Coffey wants three-year term to revive Offaly’s fortunes

Tom Coffey has offered to take charge of the Offaly senior football team for the next three seasons.

Coffey took over on an interim basis following Gerry Cooney’s resignation in April but has suffered two championship defeats in two outings at the helm.

Coffey took over a sinking ship, however, and has expressed a desire to rebuild the team over the next few seasons. And he warned that the Faithful County need to devise a plan to revive flagging football fortunes — insisting that Offaly have fallen well behind their rivals.

“They’re good lads and they’ve trained hard for the last few weeks but we need to get a plan in place for the next three or four years,” he said. “Most counties have done that – we’ve fallen behind.

“I was brought in as interim manager so the management position will be up probably at the next county board meeting. But I would like if the job came my way and I would be prepared to put three years into it.”

While Offaly contemplate their championship exit, Tipp boss Peter Creedon is looking forward to the qualifiers.

And Creedon was naturally pleased with the performance of his players – who won the second half by 0-7 to 0-4 despite playing against the breeze.

“We beat a traditional football county in Offaly as well,” he said.

“We were a little bit nervous all of us. It was a game that we expected to win and that can sometimes be harder to approach mentally. But I thought we played some very good football in the second half. But Offaly were honest. In fairness to Tom Coffey, he has really picked up their morale as well.”

Creedon refused to take credit for the upsurge in Tipperary’s fortunes since they were relegated from Division 3 of the League.

“The players have picked it up and [backroom staff] Tommy [Twomey], Michael [O’Loughlin] and Gerry [McGill] have been excellent,” he insisted.

“It’s up to the players really at this level. We just tell them to go out and express themselves.

“At least the lads have something out of the season – everything else for the rest of the year now is a bonus. It means that they’ll start back next season regardless in a positive frame of mind.”