own 45. I would expect the new person to have a bigger vision than that and obviously plenty of game plans.

Stephen Darby is probably worth giving some thought to also. I dont know enough about Peter Brady as a manager. Maybe as a number 2.

As regards the hurling, really unimpressed with Ryan and his outlook. If he is as negative in the dressing room as he comes across in interviews then I can only imagine that the players are very down beat and seriously lacking any sort of confidence.

I agree the pool of players is very limited, but we need someone there that will have a bit of drive about them and a "genuine" passion for our county and its prospects and obviously quality experience as a manager.

Leave Carroll to get on with his job as director of hurling. Crazy talking about him as manager. We need clear thinking at the top and a focus on putting the absolute best qualified people in place with all our underage so to give them the absolute best opportunity to compete.

summerindublin
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by summerindublin »

timber wrote:
Stephen Darby is probably worth giving some thought to also. I dont know enough about Peter Brady as a manager. Maybe as a number 2.
This could work, the one thing about Stephen's teams is they are fit, I felt that Offaly were not fit to last 73/74 mins under Flanagan.

Plain of the Herbs
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by Plain of the Herbs »

The committee is already in place to find a football management, which is the same management that carried out the review of the outgoing management. And I understand the players were consulted.

Review of the hurling management is currently ongoing. Those committee memers are listed on this piece -
http://offaly.gaa.ie/2017/07/05/offaly- ... anagement/

Happy to clarify.
Plain of the Herbs wrote:I'd be surprised if they have a plan. And, no, the players wouldn't be consulted at all. The only thing happens players at this time of year is that their gym memberships get cancelled. There ceases to be a County Senior panel once they are knocked out of the championship.

Here's what I expect to happen. A com-mit-tee to appoint a successor will not be formed until the September crunchie boord meeting. (For some reason I have it in my head that there isn't an August one, but I could be wrong.). They will then report back to the October meeting to report that they have nothing finalised, A manager will eventually be voted on at the November meeting. Because, shur, we're the faithful county, we won All-Irelands 45 years ago, we stopped Kerry doing five in a row, we came from division 4 to win Leinster in 1997, we've allstars in every position, yadda yadda, keep calm and it'll happen all by itself.
substandard wrote:I'm presuming (never a good thing to do as far as Offaly GAA is concerned) that they have a backup plan in place and they know who the next manager is going to be.
Flanagan, as previously stated, brought stability and direction to the team.
Player power - committee power? According to one tweet I read, delegates were unhappy that Flanagan wasn't consulted by the committee (open to correction here). If not, I think it's bad form. If there isn't a replacement lined up, it's disgraceful. In this situation, are the players views considered? Fair enough if the players felt it was time for a change, but very unfair on them if they felt they were progressing, and now they'll be starting over.
I would worry that next November there still won't be an appointment made, and players will be left in limbo...
Pat Donegan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.

frankthetank
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by frankthetank »

I wonder what the committee's musings on Kevin Ryan will be.

On the one hand they were would be serious egg on the county board's faces if they recommend to remove him after one year and would they have the drive to face into another managerial search.

On the other hand Offaly's tactics this year left a bad taste in many people's mouths regardless of whether they were justified or not.

llkj
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by llkj »

frankthetank wrote: On the other hand Offaly's tactics this year left a bad taste in many people's mouths regardless of whether they were justified or not.
Just curious, would people feel a lot better if Galway had scored 3.24 rather than 33 points against Offaly. Look at their scorelines so far and they are hitting between 30 and 35 points in each championship game, against teams that would be ahead of Offaly.

Surely you have to trust a manager to make his own decisions on the on-field tactics. If that means that he thinks that short passing, long passing, hand passing, ground hurling are best, then let him do that. If you don't trust him, then get rid of him. If you keep him on, then it must be on the terms that the manager makes the call on how to set up his team.

timber
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by timber »

llkj wrote:
frankthetank wrote: On the other hand Offaly's tactics this year left a bad taste in many people's mouths regardless of whether they were justified or not.
Just curious, would people feel a lot better if Galway had scored 3.24 rather than 33 points against Offaly. Look at their scorelines so far and they are hitting between 30 and 35 points in each championship game, against teams that would be ahead of Offaly.

Surely you have to trust a manager to make his own decisions on the on-field tactics. If that means that he thinks that short passing, long passing, hand passing, ground hurling are best, then let him do that. If you don't trust him, then get rid of him. If you keep him on, then it must be on the terms that the manager makes the call on how to set up his team.
personally I just don't think he brings anything inspiring or positive to the thing. when I hear him speak I just want to forget about hurling altogether he is that negative and depressing to listen to. when u look at his record he has been involved with poor teams only. i don't think he has a winner's mentality. anybody who has played the game and u know the feeling when you are off form. its hard get positive about your game. now imagine listening to what he comes out with when your already pretty down. it doesnt help.

Towerus
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by Towerus »

llkj wrote:
frankthetank wrote: On the other hand Offaly's tactics this year left a bad taste in many people's mouths regardless of whether they were justified or not.
Just curious, would people feel a lot better if Galway had scored 3.24 rather than 33 points against Offaly. Look at their scorelines so far and they are hitting between 30 and 35 points in each championship game, against teams that would be ahead of Offaly.

Surely you have to trust a manager to make his own decisions on the on-field tactics. If that means that he thinks that short passing, long passing, hand passing, ground hurling are best, then let him do that. If you don't trust him, then get rid of him. If you keep him on, then it must be on the terms that the manager makes the call on how to set up his team.
It's not so much what Galway scored but that Offaly were set up to try and limit what Galway scored instead of giving it a right lash. Galway look to be in a different class this year, but we should have given Waterford a right rattle. All that defensive mullarkey does is tie the hands of the few forwards that are left in there, and doesn't even achieve the damage limitation it's supposed to do. You just have to take the field believing you can give it a good shot, not have your team set up blatantly stating you're expecting to be slaughtered.

When a manager is in place, well then yeah, you probably have to step back and let him do the job, but sometimes you just have to call time.

pigeon house biffo
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by pigeon house biffo »

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic- ... 04283.html

If any element of this is true its a terrible indictment of the board. I for one could see progress under the flanagan tenure and am at a complete loss as to why he would be removed without having someone ready to step forward and fill the vacancy. As it is, the incumbent management will likely only be installed after the summer when the majority of the championship season will have been played out, leaving him without any deep knowledge of the players. Wouldn't you be as well of just leaving selectors in charge of the senior team for the time being until theres a chance to install a manager BEFORE the championship starts. We are handicapping our management before they even start, and then modest requests for equipment as specified in the article above can't be satisfied. I think at the present moment in time there is more goodwill towards the football setup than the hurling setup (in my opinion). I think this is due in part to the effect Flanagan had on the players and the effort that was evident in every performance. I hope this goodwill will not be wasted.

kingscounty
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by kingscounty »

Get Flanagan reinstated that's what I say, God I do hate fuckers on a county board that sack a lad by telling him to more or less resign yourself good man . Smart arse answer then as well when he detailed his plan , why ask for a plan when everybody already knows that the county board will do what the county board always do make shit decision and listen to no one. They hadn't the balls to tell the man he was sacked, found out via social media, Cowards

private joker
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Re: County Management Stability

Post by private joker »

Ok. Having read that article people here may forget about getting the "right man" . Ye have the most unsupportive, 2 faced county board. Ye are in major trouble. What a response from the Secretary. Basic requests turned down. No wonder Eamon kelly left the hurlers!!!
And financial support from croke park won't be that forthcoming with those guys running the show.

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