Offaly Senior Footballers - Planning for 2025, Mickey Harte onboard

[frankthetank]

The man is 72 years of age.. at least he has clubber so he can watch the games at home.

Pretty ageist comment there I have to say.

[The Biff]

And don’t mind the “Joint Managers” nonsense. We all know who will have the Casting Vote if required.

[Anonymous1]

And don’t mind the “Joint Managers” nonsense. We all know who will have the Casting Vote if required.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall when the first of these casting votes are required which will probably come as soon as the panel is being collated.

[biffinbanner]

puzzling to me. are the players there? the u20s largely never came on. niall mac is gone and no one to replace him. the 2 cians seem to be plagues with injurys . and joint managers seldom work.tyrone broke the mould but... seems to me they didnt want to fire dk.or hadnt the guts to.

[ruletheroost]

Did you forget his time at Louth?

Ger Brennan hasn’t done badly with them either. They have a good crop of players. DK will still influence who he thinks is and isn’t “from good stock”

Ger hasn't done badly with what Mickey left him.

Mickey took them over in Division 4, got them back to back promotions and then a third place finish in division 2 along with a first Leinster final appearance since 2010.

That's a seriously impressive record.

Yeah you’re right.. it’s pretty impressive. And I wouldn’t have minded Mickey Harte getting the job with a good back room staff.. but why hold onto Kelly.

[TerraceTalk]

Straight out of left field.. I’m stunned with this one. Can see the pros and cons but I don’t think I’m alone in thinking this leaves more questions than answers..
If we could only see the players WhatsApp group this evening

[G91]

It's a big appointment all the same, he's produced something decent wherever he's gone , he's an all ireland winning senoir manager if that doesn't attract lads to come into the panel then we might aswell forget about it

[Anonymous1]

puzzling to me. are the players there? the u20s largely never came on. niall mac is gone and no one to replace him. the 2 cians seem to be plagues with injurys . and joint managers seldom work.tyrone broke the mould but... seems to me they didnt want to fire dk.or hadnt the guts to.

I would say the players are still there but they've needed something to buy into.

We were a kick of a ball from a Leinster final 12 months ago and battled relatively well in Division 2 the year before that.

Bringing Mickey in tells me they recognised they couldn't go into another season with DK and pretend all was well but at the same time didn't have it in them to do what was needed and sack him so we've end up with a half way house.

My question would be what exactly does DK add to Mickey?

[Anonymous1]

Ger Brennan hasn’t done badly with them either. They have a good crop of players. DK will still influence who he thinks is and isn’t “from good stock”

Ger hasn't done badly with what Mickey left him.

Mickey took them over in Division 4, got them back to back promotions and then a third place finish in division 2 along with a first Leinster final appearance since 2010.

That's a seriously impressive record.

Yeah you’re right.. it’s pretty impressive. And I wouldn’t have minded Mickey Harte getting the job with a good back room staff.. but why hold onto Kelly.

The million dollar question.

I'm sure Mr.Chairman will be forthcoming to speak with the media and explain the rationale.

[ruletheroost]

Ger hasn't done badly with what Mickey left him.

Mickey took them over in Division 4, got them back to back promotions and then a third place finish in division 2 along with a first Leinster final appearance since 2010.

That's a seriously impressive record.

Yeah you’re right.. it’s pretty impressive. And I wouldn’t have minded Mickey Harte getting the job with a good back room staff.. but why hold onto Kelly.

The million dollar question.

I'm sure Mr.Chairman will be forthcoming to speak with the media and explain the rationale.

He will yeah.. but you have to have been in an inter county dressing room!!

[greenairfield]

Great appointment for us!

[Behindthegoal]

I’ll tell you what he adds to Mickey absolutely zero! Lads we lost to London by 14 the worst result In Offaly Gaa history and never won a game in the tailteann cup it was Offaly footballs worst ever season and they were too afraid to remove DK it’s spineless. He fell out with half of the team our best player over the last few seasons Dylan hyland didn’t show up to their last match like seriously what does that tell you about the relationship with DK?

If you want Mickey Harte make him the manager and get his own back room team simple as. So now you have two joint managers who can’t coach the team. Who are the coaches and selectors going to be? This ticket will cost a fortune and we will look back in years and say what was the point of that only some national media attention because it’s Mickey Harte?

He has great success in Louth but if you listen to the Louth players it was Gavin Devlin his right hand man who done all the coaching and mickey facilitated everything he has now gone back into Louths underage setup. Mickey took over a team who were a kick of a ball away from an all-Ireland final and lost the dressing room within 6 months, he was Tyrone manager for over 10 years after the won their last all Ireland clearly underachieving and holding them back the whole county wanted him out and the first year after he left Tyrone won the all Ireland in 21.

He’s also over 70 years old for the amount of money this is going to cost and the conflict of still having DK hanging around I’m not sure this is worth it. Mickey plays and overly defensive style of play is that really what we are good at or what we need? Especially with the new rule changes imminent to promote kicking and attacking play? This could go horribly wrong lads!!

[ruletheroost]

Great appointment for us!

It could have been.

[Bord na Mona man]

I'd be surprised if both Declan Kelly and Mickey are still joint managers in a year's time.
It is a punt in that regard. A lot can go wrong, mainly around personalities and allocation of duties.
In the heat of a match and Mickey thinks a player should be subbed off and Declan wants him left on...

Michael Duignan wrote about the time he came in to work alongside Mike McNamara in 2004. In the Leinster final that year, they were arguing over their headsets about a switch and Mike Mc turned his off, so the change never happened.

In the broader scheme, Offaly currently look like a permanent Division 3 team with no obvious prospect of shooting up.
To execute a successful promotion campaign, Offaly need to be winning 3 games comfortably and winning 3 more tight games on top of that.
Squeaking a couple of wins and a couple of more 'should haves' has been the typical outcome this last decade.
Will the Mickey factor give Offaly the short term boost to get out of Division 3? It could do, yes.

[ruletheroost]

The County Board knew they were under huge player pressure with DK and this was the only way to try and get them back on side. Will it work. Only time will tell.