Kiely takes over as Waterford football manager

THE charismatic and hugely popular John Kiely is the new Waterford football manager. The genial Kilrossanty clubman (he is also chairman) was the first choice of the Waterford County Board to succeed Ardmore’s Billy Harty.

John Kiely guided Waterford to a first All-Ireland championship title in any footballing grade when he managed the juniors to an historic victory over Meath in 1999. He was immediately head-hunted to take the managerial role with the county senior team, but he resisted and remained on instead in charge of the juniors. This year the Waterford juniors again defied all the odds by winning the All-Ireland title for a second time in half a decade, defeating Leitrim in a thrilling replay.

Inevitably, pressure mounted on Kiely to move up another step on the managerial ladder, and this time he has decided to answer the call.

He is under no illusions about the magnitude of the task he is taking on. Waterford haven’t won a game in the Munster senior championship for 15 years since that last victory over Tipperary in 1989. Three successive National League seasons without a win still more graphically highlight the plight football at senior level in the Decies is in. But John Kiely is determined to give the new job a right go, believing that if he can command the support and loyalty of the players he wants to become part of his new county panel that they can, and will, make definite progress.

For starters he will not be assembling a panel of 30 players, believing that number to be too many.

“If you have thirty players on a panel,” he says, “in reality it means many of them will never even get a game and are there just to make up the numbers. Ideally, I will put together a panel of twenty-four or twenty-five players, all of them committing themselves to the cause.”

He will have Tipperary man Michael McLoughlin in the role of coach/trainer, and selectors Pat Curran (Stradbally) and Tom Condon (Sliabh gCua) complete the management team.

Tyrone boss Mickey Harte and John Maughan of Mayo will manage the Vodafone Allstars Football Selections that play an exhibition game in Hong Kong on January 22.

The Vodafone Allstars leave for Hong Kong, flying via Amsterdam, on January 19 and will return to Ireland a week later.