Whelehan in hunt for Offaly job

PADJOE WHELEHAN, who has managed Birr to three All-Ireland club titles last night admitted that he has been interviewed for the vacant Offaly hurling management position.

"I've been interviewed," he confirmed yesterday. "I made them an offer, that I'd take the two teams, senior and U-21, like I did before, in '89."

Whelehan, a former star of club, county and province and father of three of the current senior squad is probably the most successful club coach in the country. Crucially he also has several years of experience at inter-county level, mostly at underage but also on the senior stage.

In Tipperary, he has taken Nenagh Éire Óg to a long-awaited senior county championship and lost to eventual All-Ireland champions Sixmilebridge in the Munster final.

He also coached Toomevara to a number of Tipperary county titles, but his greatest success at club level has come with his adopted club in Offaly Birr.

A dominant force in Offaly over the past decade, the three-time All-Ireland champions, with Whelehan at the helm, they are still on course to defend the title they won so convincingly last March.

He is amongst a number of people approached by the county board, according to secretary Christy Todd, who last night said that their search for a replacement to former senior hurling manager Fr Tom Fogarty is continuing apace.

"There is a committee of five people, and they were charged with making a recommendation to the county board. Clubs were asked to make nominations to that committee, but the committee wasn't confined to those nominations, they could still spread the net wherever they saw fit, and that's what's happened," Mr Todd said.

"We have met with and spoken to a number of candidates, but there is no final decision made yet, and it will be a week or so anyway before we make any decision. They're from all over the place, we spread our wings far and wide, but we didn't forget the local lads either."

Offaly isn't the only high-profile hurling county still without a manager. Brian Cody looks set to stay with All-Ireland champions Kilkenny, as does Cyril Lyons with beaten finalists Clare and Justin McCarthy with Munster champions Waterford; elsewhere John Conran has been appointed in Wexford, Michael Doyle replaces Nicky English in Tipperary, Dave Keane takes over from Eamonn Cregan in Limerick. But speculation still rages in Galway and Cork, the two teams that probably most disappointed their fans this season.

In Galway, current manager Noel Lane is under threat from a number of applicants. A meeting of county board delegates on Monday next will decide between four candidates Lane; former players Brendan Lynskey and Conor Hayes; and Gerry Fahey, the garda who coached the footballers before the current successful reign of John O'Mahony.

In Cork, the waters remain as murky as ever. Following the resignation of Bertie Óg Murphy and the end of Frank Murphy's one-year term as nominee of last year's county champions, it was widely expected that the other three selectors, Pat McDonnell, PJ Murphy and John Meyler, would also step down. That hasn't happened and according to reports, and despite the fact that part of the current player/county board impasse revolves around at least one of those selectors, it isn't about to happen either.

Meanwhile Kerry chairman Sean Walsh believes that the recent Special Congress of the GAA should have debated Rule 42 Mr Walsh was reacting yesterday to a discussion at this week's county board meeting at which Beaufort delegate Frank Coffey argued that Croke Park should be opened up to other sports.

At the meeting, Mr Coffey said that the GAA "could not avoid the tag" of being called conservative, suggesting that even the age profile of the delegates present highlighted that image.

Nevertheless, one of the really significant proposals from the Strategic Review Committee embraced by delegates will mean that county officerships will have a five-year limitation from next year on. This is designed to encourage people of a younger age to challenge for positions on officer boards.

The discussion in Kerry arose from a verbal report on the Special Congress given by the chairman He said that it hadn't been "a very lively affair" He felt it was the result of withdrawing the proposals relating to Croke Park