Revolt in Offaly as players opt out of panel

GAELIC GAMES NEWS ROUND-UP:OFFALY ARE the latest county to be facing a player revolt as members of the senior football panel have come into conflict with manager Richie Connor. A special meeting between the county players and management was called last night in an effort to distil some of their differences but half the current panel are reported to have announced their intention not to return to Connor's set-up.

It’s yet another example of how a tense relationship between players and county management can suddenly explode, and follows another revolt in Offaly just over four years ago, although in that instance the players backed the manager over the county board.

O’Connor seemed unsure of the extent of the players’ grievances except to state he was surprised and puzzled by their nature.

Offaly County Board chairman Pat Teehan sounded equally surprised by the sudden deterioration in the relationship: “All I know for now is that a meeting has been called between the players and the team management,” he said. “But at this point I can’t comment beyond that, until we wait and see what comes out of it.”

Connor was appointed Offaly manager last September, succeeding Pat Roe, who had spent just two seasons in charge. As the All-Ireland winning captain of 1982, the Offaly team that recorded the famous win over Kerry, Connor came into the position with reasonably good credentials, including a spell as county under-21 manager and some time with Laois. He was given a three-year term along with Ollie Daly and Mark Plunkett as selectors.

However, the management endured a difficult opening few weeks in charge, first losing to a Dublin development team in the O’Byrne Cup, then to Carlow in the O’Byrne Shield, and then last Sunday saw their opening Division Three National League clash to Roscommon end in a fairly embarrassing 0-16 to 0-7 defeat.

After that game, up to a dozen players informed Connor on Monday they no longer wished to be part of his set-up. Connor’s team selections had also been raising some eyebrows, not least the positioning of Ciarán McManus at full back, Karol Slattery at corner back and Ger Rafferty at centre forward.

Connor was cautious about predicting the outcome of the meeting last night, particularly as he was unsure how many of the panel would show up.

“I don’t want to pre-empt anything,” he said. “If they don’t come we’ll have to look at the situation. Hopefully they’ll turn up and they’ll have something to say. If it turns out that Richie Connor is the problem and Offaly are going nowhere we’ll have to look at that but having said that, if it’s without substance, the players will have to look at themselves.

“There’s a bit of frustration there I suspect. By and large the players involved are fringe players and they probably feel they’re not getting a chance. When the team is beaten, maybe there are other reasons and I hear that some of them are not happy with training but we’re only a couple of weeks at it. I hope to find out exactly what the problem is but nobody came to me and said they had an issue with anything.”

However, Connor admitted several players, after Sunday’s defeat to Roscommon, had indicated to him their intentions not to stay on: “A couple of fellas I have spoken to have given different reasons. I wouldn’t like to go into them. I was shocked when they pulled out, I couldn’t believe it.

“To be beaten last Sunday, nobody enjoys that but there’s probably a built-up frustration as well after doing so badly in the championship last year and they may have been thinking, ‘here we go again’. But last Sunday we had three players making their league debuts, two of them minors from last year. We’ll be taking risks in every game trying to unearth new blood. Trying out new players is a risk and unbalancing at times. But when the whole thing boils down, they shouldn’t be playing for Richie Connor and his management team, they should be playing for Offaly.”

In September 2004, the Offaly footballers revolted over the failure of then manager Gerry Fahy to get the full backing of the county board for another year in charge – prompting his resignation. The players were upset over the high turnover of managers, given Fahy had just replaced Paul O’Kelly, and this resulted in a lengthy stand-off that was only resolved after the intervention of former manager Eugene McGee. Kevin Kilmurray then took over for two years, before Roe came in.