Oakley: time to go Joe

RECENTLY retired Offaly stalwart, Ger Oakley, has questioned Joe Dooley’s ability to oversee progress as manager of the Faithful County’s hurlers.

Oakley was a member of the last Offaly panel to win a senior All-Ireland, in 1998, and has retired after 14 seasons with the midlanders. The last three of those were under Dooley’s stewardship but the Carrig & Riverstown club man doesn’t believe the manager did enough in that period to warrant another year at the helm.

“My opinion would be if you are in the job for three years and success is minimal enough, it is time to let someone else come in and freshen up things,” he told the Tullamore Tribune. “If you are listening to the same voice over a period of time, things can get stale. It is more or less the same bunch of players as well. I wish Joe the best of luck. Hopefully he can bring on Offaly hurling a bit but it is a mammoth task.”

He added: “Offaly is a thankless job at this moment. I know myself and (Brian) Mullins are definitely gone. I’m fairly sure Brendan Murphy isn’t going to come back with work commitments and David Franks is building a house and has a few kids. If we saw light at the end of the tunnel, it would be a huge incentive to keep us there. Coming back to our underage structure, where are the players going to come from? You should be getting two or three good players off every minor team but we haven’t been getting that... in the 90s, even when that team was ageing, we were getting them.”