Offaly Minor Management A Complete Joke

[Aweflee]

I've been too depressed to comment on any of the topics on this board for the last few days. This is lining up to be another bad year. How have we gotten to a stage where we're losing to Carlow in minor hurling and u21 football in the space of a week? That's frightening. I will not pretend I am in the know with regard to the academies but I would've expect some form of improvement in our minors at this stage.
There's been a general malaise in Offaly GAA for some time and it shows no signs of abating. We seem to be stuck in a timewarp. While not hugely important in the grander scheme of things this point was re-inforced to me when the county board rejected the new style jersey. If they can't get with the times in that regard what faith can we have in them to make radical changes on the more important matters.

[Bord na Mona man]

There's been a general malaise in Offaly GAA for some time and it shows no signs of abating. We seem to be stuck in a timewarp.

Unfortunately I think most Offaly people are happy to dine out on the great days of the past and there is no great drive to put us back up near the top again.

The same interest is not there from the public any more.
In my opinion, we are now the worst county in Ireland (factoring in population, expectations) for attending matches, which is one indicator of the malaise that exists.

[suckindiesel]

i dropped in to this site for the first time in a couple of years to try and find out why offaly minors are so far off the pace.
having read the 9 pages of this thread, as a laoisman, much of what i have read including the development debate has a sense of deva ju from a laois perspective.

as someone that was active at club and county board level within laois i know better than most the workings of a county set up.

to deal with a number of issues raised earlier in this discussion. castletown did appoint johnny pilkington as their manager, when appointing him they were under the impression that he was a coach to the offaly minors not the head bottle washer. castletown are a club side in decline and now rank about 6 or 7 in the laois championship. a top side at their peak they still do not take kindly to losing and as a contributer noted in all likelyhood j pilkington will be sacked before the end of the championship, as the sacrificial scapegoat when castletown lose. castletown like most hurling clubs in laois pay decent bucks to their managers, the unofficial going rate is 80 to 120 euros a night(from junior through to senior clubs) and these rates of renumeration attract many. few clubs in offaly are as generous from what i hear(i could be corrected on this point).

on the issue of finance. in laois we may have had limited success over the years, nonetheless in both hurling and football we have forked out big bucks to support the two codes. the string of recent football underage successes are as a result of excellent juvenile groundwork with elite squads. sadly our base of juvenile hurlers has been no more than 30 to 40 within each age group, some of those players were dual operators and they tended towards football first because they saw it as a more realistic prospect of offering success, so hurling suffered. from tight personnel resources laois minor hurlers have competed with distinction in recent years and there is progress taking place despite what the results may indicate..........i mention the issue of finance because i have dealt at board level with offaly officials........and i do not wish to sound nasty, but one cannot hide the truth.... i and most other outsiders would be firmly of the view that offaly do things on the cheap...manager appointments, coaching academies,...all the items in which the offaly co board have to invest, decisions are generally based on the cheapest option not the best or most appropriate. through the sheer brilliance of players offaly had great success in the 80's and 90's in both codes....the board got lucky....now the chickens of non investment are coming home to roost. Now that the quality of the past is not on show in Offaly, one must be prepared to spectulate to accumulate....the offaly county board with their longstanding miserly approach and lack of commerial acumen(the jerseys just one example) will need a complete make over or else a long barren period is guaranteed.


on the subject of seperate boards. laois in reality closed down the individual hurling and football boards about 6 years ago. the whole shebang is now run by a county executive consisting of about 14 members, 10 from the football area and hurling is certainly going to be the poor relation for years to come in laois. when we had strong hurling and football boards there was parity between the two codes in the county, and i would like to see a return to that situation, although that is unlikely to happen. offaly akin to laois has an almost natural geographical split on the map between the hurling and football areas and I would recommend that true offaly gaels consider splitting the board in 2, hurling and football divisions...a new system could also help get rid of the deadwood, and there is plenty of that at offaly executive level.(please do not interpret that last statement as that of a sour laoisman, rather me calling a spade a spade).


"offalys future"...the poster has drawn up a blueprint for the future....his idea is top class in theory, the reality and practice may be where it will fall down. in laois we have pumped in big bucks into hurling and football for the last 15 years...we have had 2 fulltime hurling coachs for more than a dozen years, as have carlow...on that front we are light years ahead of offaly...where the blueprint may face problems, as we have found out in laois, is that if the county teams do not look like winning at provincial level(this applies mainly to hurling in laois), then what happens is that the clubs start to withdraw their players from these sessions, and tend to be concerned with their own interests rather than county interests....so if you have for instance a county under 16 development session booked for 11am on a saturday morning with a string of top coaches organised, the whole thing can be deflated should for example camross or portlaois withdraw players as they may have a challenge game organised elsewhere.....and this conflict of interest between club and county is what has dogged laois underage hurling teams in particular in recent years (carlow and kildare underage hurling teams have also had this problem).........so if Offaly want to set up the Perfect Developement system, number one item on the start up of the project is that the clubs are forced to buy into it , not just use it when it suits them and abuse it at other times......i fear that offaly due to the small numbers will have trouble along the laois lines.

I am a hurling man and whilst hoping for a laois break through, i certainly do want to witness a total fall from grace of offaly. the leinster championship is a total non event if kilkenny are focussed. offaly and laois are merely playing for the wooden spoon in may, i expect offaly to win, although i would add with total confidence that laois would give kilkenny a bigger test than offaly....if offaly and laois joined together this year we would fail to beat the kilkenny subs if truth be told.

I cannot understand why offaly appointed joe dooley....was this another case of tight budgetting by the executive...on the subject of budget, how much do offaly get from carroll meats?, laois got in excess of 250,000 from its sponsor last term, offaly ought to be getting the same, i somehow doubt it.................the best offaly trainer i have seen in laois in the recent past is johnny dooley.....if "offalys future" thinks that all Johnny is good for is coaching kids how to take frees, then i suggest he think again....laois hurling offered him a very tempting financial package 2 years ago and he turned it down....surely the real hurling people in offaly realise that he is the best coach to come out of the 90's teams..

offaly hurling in the last 25 years has always managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat to keep the show on the road...the rabbits have now all been killed off....... and for offaly to remain above the likes of antrim and laois (the top tier 3 teams as i see it) then radical changes are needed.

[The Magpie]

Thats the best post we've had on this whole Offaly Hurling issue. Very informative.

You should try to stay involved in this thread if you have more to add.

[Barracuda]

..........i mention the issue of finance because i have dealt at board level with offaly officials........and i do not wish to sound nasty, but one cannot hide the truth.... i and most other outsiders would be firmly of the view that offaly do things on the cheap...manager appointments, coaching academies,...all the items in which the offaly co board have to invest, decisions are generally based on the cheapest option not the best or most appropriate. through the sheer brilliance of players offaly had great success in the 80's and 90's in both codes....the board got lucky....now the chickens of non investment are coming home to roost. Now that the quality of the past is not on show in Offaly, one must be prepared to spectulate to accumulate....the offaly county board with their longstanding miserly approach and lack of commerial acumen(the jerseys just one example) will need a complete make over or else a long barren period is guaranteed.

Nail on ye head - Ya hit the nail on the head.
Its embarrasing year after year to see our finest young stars of the future being handed out a feckin t-shirt the nite before the first round of the championship, Okay so a set of gear etc doesnt make you a good hurler or footballer but for heavens sake it does give them a sense of belonging and pride.
We have seen too many examples of meaness from our County board to lasat a life time.
No kit provided for most or some of the back up people at all levels on our County teams, No training gear available for our minors while all around us team squads are looked after.
Just look at last years U21 Leinster final as another example of meaness of the highest degree, The Laois team properley decked out including the back room team rite down to the water boys with the occassion marked on all clothing (Leinster Under 21 Final 2007) and what does good old CT hand out to the lads - yep a set of old Offaly jerseys with the old crest on it!!! while I understand he received a new set for the occassion but decided to hold on to them for another time.
I ask any one come on here and justify that? The result of the game may have been the same but all involved in deciding to hold ont othe new set and dish out an old set with nothing on them to mark the occassion should be ashamed of themselves.
We are paying JD 0ver 350 a nite and PR ditto, but we wont look after our best assets- our players. Take the senior football panel, training since October and only got gear after 3 league games were played- a joke - not to mention expenses- or boots.
ah I could go on forever but it would only depress me further.......

[Offalys Future]

gggggggggggg

[DD]

[quote="Offalys Future"]
With regards to the sponsorship i am unsure of the exact figure but it isnt over 100k. A complete joke for 2008. [quote]

Is that true? It's appalling if it is.

[azoffaly]

What the Laois lad (spit ) says makes a lot of sense, and from reading the posts I think nigh on everybody accepts that things are not good enough. The obvious question now is what can we do about it? Are we just a bunch of internet geeks spouting and mouthing about things, or can we do something about it. I'm living away from Offaly at the moment, although I think I'm a paid up member of Ferbane. Are others here more involved at home? Can we get anything submitted to CB level? Or can we start with individual clubs? The Club AGMs are probably next christmas, so we have 9 months, and probably a couple of sickening performances in the summer to organise, lobby support and formulate ideas, if we want to. Do we want to?

By the way, I am totally in agreement with the 'mean' county board, but that's not started today or yesterday. Back when I was labouring away futiley, we never got so much as a polo shirt, togs or socks. I remember going to Keenan Sports in Athlone to buy Offaly socks before a game against Kildare or someone. Ridiculous. It's not going to turn you into a player, but you should be proud to play for your county, and getting free gear, free boots etc is part of that. Of course it shouldn't be the reason you are proud, but you should be made to feel as if you have achieved something, and that the county is behind you.

With regard to the mean county board in terms of paying managers etc, I'm a little conflicted here. I am totally against players getting paid for playing our games, by us. The grants scheme is still, for the moment, government money, so I have no major problem with it, apart from a few 'precedent' concerns which are for another day. However, it is very hypocritical in my opinion to be against players getting paid, yet be willing to call on the county board to pay big bucks for county managers. I can't reconcile those two things in my mind, so I'm not going to support any motion that calls for managers to be given big salaries on the approval of the county board. Even if the figures being bandied around for the current incumbents are correct, I'm not happy with it.

So..... I would pump money into places where it is morally right and just to do so. Employ full time coaches. No ethical dilemmas. That's their job. Let them go around coaching youngsters the skills of the game, and organising camps and programmes. 1 coordinator and up to 4 or 5 coaches at maybe 50k and 30k p.a. That's doable I think, and would be a serious step forward.

Then, when it comes to the inter county managers, I would only appoint someone who will claim expenses, accounted for and accountable. I realise this will rule us out of a big name manager, but maybe up and coming young coaches from nighbouring counties, or our own county, would take it, even as a stepping stone to 'bigger' pay days somewhere else.

It may be naive of me, but I just can't support the alternative.

Anyway, back to my first point. What do we do now?

[Over The Black Spot]

Please someone read the post from suckindiesel and see who else on this board he sounds like:
* johnny p took over castletown without them knowing he was the head honcho with the minors
* obsession qith academies
* Joe Dooley should never have got the job

A quick comment near the end disagreeing with Offalys Future to throw everyone off the scent, quiet sad to see someone posting under two aliases or getting a friend to post just to get a bit of back up.

A Laoisman with an indepth knowledge of the workings of the Offaly county Board and who paid such particular attention to what the Offaly Under-21s wore on Leinster Final day last year, I think not!!!!!!

[azoffaly]

Please someone read the post from suckindiesel and see who else on this board he sounds like:
* johnny p took over castletown without them knowing he was the head honcho with the minors
* obsession qith academies
* Joe Dooley should never have got the job

A quick comment near the end disagreeing with Offalys Future to throw everyone off the scent, quiet sad to see someone posting under two aliases or getting a friend to post just to get a bit of back up.

A Laoisman with an indepth knowledge of the workings of the Offaly county Board and who paid such particular attention to what the Offaly Under-21s wore on Leinster Final day last year, I think not!!!!!!

It's possible of course, but I doubt it. I remember, or I think I do, the same poster coming on board a couple of years ago before a Laois game, and he wasn't from Offaly. If he is from Laois then he could quite easily know the Castletown situation, and as for the Offaly Under 21s rig out, that was Barracuda that posted that.

Anyway, they are side points to the central topic. Something needs to change, and needs to change soon.

[DD]

Please someone read the post from suckindiesel and see who else on this board he sounds like:
* johnny p took over castletown without them knowing he was the head honcho with the minors
* obsession qith academies
* Joe Dooley should never have got the job

A quick comment near the end disagreeing with Offalys Future to throw everyone off the scent, quiet sad to see someone posting under two aliases or getting a friend to post just to get a bit of back up.

A Laoisman with an indepth knowledge of the workings of the Offaly county Board and who paid such particular attention to what the Offaly Under-21s wore on Leinster Final day last year, I think not!!!!!!

Nah, I couldn't see it..

Back to the sponsoship money though.. can anyone put a good figure on what we are getting from Carroll's?
If it's under the €100k mark as estimated by Offaly's Future, it's the single biggest Indictment against our County board. The bottom line is they/we can do f*ck all if that's all that's coming through the door..

[Lone Shark]

Thanks to an excellent post by suckindiesel I think we're getting into some good stuff here. I don't want to nitpick, but I'd just like to make a few points regarding the above - and this is not "shooting the messenger" by any stretch of the imagination.

(1) Complete agreement with regard to paid managers. I refuse to accept that there aren't men who have proven themselves in club hurling or football somewhere willing to make the step up in a county that is progressive but not lucrative. However we would have to adjust other elements of the structure somewhat. A guy like that is not going to prosper in an environment where he has to play politics just to survive.

(2) With regard to the sponsors, I'd like to pull the handbrake a little here before we get all indignant. First of all, any figures that are put on here without linked sources are speculation and let's not forget that. This is not intended to cast aspersions on the veracity of poster's claims, none of whom I have cause to doubt, but let's bear that in mind. Secondly I hope we're not confusing sponsorship with philanthropy here. With all due respect, much and all as we might like to believe otherwise, Laois football is miles ahead of where we are right now. They play in the top tier of the NFL (albeit not for much longer) the reached an All Ireland Under 21 final last year, they're about even money to reach the All Ireland Quarter Finals and they get all the extra national and local coverage that goes with that. While our hurlers are marginally higher profile than theirs, barring one televised under 21 game last year a sponsor would have nothing to show for it. Like it or not Laois right now are a much more valuable GAA commodity than we are and it is realistic to assume that they should get substantially more.

(3) Following on from the previous point, let's just assume that Carroll Cuisine do sign a cheque for €100k each year. Let's leave the Heritage Hotel out of this for a minute - is that really bad value from Offaly's point of view? Or to take it to another level, can we honestly say that Seamus Carroll is getting that money back through increased PR and exposure? Now I've been through so many careers that my time in marketing was fleeting to say the least, but without knowing what he gets in return, off the top of my head this seems more than fair. Perhaps it doesn't have the philanthropic add on that other counties might have, but is it realistic to base a future plan on the generosity of others?

(4) Equally I'd be circumspect before taking an animal farm esque view along the lines of "spending money like water = good, acting like Ebeneezer Scrooge saving the lump of coal = bad". It ain't that simple. To take one aspect, if Laois clubs are paying €80-€120 per night for buy in coaches, well not to put too fine a point on it, that's money that's leaving the GAA and is not really doing enough. That's not money well spent. Money spent training young lads to do things the right way and keep them interested is good, but flailing money at everything is neither the right solution nor practical either. I'd be in complete agreement however that the treatment of many of our young county teams has been shabby for a long time and better is required, while also I don't believe our current board is maximising potential revenue streams or anything close to it.

I'll get back to the rest of it later - great first post btw. I wouldn't be a subscriber to the "double identity" thing either, and even if it is, the points are still valid.

[DD]

(2) With regard to the sponsors, I'd like to pull the handbrake a little here before we get all indignant. First of all, any figures that are put on here without linked sources are speculation and let's not forget that. This is not intended to cast aspersions on the veracity of poster's claims, none of whom I have cause to doubt, but let's bear that in mind. Secondly I hope we're not confusing sponsorship with philanthropy here. With all due respect, much and all as we might like to believe otherwise, Laois football is miles ahead of where we are right now. They play in the top tier of the NFL (albeit not for much longer) the reached an All Ireland Under 21 final last year, they're about even money to reach the All Ireland Quarter Finals and they get all the extra national and local coverage that goes with that. While our hurlers are marginally higher profile than theirs, barring one televised under 21 game last year a sponsor would have nothing to show for it. Like it or not Laois right now are a much more valuable GAA commodity than we are and it is realistic to assume that they should get substantially more.

(3) Following on from the previous point, let's just assume that Carroll Cuisine do sign a cheque for €100k each year. Let's leave the Heritage Hotel out of this for a minute - is that really bad value from Offaly's point of view? Or to take it to another level, can we honestly say that Seamus Carroll is getting that money back through increased PR and exposure? Now I've been through so many careers that my time in marketing was fleeting to say the least, but without knowing what he gets in return, off the top of my head this seems more than fair. Perhaps it doesn't have the philanthropic add on that other counties might have, but is it realistic to base a future plan on the generosity of others?

Lone shark, We have been high profile long enough particularly as a dual county to be in a position to negotiate good sponsorship deals. I don't have an issue with what Seamus Carroll is coughing up, but I do have a problem if as I suspect, we are not actively pursuing other options.
I also beg to differ on the exposure Carrolls have got from Offaly GAA - you use the current situation when are teams are struggling but Carroll Meats/Cuisine are synonumous with the Offaly jersey - I'd say there's not a GAA follower in the country that doesn't associate with the name..
The sponsorship issue is like the many others with Offaly GAA, the lack of qualified coaches, the inadequate academies and all the other sitting on hands saying everything is going to be ok, but without it we can't move forward on the other issues.

[Bord na Mona man]

Carroll Cuisine were bought out by IAWS 4 years ago.
While they seem happy to continue the relationship with Offaly GAA, they might not be as generous.
Like any business, they will expect a return on their outlay and Offaly teams mightn't be great at delivering this.
In the late 90s, the Carroll Meats sponsorship was fairly generous compared to other counties.

Nowadays though, you have big international companies sponsoring GAA teams - Vodafone, O2.
Rich property developers - Menolly and Ballymore.
As well as the usual mix of beef barons and large food companies.

Offaly would need to:
a) Lever more money from the existing sponsors
b) Source a sugar daddy in the county. Perhaps someone like John Flanagan who got rich from rezoning and property development.
c) Find an international corporation who would sponsor - Cemex who have a base in Tullamore perhaps.

[azoffaly]

Maybe Fianna Fáil will sponsor us now?