Queally football move spells end to hurling return
After his outspoken comments about hurling team manager Justin McCarthy last month, and his subsequent exclusion from the NHL panel, it appeared Queally’s days as a Waterford hurler were over.
Even if he were to change his mind, there is no way the Youghal-based garda could meet the dual demand.
Queally will continue to play club hurling with Ballydurn and football with sister club Newtown for another couple of years.
He hit the headlines in early November when he was critical of McCarthy along with Mount Sion duo Brian Greene and Brian Flannery. All three said they would not play under McCarthy again. Subsequently McCarthy and fellow selectors Nicky Cashin, Seamie Hannon and Kevin Ryan, named a panel to commence training for the league which begins at the end of February.
Significantly, it did not include the names of Greene, Flannery, and Queally, although McCarthy has stressed that the panel remains open.
Meanwhile the appointment of Ardmore’s Billy Harty as the new county senior football manager, in succession to former Cork dual star Denis Walsh, has been widely welcomed.
Harty had an important role in the success the Ardmore club enjoyed at juvenile, minor, and U-21 level over the past decade.
“Following the departure of Denis Walsh, who gave himself unsparingly to the job we are very fortunate to have found a man of the calibre of Billy Harty to replace him’’, county board chairman Paddy Joe Ryan said.
A native of the Ring gaeltacht, Harty represented the county in different grades of football in his playing days and is recognised as being very much a “players’ man’’. Meanwhile former Carlow manager Pat Roe has problems as he prepares for his first game in charge of the Wexford senior footballers. Roe must plan without both Paraic Curtis and Ciaran Deeley for Sunday’s clash with Offaly under new boss Gerry Fahy.
Curtis is concentrating on his studies in UCD while Deeley is spending three months in university in Finland as part of his sports science course which he is undertaking in University in Limerick. Roe will also be without John Hegarty, Robert Mageean, Rory Stafford and Tomas Mahon who will be on holidays with the senior hurlers in San Francisco. Offaly’s new football manager Gerry Fahey has retained faith in the old guard for their trip to Enniscorthy on Saturday to meet Wexford in the O’Byrne Cup.
