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Every leader in every organisation leaves with a legacy based on what has been done or overseen during their leadership. Mary Robinson oversaw the peace process, Ollie Daly the building of the stand in OCP. So what in yere opinion is Pat Teehan's legacy as chairman. What has been achieved under his tenure in charge (5 years).

Without trying to be overly negative, a starting point in any organisation moving forward is to recognise what is done well, what can be done better and how it might be done better. This could have an impact on what can be improved upon for the new man Padraig Boland so I urge people who are interested to weigh in with suggestions and comments on what they genuinely believe might help without having a local parish pump bitch about what has been going on....


Firstly, I would like to start on a positive. The building of the press box in OCP has been a master-stroke in terms of revenue and has been the reason for many top level televised games being brought to OCP. This revenue streaming can help pay some bills and if used properly can move OY forward in future years.


On a negative note in PT's reign has been the massive under-performance of underage hurling teams from minor and 21 level. For whatever reason, be it managerial personell, lack of talent (which i dont think is the case), mis management etc, it has been an absolute shambles and seen us hammered by Dublin and well beaten by wexford, westmeath and carlow at these grades. This has fed on to poorish senior teams where senior management has been trying to bridge a massive gap. I did feel that Joe Dooley had a good year one of the years he was there where there was some positivity......

The senior footballers too have been a shambles for the last no of years for whatever reason...mismanagement, managerial personnell, apathy amongst players which is possibly to do with previous. The two shining lights really were the performance of the 21's last year and the minors in 2010 in reaching the leinster minor final.....There should be a right good senior team there at the moment given that loads of lads would have played in leinster minor finals and hopefully Emmet MC Donnell will bring this to fruition......

So what are yere opinions on



1) Pat Teehan's legacy?

and

2) How things should move forward and how could things be improved under Padraig Boland?

what was Tommy Byrnes Legacy

Its very easy blame the Chairman. Everybody should take a critical look at what they did or did not do over the last five years. The Chairman is but one person and everything he wants to do must be approved by the County Board (which is the Clubs).

From the outside - it seems like Pat Teehan ran the meetings well and brought everything back on to an even keel! Other people may reap the benefits but Pat Teehan laid a decent foundation!!

I like the last appointment - Emmett McDonnell is one for the future, in the tradition of Diarmuid Healy and Eugene McGee. No coincidence that Father Heaney had a hand in selecting all of those.

Yes it's very easy blame the chairman (and the subtext there is that you feel there is something to blame him for?) however the buck still has to stop somewhere, and that's what Pat signed up for when he agreed to contest and take on the position. It's all very well to say that everyone has to play a part and that's true, however there's no point in pretending that the clubs in Offaly are hugely proactive - they aren't, and they tend to only speak and act from their own perspective. That's understandable because it's become a lot tougher to field teams, to find volunteers and to fund the day to day running of clubs, but at the same time the ultimate responsibility of the board of management is to put in place a vision for the development of gaelic games in the county, to get the clubs to buy into that vision and then to implement those changes. Yes, the clubs can occasionally block certain ideas and that's as it should be in a democratic organisation, but largely the board of management is still the engine for the county, and the chairman is the person who charts the overall course.


Pat had some real strengths and his ability to get on with people and to both avoid confrontation himself and indeed to steer others away from it meant that he was a good mediator. In terms of getting the county from one week to the next and dealing with problems as they came up, he was very effective. Whether it was his intention or not, the development of O'Connor Park appeared to take priority over the success of the county's teams over the past few years and that's manifested itself in the current situation, where we have probably the best ground in Leinster outside of Croke Park and yet we haven't won a Leinster title at minor, U21 or senior level since 2000. We don't have a huge mountain of debt and that's no small achievement after the madness of recent years, but we do have a shocking lack of training and development facilities for our county teams and several counties have passed us by in that regard too.

Legacy

A lack of real debate and his non confrontational manner are some of the key reasons why some of the appointments were made at certain levels, Richie Connor, in particular.
Clubs too were not challenged enough. And the only way out of the current mess is for the clubs to acknowledge there role in the level of coaching and conditioning they give their players, in order to prepare lads for the step up to county.
On that score, the fact that a lot of clubs are back training early is a plus, and also there are positive moves taking place by the county board on the underage coaching with the workshops that they are starting, driven by John Leahy and ALan Mullhall.

Club fixtures are still a concern.

I was hoping when i posted up that this would'nt be a negative post on Pat but a very real identification of what has been achieved during his term and a clear identification of what needs to be done in the next year or so by the present incumbents in power.

What are the key things that we should be hoping the county board would put in place to make us competitive again in hurling and football from minor through to senior?

He seems a decent chap, and I dont doubt that he genuinely tried his best. Also there are a lot of things that wouldn't directly have been his fault.
But there were appointments made that were not good enough.
Going forward, (to use that awful phrase!), we need a joined up approach to the way we want to prepare teams and play the game. That is not to say that we clone our coaches, but for the county board to put the structures in place to train the guys who wish to get involved in coaching.

Winter programmes for underage and senior players need to be put up on the Offaly website and access to information on diet and nutrition and guidelines for coaches, and reference material.
Thankfully there is progress being made in this regard by Leahy and Mulhall.

At county level, the revival of Club Faithful is a welcome development and County board should support and nurture this, and the clubs should get behind it.
Clubs need to look closely at the way they interact with each other also and support each others activities.
Parish teams may be the way forward, but there needs to be clear guidance on how these happen and the way they should be developed.

Underage development squads need to be looked at, I think that these are drifting back to parish pump, with coaches sons being sent in and lads pushing their own sons. Personally, I think a proper plan needs to be given to a wider range of players and support the clubs to implement these programs, and develop a wider base of players.
Strong efforts to make playing Gaelic football attractive in Offaly need to be made, especially underage, as threat of Rugby and soccer is huge. Opening up OConnor park to blitz games is vital and a welcome development and needs to be done in the early Summer.

I would leave judging Pat to others , but these are my thoughts , and the task for Padraig Boland is tough. But he is starting from scratch and has good support, now is his time to start as he means to go on.

A master tactician! Offaly never would have beaten London in the League in Tullamore a few years ago if they weren't starved before (and after) the game!!!