Michael Moynihan: Innocence lost between spinning chairs of hurling's managerial merry-go-round
On his way...somewhere: Liam Cahill is Waterford hurling manager no more. Pic: INPHO/Ryan Byrne
It would be wrong to say that this was the week when hurling followers lost their innocence, because that presumes there was some to lose in the first place.
Still, the week of an All-Ireland final is when those same hurling followers get a chance to preen. It usually comes after a couple of uninspiring football semi-finals (check) and in decent weather (check); the lead-in to the big day is a running celebration of the game.
Events these last few days have shown that cold calculation is as prevalent in hurling as it is anywhere else.
The dismissal of Colm Bonnar from Tipperary and the departure of Liam Cahill from Waterford within a couple of days of each other gave a lot of observers pause.
To start in Tipperary, for those used to seeing county boards move like stately, plump Buck Mulligans about their tasks, the speed shown in the Premier County was jarring. Colm Bonnar had made a detailed presentation about his plans for next year to the executive only to get his P45 by phone call soon afterwards.
To the southeast the dynamic was slightly different. The mood music around Liam Cahill continuing as manager had been encouraging, despite a disappointing championship. Waterford had won the league, after all, and Cahill himself had appeared on Sport Iris on TG4, appearing to commit himself to another year in Waterford.
“We are all very adamant that we will dust ourselves down and pick ourselves up and go again,” Cahill had told Dara O Cinneide on June 3rd.
“That’s what we do as players and management, and we can’t wait for next December to come around and get back on the horse again, and get going.”
Waterford GAA issued a terse statement at lunchtime yesterday, however, which opened with “Waterford GAA wish to announce that Liam Cahill has today informed Waterford County Board that he has decided not to take up the option of a fourth year as Manager of the Waterford Senior Hurling team.” It went on to add boilerplate thanks to Cahill and his backroom for their work and success; then we had the best wishes for the future and a process announced to appoint a new senior hurling management team.
Standard fare for such a release, but it differed significantly in one regard from the press release issued by the Tipperary County Board on Thursday morning. The latter made no reference to a process either beginning, or already underway, to appoint a new senior hurling management team.
Does this mean that Tipp officials had someone specific in mind when telling Bonnar he no longer had the job? Was the process further along, even, than ‘having someone specific in mind?
It’s an omission which will throw petrol on the fire for conspiracy theorists who will feel that Cahill’s departure comes at an extraordinarily appropriate time, just as his own county is seeking a new manager. The keenness of Tipperary officials to have Cahill come back and take over a senior team which is likely to be backboned by some of the U20s he enjoyed All-Ireland success with is completely understandable.
After all, they offered him the same job less than a year ago, an effort to lure away another county’s manager went curiously unremarked-upon at the time.
Your views on whether that offer contravened GAA etiquette - an area with vague parameters at the best of times - probably depend on your own county of origin: a Waterford supporter or official would probably have sharply defined opinions on that particular episode.
(One unexamined constituency here is the Tipperary hurling public, and their reaction to being spurned publicly by Cahill last year.) In retrospect that offer to Cahill certainly cast a shadow over Colm Bonnar’s tenure. The Cashel man was given a three-year term when he signed up, with an understanding that the team he took over would need to go through a period of transition and integration.
However, the willingness to ‘relieve him of his duties’ after just one year in charge makes a nonsense of the original agreement to manage for three years: if officials were agreeable to a three-year term then by definition a one-year period wasn’t enough time for Bonnar to put his plans into effect. His replacement will have to consider that precedent before accepting the job.
In Waterford itself there will be the usual list of runners and riders drawn up, but one key element is the age profile of their side, which is different to Tipperary’s. The key underage side in Waterford’s recent development were their minor team of 2013 and U21 side of 2016, which means many of those players are now in their late twenties and at their physical peak, but don’t have unlimited time at their disposal either.
Because of that their preferred manager profile will be different to the likes of Liam Cahill or another high-profile outsider in the Deise, Davy Fitzgerald. Both men were inexperienced at senior inter county level when taking over in Waterford: Fitzgerald went on to win the All-Ireland with a youthful side from his native Clare a couple of years later, a pathway Tipperary will be hoping Cahill follows.
But those appointments will now serve as a warning in Waterford - a warning in favour of picking someone with a track record with experienced teams rather than managers hoping to learn on the job before going back to their home counties to put valuable lessons to work with the talent in their native place.
Hence the loss of innocence. Even as hurling snobs yawn in the morning as they greet their favourite weekend in the year, one county’s followers may feel a little bruised by the ending of a relationship, and another county’s supporters may be a little queasy after the treatment of a favourite son.
The opposite of innocence is experience, and everyone is a little bit more experienced after the week just gone.
