Next Manager

[Bord na Mona man]

Well done to the Leitrim County Board in moving swiftly to appoint Mickey Moran and John Morrison as their new management team.

Can Offaly's board take a leaf. Can finances be any less of an issue for Leitrim than it is for Offaly.

Hard to know.
Counties like Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan etc have a tradition of most people leaving for employment reasons. This tend to produce lads who moved to Dublin years ago as building labourers and ended up coining it as property developers, publicans and hoteliers during the boom.
In Offaly there wasn't the same need to migrate with more local employment and perhaps consequently there are less JR Ewing types lighting their cigars with €5 notes!

Even if there isn't a sugar daddy, it is wise to have a man in place before the winter.
I would hope that whoever gets the Offaly job is already watching club matches closely.
We simply can't have some fella taking over in January, picking up a few match programmes and picking his panel based on the previous one.

If there is going to be a proper clean out, Offaly needs to get a manager appointed early. Not have months of commitee meetings to appoint commitees who appoint sub-commitees to look into the matter.
When Tommy Lyons took over for the 1997 championship, the first club match he attended was Clara vs Shannonbridge - the '96 quarter final.
From watching these matches he realised how overweight and unfit the typical Offaly footballer was (Those who claims Offaly club football is now at an all time low should bear this in mind btw)

Over the winter he ran the pounds off them and got them properly prepared to win a Leinster title.
This sort of early intervention is needed. Not what Pat Roe did. "Here lads, do a bit of work the gym yerselves over the winter".

[gutless08]

Well done to the Leitrim County Board in moving swiftly to appoint Mickey Moran and John Morrison as their new management team.

Can Offaly's board take a leaf. Can finances be any less of an issue for Leitrim than it is for Offaly.

your bang on there bare biffo.wait for the excuses to roll

[suckindiesel]

A couple of points that may interest some of you in the "management hunt/appointment" silly season.

i was present last night at a laois football board meeting convened to discuss & tease out a new manager and accept nominations(if any) from the clubs. this meeting was in fact a cosmetic exercise because already a number of candidates have been sounded out and others eliminated. take it from me that glen ryan is not a runner, neither is luke dempsey and pat roe will get the courtesy of an interview but alas no job.

a number of board members have been asked to sound out possible candidates. as part of that procedure along with another delegate, i approached and met with 2 fairly big name candidates. both outsiders to the county, and having an intercounty management pedigree. i was struck instantly by their number one question to us, namely how much were they going to get paid. that hinted to me where their priorities rested. in passing one of these potential candidates mentioned that he had been approached by offaly but was insulted by the remuneration package he was offered. now like a lot of gaels, whether you are from offaly westmeath laois, location immaterial, it does annoy to see money leaked in vast quantities to managers, many of whom have no performance related clause. i can guarantee you that the laois manager for the past 2 years was averaging 3 times the "exs"(they dont get a salary of course) of pat roe. supporters will tolerate a high expense account if there is some degree of success, no success and the sugar daddies vote with their wallets.

as i write i would be 95% certain that the next laois manager will be an internal manager, one not in the least concerned with renumeration. whether this manager will offer the supporters and sugar daddies the outlook of optimist is debatable.

so returning to offalys quest for a manager, a bright young but unproven coach could be worth a gamble, rather than a journeyman manager(like maughan). the trouble the offaly county board would have is convincing the supporters and financiers that such a gamble would be a cause for optimism.

finally to correct the lone shark, tommy keane via the heritage group may sponsor laois gaa, he has not been main financier of the laois gravy train. micko and kearns were primarily backed by the funding of other private individuals.

[Lone Shark]

finally to correct the lone shark, tommy keane via the heritage group may sponsor laois gaa, he has not been main financier of the laois gravy train. micko and kearns were primarily backed by the funding of other private individuals.

My apologies - happy to accept that correction, I was misinformed. It doesn't change my core point though, that being that these big name managers were being financed by non-sustainable means, and there's no point sitting here saying that Offaly should have some of these benefactors. We probably don't, and if we do, we should be working on channelling their generosity in worthwhile and legitimate directions such as academies, eliminating penny pinching with the players, gym programmes and the like. Not ridiculous "expenses" for some messiah.



I do agree that at this stage the new management team must include at least one member who has been watching the club championships with Offaly 2009 in mind. I wouldn't be unduly worried if that person is not necessarily the main man, as long as they are strong enough to get their point across, to forcefully argue the case for players who are worthy of inclusion and equally to brook no argument with regard to players who have not contributed sufficiently at county level in recent seasons and show no signs of improvement domestically either.

[turk]

A couple of points that may interest some of you in the "management hunt/appointment" silly season.

i was present last night at a laois football board meeting convened to discuss & tease out a new manager and accept nominations(if any) from the clubs. this meeting was in fact a cosmetic exercise because already a number of candidates have been sounded out and others eliminated. take it from me that glen ryan is not a runner, neither is luke dempsey and pat roe will get the courtesy of an interview but alas no job.

a number of board members have been asked to sound out possible candidates. as part of that procedure along with another delegate, i approached and met with 2 fairly big name candidates. both outsiders to the county, and having an intercounty management pedigree. i was struck instantly by their number one question to us, namely how much were they going to get paid. that hinted to me where their priorities rested. in passing one of these potential candidates mentioned that he had been approached by offaly but was insulted by the remuneration package he was offered. now like a lot of gaels, whether you are from offaly westmeath laois, location immaterial, it does annoy to see money leaked in vast quantities to managers, many of whom have no performance related clause. i can guarantee you that the laois manager for the past 2 years was averaging 3 times the "exs"(they dont get a salary of course) of pat roe. supporters will tolerate a high expense account if there is some degree of success, no success and the sugar daddies vote with their wallets.

as i write i would be 95% certain that the next laois manager will be an internal manager, one not in the least concerned with renumeration. whether this manager will offer the supporters and sugar daddies the outlook of optimist is debatable.

so returning to offalys quest for a manager, a bright young but unproven coach could be worth a gamble, rather than a journeyman manager(like maughan). the trouble the offaly county board would have is convincing the supporters and financiers that such a gamble would be a cause for optimism.

finally to correct the lone shark, tommy keane via the heritage group may sponsor laois gaa, he has not been main financier of the laois gravy train. micko and kearns were primarily backed by the funding of other private individuals.

Great post