Derry edging closer to appointment of Kerry coach Paddy Tally as manager

Oak Leafers are the final county to appoint a senior football boss for 2025 - and believe they have identified their man

PARTING? Kerry manager Jack O'Connor with coach Paddy Tally. The Tyrone man could be the next Derry manager.

It appears Derry are about to repeat a trick and poach a second successive manager from another county with Kerry performance coach Paddy Tally set to succeed Mickey Harte.

In a restructuring of the Kerry management team for 2025, Tyrone man Tally had committed to a fourth year with Jack O’Connor, only this time in the performance coach role vacated by former Clare hurler Tony Griffin.

However, that arrangement is in jeopardy as Derry finally appear ready to replace Harte who stepped down in July with Tally, Harte’s 2003 All-Ireland winning coach and former Down manager.

Tally’s reconstituted duties with Kerry would not have required him making the sometimes 10-hour return journey to Currans twice a week as he had been doing the three previous seasons as head coach. Nevertheless, his input, that had been so valued by O’Connor to include him in his original set-up in late 2021, was still available.

Combined in a associate position with new head coach Cian O’Neill with shrewd homegrown selectors, it was felt the sideline brains trust had been suitably replenished after the departures of Mike Quirke and Diarmuid Murphy.

“I was delighted to stay on with the team,” Tally told “Off The Ball” in September. “I’ll still do a bit of on-field coaching with the players but working maybe more on the preparation stuff of the side.”

Explaining that it was a “no-brainer” for him to remain with Kerry, Tally added: “I felt after last year we were pretty disappointed that we didn’t do better and that’s been the story of the last two seasons.

"I felt it was the right time to stay where I was. I couldn’t have committed to the previous (head coach) role but with a bit less travel I can do a lot of the work from home, I can do meetings online.”

In late August, there was concern in official Kerry circles that Tally was going to take over his native Tyrone. To lose his heft after Quirke and Murphy’s exits would have left O’Connor isolated and possibly vulnerable but privately Tally’s recommitment was confirmed before O’Neill’s return and later O’Rourke’s ratification.

For the Galbally clubman to be so appreciated as to be considered integral to O’Connor’s future as Kerry manager was in sharp contrast to how he was indirectly referred to at the county board meeting in September 2021 moments before O’Connor was appointed for a third spell in charge.

Amid the speculation rife Tally was coming on board, Dr Crokes delegate Fergus Moroney remarked: “I've no gripe with Jack O'Connor or anyone else. The only one question I'd like to ask you is: Was there anything about a fitness coach and backs coaching in his team that would be coming in?

“As you know, there are thoughts about certain people around who have proven to be very negative in defensive tactics etc, which would be far from the Kerry way of playing football. Wouldn't be appreciated by Kerry supporters either.”

Fast forward 10 months and as Kerry’s concession returns came tumbling down on their way to a first All-Ireland SFC title in eight years, Tally was hailed as a lynchpin. While Kerry haven’t been as mean in the couple of seasons since, O’Connor still felt he required his counsel.

As Derry have come knocking, Kerry are almost resigned to the prospect of finding a new performance coach, the need for which players have stressed going back to Peter Keane’s first year in charge.

Losing Tally would be new to Kerry. To paraphrase Premier League parlance, they aren’t a selling county. Just as they acquired O’Neill’s services after helping Mayo an All-Ireland final in 2012, they did so again in September when the former Kildare manager swapped Galway for The Kingdom.

To lose Tally to genuine rivals won’t sit easy with some in Kerry either nor will the idea of appointing a second Tyrone manager in Derry.

As former player Joe Brolly posted on X/Twitter on Tuesday: “Derry board going through the phone book of Tyrone managers. Shameful lack of loyalty to their own. Shameful lack of integrity”.

Coming up on 130 days since Harte left, there were running low on options. As they were having lured Harte from Louth, they will be accused of tapping up but in this situation it was a case of needs must. 

Having themselves convinced O’Neill to move from Galway, Kerry should appreciate that it’s all in the game.