Michael Moynihan: Managers - thanks for the talking points

One manager moves on, another manager steps in, yet nothing can hold back the tide of management commentary, management-adjacent commentary, management-approximate commentary

One manager moves on, another manager steps in, yet nothing can hold back the tide of management commentary, management-adjacent commentary, management-approximate commentary.

It flows on like a lovely river, flowing gently along (which is ironic, because the song that’s from celebrates a county which has had little manager-commentary for almost quarter of a century.)

A recap! Last Friday afternoon the outgoing Kerry football manager Peter Keane made the ultimate GAA power play: He released a statement on his situation.

(Note: It’s always been interesting that the terminology for issuing a formal comment in this way is the same as that used when an animal is allowed back into the wild. Just an observation.)

Last Friday evening the incoming Tipperary hurling manager, Colm Bonnar, announced his management team with... yes, a statement circulated by the Premier’s county board.

At on or about the same time the Kildare footballers got a new manager, Glenn Ryan, though we weren’t blessed with a forma statement on that one.

That was just one day’s news generated by managers.

Earlier in the week we had Larry O’Gorman commenting on Davy Fitzgerald, recently departed as Wexford senior hurling manager. Then we had Keith Ricken, successful Cork U20 football manager, signalling his interest in the Cork senior manager’s job. In and around the same time Billy Lee of Limerick chimed in with a view on the future of the provincial football championships...

For the hard-pressed GAA hack who finds the bright-ideas shop as rewarding a destination as an English petrol station, thanks are due to the men who fill out those summer bainisteoir bibs (side note here for winter feature idea — who are the fittest/least fit managers on the inter county scene? Done as a league table. Or maybe a spreadsheet?)

What’s particularly attractive about the array of opinion papers and policy positions we’ve heard in the last week or so is how fruitful they are as starting positions for any number of debates.

Consider first: Billy Lee was 100% right last week when saying the “writing was on the wall” for the provincial championships (“The Division 1 team (Kerry) played two Division 2 teams (Clare and Cork) and there was a 17-point victory and a 22-point victory.”)

But will there be action?

Second: Keith Ricken’s arrival in the Cork managerial race — or, to judge from the apparent urgency, the Cork managerial amble — adds an element of unpredictability to that contest.

Will it have a material effect on the decision in Cork, though? Will there be action?

Third: Glenn Ryan’s arrival as Kildare manager should make for an interesting 2022 there. As a player Ryan was an ferocious competitor who didn’t spare himself: can he instil that kind of attitude into his own players?

Fourth: Larry O’Gorman was unimpressed last week with the chatter linking Davy Fitzgerald to Galway, saying: “It would be very strange after Davy just leaving us and then he would go to the opposition straightaway. You wouldn’t be calling it great loyalty, to be honest.

“When you are fully committed to a county, you should stick with that county and then take a break for a couple of years after that.”

There are a lot of people who’d agree with O’Gorman, no doubt, but is that a realistic position with someone who’s managed a couple of counties beside his own, someone on that managerial circuit?

Fifth: Peter Keane’s statement, specifically the reference to all players communicating to the county board sub-committee a “strong preference for the present management to be retained”, and the regret that that preference didn’t seem to be considered when the decision was made.

Should make for an interesting dressing-room when new Kerry boss Jack O’Connor strolls in for his first training session, but this one will yield a headline or two more before that happens.

Manager commentary, eh? Making GAA reporters’ easier, for which much thanks.

Stadiums cost money. So does opening them

A few Cork clubs have been in touch since the revelation in these pages that the Cork County Board faces charges every time the pitch in Páirc Uí Chaoimh is used.

Picture: INPHO/Oisin Keniry

The tenor of those communications ranged the full gamut from disbelief to outraged disbelief, combined with a sense of surprise that the board has not made any public comment on the situation.

A recurring question: the nature of the charge involved. The Cork Camogie Board got a bill of €500 for a challenge game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in August but Páirc sources indicated to this writer that the charge doesn’t come close to covering the cost of opening the stadium.

In that context, consider these comments from Croke Park stadium manager Peter McKenna some time back for GAAconomics: The Secret Life of Money in the GAA, when I asked him about the belief that it took 30,000 people coming to Croke Park to make opening the stadium viable.

“That’s an urban myth,” McKenna said.

“It costs between €40,000 and €120,000 to open the stadium and we often open it at a loss.

“The break-even figure? For the smallest game it would be €30,000, so 10,000 people paying €3 each, or 5,000 paying €6 each would cover it. There’s never a month in Croke Park where we’d lose money hosting games — there’d be one (game) that would be high to balance one that’s low, so we’d balance out.”

That conversation took place in 2012. Adjust your estimates accordingly.

James Bond: Licence to excel at various sports

Everyone in this house (except me) saw No Time To Die last week, and their reviews were glowing. No thanks to the person who spoilered for Ireland when they came back, though I’ll still go some evening next week.

A question, though. Is Bond the most athletic figure in popular fiction? (Note: this occurred before I saw the cover of L’Équipe.)

He’s obviously “handy”, as we used to say in the North Mon primary school, but he’s an accomplished scuba diver and swimmer, a crack shot, a competent driver at high speeds, a skiing whiz, a golf bore... it’s a late-50s pentathlon all the more remarkable when you consider his refuelling habits (56 different drinks imbibed in one of the books).

Is there anyone more athletic? Nominations accepted below.

Sedaris just my taste

He’s back this week. Again.

David Sedaris has mined his diaries once more and the result is A Carnival of Snackery (Diaries 2003-2020). Long-time readers will be aware the great man is a favourite of this columnist, who will recite chunks of You Can’t Kill The Rooster with very little encouragement.

If there’s a sadder edge to Sedaris this time around, so what? No-one else sees things like this, a pearl he shared with a New York Times interviewer: “I was at Times Square at 1:30 in the morning and there was a guy in a wheelchair who was pushing himself along and he said, ‘Look at that clown.’

“I thought he was talking about me. But then I followed his eyes and there was a clown, with purple hair and a red nose.”

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