Where have all the young managers gone?

IT’S a delicate one.

There’s a clear and present danger of ageism if you don’t phrase it properly, but you can’t pussyfoot around it either. Why are most inter- hurling managers now in their fifties or older?

John Meyler, Tony Considine, Brian Cody and Ger Loughnane are in their fifties. Gerald and Justin McCarthy, Richie Bennis and Babs Keating are a decade further on. Nothing unusual in that until you look at the likes of Pat O’Shea, Colm Coyle and Paul Bealin in football.

Right now it looks as if there’s a demographic deficit, a lack of inter-county hurling managers in their thirties and forties. Nicky English, lately retired from managing Tipperary but still within that age group himself, and nods when you point out the relatively experienced group of managers on today’s sidelines..

“I’d noticed that, but what you’d put it down to I’m not sure. I don’t know where it’s coming from.

“From my experience, inter-county management is difficult, because Ireland’s a busier place than it used to be. Younger people have families, they’re trying to make their careers, and being an inter-county huring manager is another job. You’ve that job, you’ve a job already in which you’re trying to progress a career – and you’ve a family, which is a job in itself. It’s hard to keep three balls in the air.”

English doesn’t see a long-term trend in the higher age profile.

“It’s probably just a bit unusual that you don’t have young managers around at this point in time. It might be just a quirk. You maybe need a certain type of job to fit intercounty management around, or to be retired like Babs, because that time element is the key, though.”

Former Cork manager Donal O’Grady agrees on the time pressures.

“Without doubt that’s the big thing, time is definitely the big commitment. You only have to look at what Jack O’Connor had to do in football — work half-days in order to give enough time to the job of managing the Kerry team.

“That’s where an older manager might have an advantage, someone like Babs. He’s retired, so he’d have time on his hands. Other fellas that age might be managers in their professional lives or able to set their own working hours around managing a team in some other way.”

O’Grady also echoes English on the demands of family, adding that an older manager is ahead of younger opponents in that respect.

“Another factor is the family commitment, which is where the older manager has another advantage. A chap in his sixties probably has a grown family, all in their twenties, probably. They obviously don’t need the kind of attention that a fella in his thirties needs to give to his kids, who are all probably babies and toddlers.”

Anthony Daly is one of those managers still in his thirties. He was managing Clare up to this season and knows the pressures of the hot seat all too well. “I went almost straight from playing into management,” says Daly.

“We won a county championship with Clarecastle in 2003 and I was Clare manager a month later. As a player you only have to get yourself right, but as a manager you’re there two hours after training, talking about who played well and so on, forward planning, keeping up to speed with injuries and so on.”

Daly points out that when it comes to the higher age profile among county managers, the role of the county boards which appointed them is often overlooked by observers.

“I think there’s a trend at the moment to have an older manager stand back and manage,” says Daly. “All the inter-county teams have a lot of backroom staff now, and I doubt Richie Bennis is taking all the drills in Limerick, or that Babs is out on the field doing all the drills with the Tipp lads.

“For a lot of county boards they’re probably a safe option — they’re looking for a package, a team for management duties rather than an individual, so maybe they’ll go for a successful player to head up that group of people. Then they can go and present that group as a package to board delegates, rather than having one man come in and pick all his backroom team himself. That’s how I’d like to do it myself, going in and picking out my own selectors and trainers and so on.

“There’s no doubt that while Richie is manager of Limerick, to take an example, the likes of Gary Kirby and Anthony Riordan are doing a lot of work there with the team. Richie himself said straight out after the third Tipp game that it was Gary and Anthony who came up with that tactical plan which worked so well for them, to move Kevin Tobin out the field.”

While Kirby or Riordan might have their eye on the Limerick hotseat in a couple of years, there’s up and coming coaching talent in other counties also.

For Nicky English, though many of his 2001 team are still playing, the likes of Tommy Dunne and Declan Ryan — who are involved in the current Tipperary minor team — look likely future prospects.

If Anthony Daly hadn’t come in as manager himself for Clare three years ago he’d probably be in the front line now to succeed Tony Considine. Would he ever consider a return to intercounty management?

“We’ll see. But if I went back in ten years time sure I’d still only be 47!”