Dubs boss Gilroy to delay decision on future for a month

PAT GILROY won’t make a decision on his future as Dublin manager until next month.

Speaking last night, the 42-year-old said: “The next couple of weeks we’ll sit down because a lot of things have to be thought through. Once we’ve done that I’ll decide.

“Obviously I’d have to talk to the county board as well because they’d have to want me and my time is up.”

Gilroy admits he would find it difficult to leave the position after his three years in charge culminated in last Sunday’s All-Ireland triumph.

“It would be hard to walk away, but I have four small kids and they’re getting big quick. They are starting to play a lot of sport,” he added.

“Work have been extremely good to me and I have to talk to them too because this is the commitment they agreed to.

“There are a good few people who have to be taken into the equation, not just myself.”

Yesterday, Dublin chairman Andy Kettle said he believed Gilroy wanted to stay in the role he was appointed to in October 2008 but also said he was aware of the manager’s off-field commitments.

He said: “Pat has devoted three years of his life to the job. He’s a young man with a young family and needs time and space to make up his mind. I’m sure he would love to go on. He sees this as the start of things, not a finish. But he has to give consideration to other things like his career and family and we appreciate that.”

Speaking on TV3, Dublin coach Mickey Whelan added that even if Gilroy wasn’t in a position to remain at the helm, he had laid an incredible foundation for any potential successor.

Whelan said: “He has put in place such a structure that even were he to go it would be easier for somebody else to put in.

“But he should stay on if he can find the time and if his family can afford him [to].”

Meanwhile, Kettle has warned the county board stands to lose a considerable amount of money if people continue to purchase unofficial merchandise, which was widely available in the vicinity of the homecoming reception in Merrion Square on Monday.

Kettle condemned the opportunism of the hawkers.

“It would be difficult to put a figure on it but certainly there would be a loss if the sale of unofficial merchandise went on and on,” said the chairman. “Nothing official has been out yet and it seems people were taking a flier on the event on Monday night.”

Dublin’s charity game against 2010 county champions Kilmacud Crokes in aid of Crosscare and Temple Street Hospital last night appears to have marked the end of GOAL’s long-standing relationship with the All-Ireland champions. GOAL had generally been the benefactors of the game but that tradition looks like it has come to an end.

Although they had a game for the charity following their 2009 success, Kilkenny didn’t have one earlier this month.

Kettle explained Dublin’s position: “The squad have nominated those charities from a good while back and done other small things for them.”