GAA Managerial Merrygoround Thread

what is the most bitter rivalry in Ulster ? Is it Derry\Tyrone?

This was shared about the last week by Eamon McCann.

I hope this Mickey Harte thing all ends in tears

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Call me a traditionalist, but I can never get my head around lads managing rival clubs or counties. Just goes against everything the GAA stands for imho.

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Wow…that’s a disgrace…I’m sure the anti rubby crew who had thousands of posts about Rory Best will be along to condemn Mickey here in double quick time …Mickey is a hero to these rural catholic type though …the kind of fellas who shoulder their local td around the community hall because he fixes a pothole near their house

https://tfk.thefreekick.com/t/2021-allianz-national-football-league/33204/754?u=gilgamboa

…the silence is deafening

Pretty sure Harte was widely slated on TFK at the time.

Fanta Pants used to give @Cicero_Dandi a fierce grilling over it cc @Little_Lord_Fauntleroy

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Fair play pal you slated him :+1:

Some thought he was the GOAT as recently as 2021

https://tfk.thefreekick.com/t/2021-allianz-national-football-league/33204/754?u=gilgamboa

I get that, and it is very traditionalist, but I suppose things have changed in fairness. Especially if someone wanted to ‘make it’ in management/coaching, sticking with the same team and players A) Probably could hinder progression and B) Probably isn’t fair on the players who sigh when they see the same fella again and again.

Funny one actually. With a management team of a Camogie club (not local to me) and rival manager starts getting ratty when the game is well-and-truly over with 20 mins left (match itself was well tempered). He starts losing the plot asking us ‘what fucking parish are ye lads?? Where are ye even from??’. Kinda caught me off guard but he is old school ha.

The team we are with, the players specifically asked to not have someone local/that knows them well managing/training them.

A lot of hungry cunts will do anything for a few bob.

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and why shouldn’t they? if you only stuck to local lads it would be a small pool with a possible lack of expertise and know how, clubs and counties have a right to appoint someone they think will improve a team. If a local lad is in the management ticket he can pick things up. These lads coming in are often travelling big distances and putting in savage effort.

Most of the club lads are just hungry cunts who do fuck all for the club and will be gone when the money dries up.County I don’t mind so much as it’s a different setup.

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clubs generally wouldn’t go outside if there was enough experience within the club or someone willing to do it.

The fact lads aren’t getting paid for doing their own team means they’d want to be absolutely fucking nuts to do it when they could be pulling in handy money a session elsewhere.

even, at that, I know a few lads on the coaching circuit and they’d always have at least one team in their own club too, a camogie team or an underage team

This exactly. It can’t all be ‘for the money’ as some say. I know lads that drive well over an hour to-and-from for training sessions with teams they’re with and are probably getting €100 for it. You’d swear they were cleaning up with the Hundred quid. They obviously are doing it for the love of the game too and wanting potential success.

More-and-more, teams don’t want local people involved (bar the person maybe having good contacts to organise matches, good for logistics etc). I personally know of more than one county team and multiple club teams now where the players (and the board for the county team) do not want a local in charge.

The problem with outsiders when they come into a club is they only care about the team in which they are in charge of often to the detriment of the rest of the club.

For instance the outsider will always be with the First team and really only cares about the first 18 players he knows he will be using for the Senior/Inter championship - he wont care much for improving the Junior team or some young lads who are coming through but not quite ready yet. Also if there is a football team that the outsider isn’t involved with, tensions can develop.

A local will always understand the different complexities of a club and try to make it work for everyone.

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An outsider as coach is fine as players get sick of listening to the same voices inside a club since their youth. Drom, for example, gave Paudie Butler the heave ho in the mid 00s as many of them had been listening to him since they were in primary school.

You can’t give an outsider carte blanche to run the whole show though or to be the manager or they think they will be given a blank chequebook.

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Ah ya sometimes an outsider can work, but they need to know their place and realise what their role is.

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Ya that’s something I didn’t fully think of, in that the outsider isn’t quite thinking of bringing in newer players and doesn’t know that intrinsic stuff about the club, which I can understand. Have seen tensions develop with Football/Hurling management alright.

I still think though that the positives of an outsider outweigh the negativity around it. They can just have some local Selector at least.

The turnover in club managements is mental. You’d rarely see anyone keep the same management for more than 2 years and many don’t even last a season.

You’d never really get a Brian Cody or Mickey Harte situation at club level where the same manager is there for 10-15 years.

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Just to give a small example of the negatives in the County scene of a ‘Local’ or someone with a knowledge of the club game historically coming in what can happen.

I was with a County setup for a few years. Over the time, some players had left the panel for different reasons; work, disagreements with management, time commitments etc.,

Over the few years we had built up thousands and thousands of data points and really good insights on every player that had played. First time I spoke to the new manager on the phone, his comment was ‘first thing’s first; I’m bringing X, Y and Z back into the panel. Have seen them play club and they’re excellent’.

The annoying thing is though, we had all of the data which pretty much confirmed that they were not up to it at the County Level that they were in. This came to fruition of course when they were brought in. Now if he had said ‘There are certain players I want on the panel that mightn’t see many minutes but will be good dressing room leaders’ or something. I’d accept that. But they were brought straight in as starters and really were not good.

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