McEnaney under fire as Royal rift grows

SEAMUS McENANEY is expected to have just one selector, Armagh’s Paul Grimley, for Sunday week’s Leinster SFC quarter-final against Kildare.

An emergency county executive committee meeting was called last night to discuss Liam Harnan and Barry Callaghan’s resignations as selectors.

However, it wasn’t anticipated the executive would look for McEnaney to seek replacements for the pair.

But the dramatic development is understood to have severely damaged McEnaney’s position among Meath officials.

Yesterday, county chairman Barney Allen attempted to keep wraps on last night’s meeting.

“There is no county meeting scheduled until June 13,” said Allen.

“We will be making no comment at the minute.”

However, the executive committee did convene at 8.30pm and went on past 10pm.

Harnan and Callaghan are understood to have walked after they weren’t consulted about McEnaney’s decision to recall Graham Geraghty to the panel.

“It’s unfortunate,” said one Meath official about the selectors’ withdrawals.

“It’s not something we wanted to happen but Seamus McEnaney has been appointed for three years with a review after two.

“We appointed him and that’s that.”

There had been suggestions Meath junior manager Pat Coyle was to come on board but he flatly rejected that he had been approached.

Former Meath All-Ireland-winning midfielder Liam Hayes last night claimed McEnaney has potentially shortened his term as manager bytaking a punt on reintroducing Geraghty to the panel.

According to the GAA analyst, the Monaghan native may have shown a lack of knowledge about Geraghty’s standing within the county.

“Graham Geraghty’s first year would have been my last with Meath and I don’t know him personally but he’s proven to be a very divisive character,” Hayes told the Irish Examiner.

“Whether McEnaney knows or understood the whole recent history of Meath I don’t know.

“I would have thought he’d have given more time to consider bringing him into the squad.

“Bringing a 38-year-old into the squad is a risk in itself but in bringing in Graham Geraghty, he seems to have offered his own head on a plate to the county board.

“It’s a big call to make and I wonder how much he thought about it.

“It’s going to be very difficult for him to see through the season now.”

Hayes is uncertain of the “personal reasons” behind Harnan and Callaghan’s decisions but suggests they may have been acts of frustration.

“It’s unfortunate from the players’ and the supporters’ point of view. It appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Before McEnaney came in, there was a lot of unhappiness in Meath and it was always going to be difficult for him.

“He’s an excellent manager and has a fine track record with Monaghan.

“He’d be a manager I’d have great time for but I feel he might be the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Speaking to RTÉ Radio last night, Hayes’s former team-mates Bernard Flynn described Geraghty’s recall as “ludicrous”. “The decision to bring Graham I, personally, could not understand.

“I basically thought it was ludicrous.

“The question here isn’t about how good a footballer Graham Geraghty is. I hold him as one of the greatest we’ve ever had, he’s a class act. That’s not in question.

“But to bring back a 38-year-old with less than two weeks to go (until the Kildare game), I don’t agree with.”

He added: “At 38, your time is up at this level in Gaelic football.”

McEnaney faced a laborious process before being appointed Meath’s first ever outside manager.

It’s understood having a Meath presence in his management team, alongside Grimley and coach Marty McElkennon, was necessary in him being recommended for the position.

Ex-Meath manager Eamon O’Brien, a vocal critic of McEnaney’s appointment, refused to comment on Harnan and Callaghan’s departures.

“All I know is that there is a meeting called for tonight (last night),” he said.

“Until I hear the facts, I’ve no comment to make but I doubt the lads stepped down for no reason.”

While McEnaney and the remaining members of his management team continue to enjoy the support of the players, he is now on shaky ground with the county board.

Managing to avoid relegation to Division 3 on the last day of the Allianz League earned him a reprieve but it appears giving Geraghty the green light has hurt his standing in the county.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner on Saturday, McEnaney was adamant he was within his rights to recall Geraghty to the panel.

“For me, if a player is good enough, he’s good enough,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter whether he’s young or old, I’m not looking for birth certs. I’m looking for goodplayers.”

Geraghty appeared as a substitute in Meath’s win over Galway in a challenge game in Mullingar on Sunday.