Kilmurray staying on.

[Lone Shark]

This has been done to death really, but .......

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Kevin Kilmurray will be continuing as Offaly football manager next year, despite the county’s early championship exit.

The Daingean native sat down with Offaly GAA chiefs last week to discuss and evaluate his first season in charge and the question of whether he would remain on as manager never even arose.

Kilmurray came in for criticism from fans after Offaly’s championship losses to Laois and Carlow. But his position won’t come up for review until next year’s campaign is over because of a commitment given by the county board in the wake of last year’s controversial players’ strike.

This means that the only way Kilmurray was not going to be in charge in 2006 was if he resigned his post and he was determined not to do that. He takes tremendous encouragement from the team’s low age profile, pointing out: "You have Shane Sullivan who’s only 20, Niall McNamee is 19, his brother Alan is only 23 while Karol Slattery and Scott Brady are still in their early twenties."


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As I've mentioned before, if Kilmurray is willing to sit down over the winter and analyse what went on and really learn from his mistakes, it's probably as good an option as the alternative - boot out another guy and lose all our credibility. He really needs to do this though. We can't afford more years like this just gone.

[OffalyManAway]

I supppose all ye know this but it's worth remembing that Eugene McGee's first year in charge of Offaly was marked by a first round championship exit. And, he got only one round further each year up to winning in '82.
If Kilmurray gets us to a Leinster Semi next year, will he be given a third year ? Should he be ? Slow progress is better than no progress, no ?.

Personally I dont think a good run in the qualifiers means anything. I'd be much happier with getting to a Leinster Semi Final and losing, than beaten in the first round and win three qualifiers.

[Ron]

Personally I dont think a good run in the qualifiers means anything. I'd be much happier with getting to a Leinster Semi Final and losing, than beaten in the first round and win three qualifiers.

I would agree to a certain extent, but I do this that a good run in the qualifiers would've set us up perfectly to challenge in Leinster next year, and to sort out some of the problems we have.

There will be an onus on Kilmurray to deliver next year. It might help the players to at least know what the set-up will be. What about the defectors in the panel? Will they return? We need Grennan back. Staying up in Division 1 will be difficult again.

[Muck Savage]

You have to remember though McGee came up against two of the best teams ever in Kerry and Dublin. He spent a couple of years having a pot at Dublin and then the same at Kerry. Kilmurry is in a different boat.

I really think this is a disaster. The players are not happy with him so how many of them will give the committment next year. Their fittness was well below par this year, was more like a team from the early 80's. Teams now need to be mad fit. He has to hold the can on this one. His decisions in the two Championship games were very poor, slow and in most cases wrong. He talks about the young lads but still when push came to shove he opted to bring on the older lads.

What I can't figure out is why our great County board never even mentioned the axe in the meeting. Compare Fahey last year, Promoted the team to Div 1, got beat by a wide in the Championship (and he didn't f up any changes), beat Kildare in the qualifiers before going out and most imortant had a united, fit team behind him. This year we lose to Laois (granted a good team), manage to hang in Div 1, get beat by Carlow and had below par fittness team that do not stand behind him. Where's the logic? I don't mean to be bringing up the Fahey thing but this County Board are usless.

I'm very disapointed as this is a great bunch of lads, similar to what we had in '95/96 but needs the right man in charge to break through. Mark my words, we'll be here in a year crying again when Waterford beat us in the qualifiers!

[OffalyManAway]

What happened Fahy was a disgrace - no doubt.
But two (or three !) wrongs don't make a right .

[TheManFromFerbane]

I am the first to admit that I am not a fan of Kevin Kilmurry, (granted I could be biased in this opinion) as already stated I feel he is too slow in making decisions and usually goes to the older lads in favour of his promising youth coming through.

However in saying that we lost to loais on the back of shocking wides and a dropped ball in the square, and I think this was the reason we were so bad, not due to a lack of fitness, in fact I reckon this could have been one of the fittest teams we've had in a while, I was at a good few trainings and the intensity was top notch. In my opinion we lost to carlow because we just didnt want to win enough. Offaly were all out to win a Leinster, when you miss out on that so narrowly its hard to motivate a team to get going again. In fact the only thing you have left to play for is the pride in your jersey, which I reckon is a big enough thing to play for, and thats why the loss against carlow was so disappointing, (bar a select few) we just had no heart or pride in ourselves

[Lone Shark]

While I don't contend for a minute that Kilmurray is the best man to be in charge of this Offaly side, the truth is we are in the situation we are in and there's no point crying over it. Gerry Fahy should not have been fired - certainly. I was even more annoyed when Paul O'Kelly was - I firmly believe we'd be in a great position now if he was still in charge.

However they were fired, like it or not, and we have to deal with the situation we find ourselves in now. That situation is that we have a manager who has not covered himself in glory, who has lost the faith of a lot of players, but hopefully will learn from the year go by. If the option is keep him, and restore our credibility as a county who won't just fire every manager who doesn't win Leinster in year 1, and maybe be in a better position to get a good guy in in 2007, as opposed to fire him and be stuck with another novice and cement our reputation as managerial graveyard, I'd pick the former option as the lesser of two evils.

I do suspect that 2006 might be short on good news though.