Holleran backs under fire O Flatharta to turn Tribe around

THE chairman of the Galway football board has come out strongly in support of manager Tomás Ó Flatharta amid speculation that the reign of the Kerry native might be coming to an end after just months in charge.

John Joe Holleran said that the board were ‘100% behind’ the team management and players and he dismissed suggestions that an executive meeting of the board was planned for next Sunday if they lost a fifth successive league game against Cork on Sunday.

The Galway squad trained at 8am at Pearse Stadium yesterday morning and Holleran said all focus was on All-Ireland champions Cork.

“Tomás, his management and every player in the squad deserves to have my support and that of the board and they have it. Of course we would prefer if results were going our way, but all of our attention is on meeting Cork on Sunday,” said Holleran.

He said that there was not any meeting of the football board scheduled for next week but that the performance of the senior team would be discussed when they met next.

“It comes up for discussion at every meeting and why wouldn’t it? It’s the flagship team. Sometimes we are looking back at good results, sometimes when they are not good, but that’s the nature of it,” he said.

Holleran said he was aware of rumours in the local media calling into question the future of the manager.

“The main attention is the Cork match,” he said. “The lads had a very good training session in Pearse Stadium in the morning, there are a lot of injuries, but the full focus is on the Cork game and we are 100% behind Tomás, his management and players for that,” added Holleran.

Asked after the defeat to Kerry last Sunday whether Galway were on the right track, O Flatharta insisted: “We will just have to keep working away. There are plenty of areas that we can improve on and we will have to just keep trying. We have a lot of work to do together and they are working very hard in training but the results are just not working out for us at the moment but we will just have to keep the show on the road.”