Daly: time to formalise payments for managers

DUBLIN hurling manager, Anthony Daly, has called on Croke Park to end what he has described as “wordplay” and formalise the payment of coaches and managers at club and county levels.

Director General Páraic Duffy indicated on Monday that the GAA may indeed have to bow to the inevitable and put a structure in place which would allow managers to be paid whilst still adhering to the amateur ethos of the association.

Daly would agree and he pointed to the difficulties Tipperary have experienced in their attempt to appoint John Evans as their Director of Football as well as senior football manager as an example of where the GAA is going wrong.

“They have to put some structure on the bloody thing,” the Clare man said at yesterday’s launch of the 2010 VHI Cúl Camps. “The whole John Evans thing – a retired guy and they wanted to put him as director of football.

“Then from Croke Park, that he couldn’t be the manager of the football team? What’s that, wordplay? Tipp are trying to compete in Division Two, and they are starting to compete, and they tell him he can’t do it. It makes no sense.”

As Daly alluded to, Tipp’s dual mandate path with Evans would appear one road forward should Croke Park tweak their regulations which currently restrict coaching roles for the association’s full-time employees.

“There’s loads of full-time coaches all over the country,” the former Clare captain said. “In Dublin alone, there must be six or seven of our panel who are coaches. It’s all wordplay.

“It’s just a matter of putting a structure on it and putting a cap on it or whatever. Everyone knows every pundit is getting paid to be on The Sunday Game to talk about hurling. What am I doing in training only talking about hurling?”

Were roles such as the one envisioned for Evans be given the green light and mirrored across the country, the GAA would also be adding dozens of high-profile and full-time ambassadors to their cause.

Hurling, in particular, is in serious need of such models right now thanks in no small part to the GAA’s safety regulations, admirable though they are, which make it compulsory for all players to wear helmets.

Daly remarked on that in his address at yesterday’s Cúl Camps launch and suggested that having players’ names on jerseys may go some way to redressing the anonymity of the game’s top exponents.

Daly told the story of Clare senior Colin Ryan, who played a starring role in the county’s U21 All-Ireland success and scored a dozen points against Tipperary in last summer’s Munster Championship.

Daly knew Ryan from club games between Newmarket and Clarecastle but the children at a GAA camp in Clare had no idea the player and the man they knew as ‘Coach Colin’ were one and the same.

“I would have seen him play underage but a good few of that Clare U21 team, the night they came home with the cup we went for a drink where we knew they’d be and, literally, you’re following them all year but you don’t see them.

“The television goes off before they have the helmets off and if you’re at the match you’re not hanging around, you’re going away. It’s embarrassing at times when you’re working on The Sunday Game.

“You meet lads and try to find out off fellas (who they are). Footballers are more recognisable. It was even weird watching TG4 last night and seeing Dan (Shanahan) with the helmet on him at full-forward.

“It is going to have to be looked at.”

Of more immediate concern to Daly right now is Sunday’s NHL Division One fixture at home to a Cork side five points better off than his Dublin side and sitting at the top of the table. Dublin have defeated only Tipperary thus far and, though they were more than competitive last week against Kilkenny, Daly admits to having been “disgusted” by the performances against Waterford and Offaly.

“Obviously, this year Cork wanted to hit the ground running and the first couple of games they’d have been well fancied to win with Offaly at home and then Limerick.

“The Kilkenny one had a life of its own after the beating they got down in Nowlan Park last year, but that was a great game again (against Waterford) on Sunday.

“There seemed to be savage scores in it. Cussen seemed to be flying and if he’s not flying the other fella (Aisake O hAilpín) will come in. We’ll just take it as it comes.”