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New Offaly under 21 management comprises of K/K's Stephen Byrne as manager, with Johnny Cleary (Birr) and Paudge Mulhare (St. Rynaghs) as his selectors.

Fair play to the county board,they wait until april to appoint a manager and then appoint a man with no experience!! take a bow county board

Unbelievable, no(maybe not!!). How can a man with so little experience (if any?) be given this job? OF is proven to be more correct with every decision that is made by the county board.

Very strange choice!! No team managment experience of note as far as I know, I thought Mulhare would have been
finished with teams after his illness last year. I suppose due to the awful preparation anyway it will hardly
make a difference to the overall outcome for the county 21's this year. Another year wasted for a good under 21 team.

are they back training?? any idea on panel??

This seems a very inexperienced management team? Any idea how they are getting on? Next few weeks should shae team ...club championship starting and college finishing.

Kildare beat Carlow 2-14 to 2-9 in Clane last night to qualify for the first round proper against Dublin.

Carlow had the strong wind in the first half and led 2-5 to 0-3 at the break. It took Kildare a while to get going in the second half, but the second of two goals within a few minutes midway through the half gave Kildare the lead and they drove on from there.

Some features of the game:-
Carlow had only seven of the minor team that reached the minor final three years ago. What’s happened?

Kildare draw mainly from the commuter belt - Celbridge, Leixlip, Confey, etc. Only one from Coill Dubh, who usually won the county title every year.

The side hurling into the wind withdrew a forward to act as an extra defender. Then the other side responded by bringing their forwards outfield under the puckout. This led to some amount of crowding, and at one Carlow second half puckout I counted six pairs of players lined across the Kildare 65m line!

One feature was the quality of the catching. Not just catching the dropping ball, but catching of a stick-pass driven hard at a teammate who’s 20 or 30 yards away, and it led to a number of scores. This was something Offaly and Wexford seniors had awful trouble with last Sunday.

Any thoughts on who’ll be on.

Currently on the senior panel –
James Dempsey
Daniel Currams
James Gorman
Conor Mahon
Derek Morkan
Stephen Wynne
Colm Coughlan
Brian Coughlan
Eanna Murphy
Mark Egan
Diarmuid Horan (gone to the US?)

Also from the minor team of three years ago:-
Donal Coughlan
James Mulrooney
Brian Leonard
Colin Egan
Aaron Whelahan
Ger Scales
Odhran Kealey (who surely would be an asset to the senior panel)
Eoin Kelly

Those who came to prominance on club hurling, off the top of me head:-
Barry Harding, Paul Quirke,

Any more idea what the team will be?
Kilkenny will have the advantage of having a warm-up game against Leix.
The Offaly management will need to be lightening quick in making the switches on the night.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/spo ... 37259.html

Stephen Byrne gets a bit more time this year!

Byrne gets another term with U21s
10 July 2009

Former county goalkeeper Stephen Byrne and his selectors will remain in charge of the Offaly under 21 hurlers for 2010.

Delegates at the July County Board meeting were informed that - having only been in charge for a short spell since their appointment in April - the management team should be given another opportunity.

Meanwhile, outgoing Offaly minor football manager Declan McGovern is still undecided about his future. McGovern has been at the helm for two years.

And a decision on the management of next year's Offaly under 21 football team is not imminent.

Good to see tis being dealt with early. I know I would have been critical of his lack of experience but they seemed to have done a reasonable job within a limited time frame.
They have time to work with/build a panel, and also work closely with the senior management to develope players properly. At least they will be able to identify players from the club championship.
We need the same urgency with u21 football now!