Offaly county team managements 2014

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Fair enough the U16 mgt have done well, but might be jumping the gun a little, let them take another squad next year in u16. Pascal deserves another crack at Offaly, but I would keep an eye on how many Rhode players are in the squad!
Interesting to see who he brings in with him, and i hope he is a little more positive in his approach.

One thing that will have gone against last years mgt was the issue of guys playing rugby and soccer, and availability for training.

[Bord na Mona man]

A few different people I've spoken to reckon that Danny Owens will get the nod and the reason he'll edge out competitors is the Fianna Fail connection.
The county board obviously has a sprinkling of Fianna Fail stalwarts. The same goes for other groups like the Brewery Tap set, who are not directly involved in any process but might indirectly shape opinions.

This sounds like the sort of speculation that passes evenings in the pub, but it was strange to hear from different sources who are not directly connected to each other. Gossip aside, I'm sure Danny Owens will be in the shake up and if it was narrowed down to a short-list of about 4 names, I'd expect him to be on it.

[The Bogman]

A few different people I've spoken to reckon that Danny Owens will get the nod and the reason he'll edge out competitors is the Fianna Fail connection.
The county board obviously has a sprinkling of Fianna Fail stalwarts. The same goes for other groups like the Brewery Tap set, who are not directly involved in any process but might indirectly shape opinions.

This sounds like the sort of speculation that passes evenings in the pub, but it was strange to hear from different sources who are not directly connected to each other. Gossip aside, I'm sure Danny Owens will be in the shake up and if it was narrowed down to a short-list of about 4 names, I'd expect him to be on it.

Please, please, please no. Anybody else.

[GreatDayForTheParish]

If Danny Owens is the pick we'd be as well off concentrating on the rounders.

[joe bloggs]

Trappatoni!

[Toxicity234]

Danny Owens took Kilcormac/Killoughey for a pack of indiscipline, bad management, lazy, waste of talent, to a team that work there sock off, flight to the bit end in the right way and play with no little skill as well. Kilcormac Killoughey game plan has being the same for 18 months every player in the panel buy into it and fight for each other and very few team’s inside or outside the county has come within 6 points of them.

Danny Owen should get a lot more respect on this web site for the job he has done with Kilcormac Killoughey. Someone on here compared him to Pat-Joe Whelhan and Birr. Pat-Joe was a good manager and his time in Limerick was more about limerick hurlers ego than Pat-joe management. And that Birr team had lads that had won All-Ireland at most levels where Kilcormac/Killoughey lads had won little outside of Offaly until Danny Owens took over.
They is a little bit of me think it that some people don’t want him to get the job because he from Kilcormac/Killoughey. If Offaly Hurlers hurled with the passion, brains and work rate that Kilcormac Killoughey have we could well be in an All Ireland final Sunday week.
If he get the job I be happy that we have someone who loves Offaly Hurling and knows how to set up a team. If he does get the job Offaly Hurling Clubs, Players and Hurling Supporters should get behind him.

Ken Hogan would be another good manager. knows the county well, set up his teams well and his teams play without fear. i would be happy to see him as Offaly manager. if he does get the job Offaly Hurling Clubs, Players and Hurling Supporters should get behind him.

Martin Fogarty has a name that has pop up over the last few day and word has it that he would be interested in the job. He is a man that has serve his time under Brian Cody and could well be a good manager. he has a very good reputation but would he be able to deal with the attitude that some clubs have developed, He would have never had to deal with that in Kilkenny. My only problem with him being picked is that he his might not have seen a lot of Offaly club hurling. But if he does get the job Offaly Hurling Clubs, Players and Hurling Supporters should get behind him.

Eddie Brennan. Well i'm sure how to approach this one. I have the feeling in 5 year time he will be a very good manager for some team but Offaly shouldn't be use as a learning curve for him. for me he would be a great Coach or Selector at the moment. But if he does get the job Offaly Hurling Clubs, Players and Hurling Supporters should get behind him.

Francis Forde. Forde is a great Coach. Again I don’t know how good a manager he would be. He knows Offaly Hurling well. I won’t be unhappy to see him as manager of Offaly. But if he does get the job Offaly Hurling Clubs, Players and Hurling Supporters should get behind him.

There have being a few thing that have to be point out at the moment.

Firstly, No Club in the County is Bigger than Offaly and this is something that a few clubs in Offaly have forgotten. This can be seen with the attitude of their players, that never a good sign.

Secondly, Appoint any manager without the proper support team around him will lead to nothing good. It’s the Management Team that important.
And I love to see the county board announce an management team and not just a manager for a change, so whoever get the manager job. We should be look for the Like of Michael Duignan, Eugene Coughlin, Danny Cahill, Francis Forde, Martin Hanney and Joe Errity as selector and coaches.

Personally I like to see a management team of

Manager: Danny Owens Or Ken Hogan,
Coach: Danny Cahill or Francis Forde
Selector: Michael Duignan, Eugene Coughlin and Joe Errity .

[jimbob17]

I dont think people are dissing Danny Owens to be fair and generally people would have a great respect for what Owens has achieved with KK. However, itd be also thought in KK and outside that Jimmy Dunne would have to take a large chunk of kudos for their success also...... Owens would be known to be a traditionalist and while that will get you so far at club level, it wont at county senior in the modern game......

That said, there is no reason why he couldnt do well with offaly with the right people around him. Owens as manager with a modern thinking coaching set up with good backroom people could work very well for Offaly as it has been stated here that it is more about the management team and less about the actual manager... there is talent there now there is no doubt.... it is about getting the most out of the players now that matters and whoever is in charge, this will be their main challenge.....

[boomcha]

Nothing against the third member of management in the KK senior team but if your gonna get Danny Owens then you gotta get Jimmy Dunne too.

[Lone Shark]

Danny Owens took Kilcormac/Killoughey for a pack of indiscipline, bad management, lazy, waste of talent, to a team that work there sock off, flight to the bit end in the right way and play with no little skill as well. Kilcormac Killoughey game plan has being the same for 18 months every player in the panel buy into it and fight for each other and very few team’s inside or outside the county has come within 6 points of them.

As some readers on this site will know, I've recently moved into a new house and I couldn't say enough good things about the painter we got to do all the internal paint work. He was meticulous, hard working, well priced and took no short cuts. I'd recommend him to anyone.

That doesn't mean I'd hire him tomorrow to do some electrical or plumbing work.


What I'm driving at there in a roundabout way is that saying Danny Owens has done a good job with Kilcormac-Killoughey is both accurate and fair, but it doesn't qualify him to take on the Offaly job, which is a completely different type of task. K-K were a disheveled mess when he took over and he got a talented bunch of hurlers fit, strong and ready to work hard for each other. You couldn't say that they do anything extraordinary in terms of tactics, but the fact that they have good capable hurlers in every position and almost every hurler is able to win their own ball and do something good with it when they have it means that they don't have to.

It also has to be said that when it comes to injuries, they've been incredibly fortunate. I'd say they've had 13/14 first stringers fit for every game in the last two years, which is incredible when you consider the amount of games that some of them have played at club, intercounty, football and hurling, adult and underage. In fact their only loss came in the only game where one of their front line hurlers was unfit to start. This year their intermediate hurlers have gone through a long campaign and I'd say if they've lost one or two hurlers to the senior panel in that time, that was the height of it.

Finally, managing K-K takes very little by way of decision making on the sideline. Essentially once the ball is thrown in, management's work is done. If somebody gets tired or hurt they replace them, but you can be pretty confident that the 3-6-9-11-14 axis will be largely the same at the end as it was when the game started, while there won't be too many other changes on the fringes. The move of James Geraghty to midfield for the semi-final felt like the first switch I'd seen K-K make in a central role in forever. Again, lest there be any doubt here, this isn't meant as a criticism of Owens or his selectors. If it's not broke, don't meddle with it, he's right to let good hurlers continue to do their job in a settled fashion.

Where K-K are now - i.e. fit, strong, capable, committed and united, with a very settled team - is more or less the starting point for the Offaly county team at the moment. We've all made some criticisms of the Offaly hurlers over the past few years, but no-one could argue that they haven't been physically ready for championship hurling in the summer. Where they've fallen down has been in a lack of tactical innovation, some poor decisions from the sideline, and in their mental ability to close out some strong positions, or to deal with some setbacks. (e.g. vs Waterford this year, vs Galway last year) This is the deficit that needs to be addressed. We don't need someone to round up a bunch of underperforming miscreants. Essentially we'd be hiring Owens on the strength of his proven ability to do all the things we don't need, and despite his lack of experience in all the areas where we do need help.

I had a good chat with Colin Egan for an Offaly Indo piece a few weeks ago and a lot of what he said was revealing. Of course he's just one voice, but he spoke about how the panel all knew that they had to be back in the gym in October, how there were different programmes that needed to be completed before the start of the league and again in between league and championship, how they know what they need to do and that they didn't need to be led like children to do their work. He also said that pre match belief hasn't been an issue, even in advance of the game against Kilkenny. Where he felt the shortfall existed was in terms of a tactical plan to maximise the resources that Offaly had, and the ability to make changes as a game progressed in order to respond to what was happening on the field. He wasn't looking for us to mimic what Davie Fitz is doing in Clare, but to implement a similarly planned out approach, designed to take full advantage of the skill set within the county.

When I listened to him, and when I read that opening line from Toxicity above (please tell me you took that username from SOAD btw!) I realised that Owens might be a good Offaly manager, but not for the senior hurlers. For the senior footballers, maybe.

That said, Owens hasn't demonstrated a lack of ability at "next level management" - but I would say that when it comes to modern intercounty hurling, he'd be the inexperienced one, not someone like Eddie Brennan - for example.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Good posts by Toxicity and Lone Shsark.
But lets face it, if I was hiring Danny or Eddie, how is there an argument in favour of Eddie in terms of experience?
Yes he has won more and trained under Brian Cody. Unfortunately this does not mean anything in the modern world.

Danny has done well for KK, Eddie has hurled at the highest level under the best management in the game, but what we need now is a manager who is experienced on the intercounty scene and give hime the back up team that he needs to do the job in the modern game. We have a limited window with our senior team at the moment, a good level of talent and a proper level of tactics and direction to maximise performance. And we have some guys on the periphery who need to rejoin the squad.
Who ticks these boxes lads?

My point is, if Danny gets the job, will some of our senior players (rightly or wrongly!) see it as a lack of ambition on the part of the county board and decide they have enough. Or if he gets the job, will he have a backroom team that will encourage the senior players to come back in for another year?

Thats one of the key things that needs to be answered in advance.

I could not criticise Danny Owens if he got the job, and other than some lads putting up claims that he may get the role on political allegiances (could this possibly happen??), some of the negativity is very unfair.

[Lone Shark]

My point is, if Danny gets the job, will some of our senior players (rightly or wrongly!) see it as a lack of ambition on the part of the county board and decide they have enough. Or if he gets the job, will he have a backroom team that will encourage the senior players to come back in for another year?

Thats one of the key things that needs to be answered in advance.

Key point certainly. However the unfortunate part of this is that you can argue till the cows come home about how whoever gets the job should be given a chance - a truism that no-one can debate - if the man that is installed is perceived by the players to be the wrong choice, too much damage will be done by the time the man in question gets around to proving otherwise. For example if a certain man is given the job and the players decide that there's not much chance of impovement, then you could see a scenario where Rory Hanniffy has retired, Shane Dooley has emigrated, Conor Mahon and Seán Ryan have decided to concentrate on football, David Kenny takes a year out to deal with long term injuries and a handful of others have decided not to answer a call up to the squad all before he even gets a chance to introduce himself. In that environment, it wouldn't matter if the new manager was the best person we could have hired - he's working with half a team and poor results will follow.

I'd like to stress there that I haven't spoken to any of the players named above and I have no reason to believe that any of them would respond like that, I'm just hypothesising!

It might not be fair to say certain people are the wrong call before anything happens, but it's no less true.

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

I would be of the opinion that Danny would be better employed doing the good work he is soing with KK. There is a potential pool of talent for Offaly to come through that club over the coming years, and now is a vital time for them.
Likewise, it is important that our main clubs are supported to develope talent as much as possible.

So imo, the key now is, getting a guy who the players perceive is someone who can help them to deliver success, and that he gets the backroom support that can deliver a more focussed tactical approach.
But in addition, now is the time for a real focus on what the clubs are doing to bring through players and how they are ready to step up to county level.There is good experience available to clubs at the moment from the county board and they should avail of it. Basically underage structure development.

[lovelyhurling]

I can tell you here lads that Danny Owens will definitely not be getting the Offaly job.

[jimbob17]

Surely he should be considered as a candidate..... It would be a well known fact that Brian Cody isnt the most progressive hurling coach at all.... in fact he is very much a traditionalist but as a good leader, he has the capacity to get the most out of people and has surrounded himself with very good backroom people.... Could Owens not achieve too with the right people with him???

[Sharp Eye]

It will be huge challenge for Offaly to acquire the services of a top inter-county standard hurling manager. Due to our very poor underage structures, Offaly have performed very poorly at minor and under 21 level for the past 10 yrs. I do not believe that the Offaly Co Board are willing to pay for the top quality support (sports science qualified personnel etc ) that most modern managers now expect to have. Offaly hurlers do not have any training facilities as O'Connor Park does not seem to be available during winter & spring. I think they are dependant on clubs and Crinkle Barracks. No modern manager wants to have to ring club officials for use of a pitch. Clubs naturally do not wish to have their pitches destroyed by county panels training on them, when weather conditions are unsuitable.