One year not enough — selector rails against Ó Flatharta axe
Like Ó Flatharta, McNamara heard of the news while on holiday but insists it was done despite players defending the former Westmeath boss’s management.
“A lot of them backed up Tomás when the decision was made to get rid of him,” said 1998 All-Ireland-winning goalkeeper McNamara.
“Giving a manager one year to build a team is not really sufficient no matter how good you are. He should have been given a bit of patience and shown more time. But this is the kind of way they operate.”
Michael Meehan yesterday echoed the sentiments of captain Finian Hanley in criticising Ó Flatharta’s quick dismissal.
“I was disappointed to hear about Tomás — from a player’s perspective it’s very hard when you have a new manager every year,” he said.
“Everybody’s under scrutiny again. It is more the manner of the dismissals, everything seems to happen so quickly, really fast.”
Meanwhile, Cork County Board said it was “normal enough” for its executive to put forward a proposal on the appointment process of the next Cork hurling manager.
Surprise was expressed in some quarters when the board included a proposal of its own among those submitted by clubs for the appointment of a new senior hurling manager, but county board PRO Ger Lane added: “After all that’s the governing body for the GAA in Cork, and if it didn’t make a proposal then people would be saying, ‘ye didn’t do anything and ye’re supposed to be in charge’. It would be expected that we would show leadership in this area.
“We’ve had a lot of submissions on the proposed mechanism for appointing the manager and we’ve forwarded those on to all the clubs ahead of next week’s meeting. We’ve welcomed those submissions — that’s what the clubs wanted and they’ve obviously put a lot of work into it, and some of the proposals are very good.
“I’d imagine it’s unlikely that you’d have all 22 proposals being debated at the meeting next week — it’s more likely that you’ll have clubs merging motions and that you’ll have five or six in the end up for discussion.”
In Offaly, interim football manager Tom Coffey could be in line to take over from Tom Cribben.
The ex-Rhode boss, who was in charge of the team for a few weeks between Richie Connor’s resignation and Cribben’s appointment in 2009, has been touted as the front-runner for the vacant position.
Coffey won two Offaly titles in his three seasons with Rhode, guiding them to two Leinster club finals, where they were beaten by Kilmacud Crokes on each occasion, the latest being last January.
Elsewhere, Justin McCarthy and Rory Kinsella have emerged as the leading candidates for the Wexford hurling job.
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