Pat Nolan doesn't spare timber here:
http://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/gaa/pat ... n-10786128
Pat Nolan column: Pat Flanagan farce is just tip of the iceberg in Offaly
On Friday it emerged that the Offaly Hurling Implementation Committee had stepped down
Amid the fallout surrounding Pat Flanagan, a far greater controversy in Offaly GAA slipped under the radar.
Could Flanagan’s departure as senior football manager have been handled better? Possibly. Was it the biggest scandal to have hit Offaly GAA in recent years? It wasn’t even the biggest of last week.
On Friday it emerged that the Offaly Hurling Implementation Committee, chaired by Liam Hogan and containing other former Offaly hurlers of more recent vintage in Brian Carroll, David Kenny and Michael Verney, among others, had stepped down.
It’s a tribute to these people’s patience that it took so long before it finally cracked.
After a dismal showing in the 2014 Championship, the Offaly Hurling Review Committee was formed in the hope of reviving the county’s flagging fortunes.
Diarmuid Healy, who inspired their breakthrough in the 80s, was brought on board though he and others eventually quit in frustration at the county board.
Hogan remained and spearheaded the production of the Offaly Hurling Pathway, a 39-page document which was officially submitted to the county board on April 1, 2015.
The report wasn’t acted on, however, as the board sat on its hands before it was leaked to several media outlets, including this one, a full 13 months later, belatedly humiliating the board into adopting it.
The Offaly Hurling Implementation Committee, comprising many of the same members as the review committee, was then established to roll out the pathway report, with Carroll’s appointment as director of hurling coaching a cornerstone of the project.
Initially, things appeared to be progressing well before the resurfacing of the board’s lack of tolerance for the committee, which felt repeatedly undermined.
Carroll produced a thoroughly in-depth player pathway document for players aged from four to 18 but even requesting something as simple as uploading it on the Offaly GAA website proved to be an exhausting challenge before it was finally acted upon.
A clear the air meeting was held on May 9, at which the need for communication between the committee and the board to improve dramatically was stressed. That the committee didn’t hear from an elected board official thereafter proved to be a tipping point.
Another was the lack of progress with underage development squads, for whom Athlone IT was to oversee strength and conditioning having entered an arrangement with Offaly GAA.
The committee questioned the sparsity of work being carried out in this regard and learned only last week that the individual responsible for rolling out this process in the college had moved on several months ago, with no adequate replacement to work with the Offaly underage players.
With this, they felt their position was no longer tenable.
Offaly GAA receives a €40,000 grant from the Leinster Council which is supposed to go towards AIT’s S&C work, so where is this money is going?
It’s one of a number of questions that Mirror Sport has put to Offaly GAA only to be told there would be no response, as the county’s flagship hurling teams continue to fall well off the pace.
While there are very capable people involved with Offaly GAA, some are hopelessly overworked or asked to be a square peg in a round hole. For the past year the county has had no PRO.
A fish rots from the head.
At the end of 2016, outgoing secretary Tommy Byrne was reappointed as chairman 12 years after first holding the position, when a player strike broke out in frustration at a number of issues, including the treatment of managers.
You could describe his re-election as Offaly’s Donald Trump moment but that would be wholly unfair on the US electorate.
At least they could claim they didn’t quite know what they were letting themselves in for.