frankthetank wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 5:54 pm
I wonder would the job appeal to Brian Cody?
Less pressure than the Kilkenny job and he wouldn’t have to face Kilkenny in either league or championship.
A 75 minute drive from Kilkenny city to Faithful Fields.
You’d imagine every hurler in the county would become available for selection if he was in charge.
Highly unlikely!
The Shefflin episode this year highlighted the unacceptability of Kilkenny coaches going outside county boundaries to help other teams.
I was surprised the Offaly Executive opted not to renew faith in Ml. Fennelly, hard to see an obvious replacement. Westmeath and Laois managed to find hurling managers who made some progress, would Colm Bonnar be a contender, or did the Tipperary experience, turn him off inter county management?
To be honest i am disappointed to see Fennelly go even though the Carlow game was a tough one to take .... Bonnar might be a good option ... Minor Mgt might be in the mix? It will be intresting
Also very surprised. Players appeared to rate his set-up very highly from anything I heard. Not making final and league relegation was disappointing. Don't know if it was his decision to step away or Offaly deciding not to renew. Either way, if looking for Waterford role, clearly could be the former.
As I'd see it, locals (ish) in contention could include Ken Hogan (would be my choice), Francis Forde or possibly even Johnny Kelly - who would bring continuity from his role as coach with Fennelly.
Other contenders possibly; Eddie Brennan, Davy Fitz, Anthony Daly, Mattie Kenny, Brendan Cummins, Ben O'Connor, Joe Quaid, or maybe Joe Fortune (ex Westmeath). Question is would any be interested in managing at Joe Mac level. Wouldn't see Colm Bonnar driving from Waterford after what happened recently in Tipp.
From inside actual county, don't see anyone turning up trees or being above those mentioned. Maybe I'm leaving out one or two but not too many others out there...
jimbob17 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:18 pm
Also very surprised. Players appeared to rate his set-up very highly from anything I heard. Not making final and league relegation was disappointing. Don't know if it was his decision to step away or Offaly deciding not to renew. Either way, if looking for Waterford role, clearly could be the former.
As I'd see it, locals (ish) in contention could include Ken Hogan (would be my choice), Francis Forde or possibly even Johnny Kelly - who would bring continuity from his role as coach with Fennelly.
Other contenders possibly; Eddie Brennan, Davy Fitz, Anthony Daly, Mattie Kenny, Brendan Cummins, Ben O'Connor, Joe Quaid, or maybe Joe Fortune (ex Westmeath). Question is would any be interested in managing at Joe Mac level. Wouldn't see Colm Bonnar driving from Waterford after what happened recently in Tipp.
From inside actual county, don't see anyone turning up trees or being above those mentioned. Maybe I'm leaving out one or two but not too many others out there...
Joe fortune is still with westmeath, unless he takes the Dublin job. He ain't dropping from liam mcarthy to Joe Mc.
Really don't know why this decision was made. If mgt wanted to stay on or not. Interesting to see who steps in.
There isn't a rich pool of candidates available, inside or outside the county.
These days, you're no longer choosing just a manager, you're picking an entire coaching and backroom set up.
This makes it harder to appoint people who aren't actively involved and with a crew of trusted people who work with them.
Unless they've already done the succession planning quietly in the background, it's a strange move to jettison Fennelly this late in the summer.
The idea that Cody would be interested is farcical. We may as well speculate on the Ayatollah running for the position.
For me, Offaly needs to do one thing before any appointment is made. That is to reconcile exactly where we are at this moment in time. So much of what is being said is aspirational in the extreme and is heavily dosed with nostalgic sentiment. Its all well and good saying we should be besting westmeath, carlow antrim kerry etc but there is very little to suggest that this is the case. All of the above teams have put in at least one decent showing against Liam McCarthy opposition in recent memory. How far back do we have to go in order to be able to say the same about Offaly? I’m not even talking about a win, but taking a team to the wire in a game of consequence. I think there may have been a league game against KK a number of years ago but this performance stands in splendid isolation.
Against most teams in JmcD, it’s probably a coin toss in terms of whether we’ll get a result or not. Some of the scores conceded are staggering. We saved our worst performance for the weakest team, meath, and our worst result another team we perceive to be weaker than us, Carlow. Its a cause for further concern that despite all the praise Fennelly (rightly) received regarding the professional setup he ran, we had a huge turnover of players during his tenure. At this point you could probably name a starting 15 of club players who would at worst be very competitive with the intercounty starting 15. If players don’t want to commit, then what does it matter how good the setup is? For what its worth i thought MF should have been let stay on to try integrate some of the underage talent. If a man of his pedigree and knowledge is invested in taking offaly forward, are we really well placed to look elsewhere?
From the little I know about the hurling set up, it appears that Fennelly was well regarded and the players enjoyed the set up.
From the commentary here, I would read it that it was gradually sinking in that we are at certain level and there is a hell of a long road ahead to get ourselves back up the pecking order.
But the question is as Pigeon house pointed out, where exactly are we?
We hammered all before us in the league in '21 and coasted through the C Ring, but with the benefit or otherwise of competing in Div 1, we seemed to drop our performance levels in the Joe Mc against the teams that we hammered the year before in the league.
So I am not sure how far we can progress in the next 2 years, but there must be enough for an outsider to consider it, and it is a sad reflection that we don't have standout internal candidates to put the hand up.
I hate to say it, but maybe that speaks volumes as to why we are where we are at this moment.
I think it will be a tough appointment to make for the county board, but one that is very important, but likewise it is another wake up call to the hurling fraternity as to the work that remains to be done across the board. There are shoots alright, but it needs another push now.
Could anyone answer this question genuinely, with all due respect to those who sacrifice so much to represent us when there seems to be little reward or thanks, what is a reasonable set of expectations for this group of players? In all sincerity, I think missing out on the JMcD is probably about right. Arguably lucky to get a result against Kerry and were able to lift it momentarily to put in an improved performance against Antrim. Some of the narrative around the Derry game was interesting. Fair play to the lads for digging in and getting a result. But I can’t reconcile the idea that it was a good result with the idea that missing out on promotion was disappointing. Teams with dreams of promotion beat teams like Derry, no ifs buts or anything else. Its just taken as a given and you move on from it. Hoping to beat Derry isn’t an expectation that marries with hopes of promotion.
I don't think it's as simple as drawing a line in the sand and saying that you have to cross that point, or else it's failure. For example, if we had lost by a point to Kerry, and then hurled well and got the win against Carlow, we'd still have been in the same position, but the narrative would be very different right now. Luck went our way in Tralee, in the way that it absolutely didn't in Belfast, and that left us with our fate in our own hands. I don't for a minute think that we would have beaten Antrim at Croke Park, but I think getting there and getting the experience of playing a national final at HQ would have been hugely beneficial. And by any, logical measure, we were dreadful against Carlow. When the stakes were highest, our performance was lowest - and whether that's about skills, or mentality, or tactics, or whatever, management has to take responsibility for that.
It's a similar story with the 2020 Ring cup defeat to Down. We were in a position to win a game that we should have won, and we didn't. Likewise the league draw with Antrim in Tullamore that year, albeit the manner of that was such that it would be particularly hard to blame management for it.
I genuinely don't think there are any more than a handful of people who think that we should be going toe to toe with Laois and Westmeath right now. Sad though it is to say, we're not at that level. Those counties each have a core group of mature players that make up the bulk of their team, and they are able to compete at a decent level, lads like Paddy Purcell, Picky Maher, Tommy Doyle, Aonghus Clarke etc., I could go on.
But there's a lot of open country between that, and where we are.
I'm not for a minute saying that it was the right thing to go to let Michael Fennelly go. My take on it is that unless the top table guys already know who his successor is, my gut feeling is it's the wrong call. That said, I'm really not sure that we were making as much progress as some people think we were, and there was definitely a decision to be made.
Kevin Egan. Signed out of respect for players and all involved with Offaly.
Bord na Mona man wrote: ↑Wed Jul 27, 2022 10:47 am
There isn't a rich pool of candidates available, inside or outside the county.
These days, you're no longer choosing just a manager, you're picking an entire coaching and backroom set up.
This makes it harder to appoint people who aren't actively involved and with a crew of trusted people who work with them.
Unless they've already done the succession planning quietly in the background, it's a strange move to jettison Fennelly this late in the summer.
It is strange for sure, very late in the day, pity he didn't get another year. There unfortunately may not be an ideal No 1 in the county but there must be people who could make an impact as part of a mgt team, and the question is do you ask people who have been there before or go with a clean slate. Martin Bennett in Coolderry has long been lauded for S&C, Brian Carroll surely has something to offer, Joe Bergin has been around the block as a player, Joe Brady the same (and I know it doesn't necessarily mean they would be good but they are good solid fellas by all accounts), Shane Hand now with KK, Eunan Martin has been Coaching St. Rynaghs for the last three years with Andy Smith Galway their S&C man, Barry Whelehan has good mgt experience, Simon Whelehan was also involved with Birr Seniors, Gary Cahill was with the U20s for a few years. On the football side it would be great to see the likes of Ken Furlong, John Rouse, Ger Rafferty, Stephen Lonergan get involved with Tom O Se, if Declan Kelly staying at U20. I can't speak for any of these lads, maybe they have no interest but there are fellas out there who wouldn't weaken a mgt team. Good luck to the Co Board who have to sort it out and whoever gets involved.
