Stepping in to the big arena

Ian O'Riordan talks to Pad Joe Whelahan about the challenges of his new post with Limerick

Of all the managers who take to the sidelines for this Sunday's opening round of the National Hurling League the one perhaps least envied of all is Pad Joe Whelahan. After more than a decade of repeatedly guiding Birr to the top of club hurling and knowing little else but the good times he steps into the great wide open, a new job in a foreign county where success is now craved as much as demanded.

So what drew Whelahan to Limerick is really a double-barrelled question: Why county management, and why Limerick? He answers both in the same breath "I said I'd have the one crack at it, and I picked a right one, didn't I?"

If Whelahan is feeling any pressure he's certainly not showing it. His predecessor Dave Keane lasted one season despite making history with the Limerick under-21 team, and already there have been some rumblings after Whelahan lost the services of the county's dual players.

Add in Sunday's demanding start against Munster champions Cork, plus the knowledge that the Limerick footballers are riding high in their league, and the spotlight on Whelahan is already at its brightest.

"Of course you want to make a good start," he says, "but pressure is still something you bring on yourself. If you start worrying about it then you have a problem. Look at someone like Brian Cody. He never worries about it.

"It would be better if we weren't facing a team like Cork the first day out, but it's going very well for us so far. We've a good panel of players. But no one is ruled out either. I'll have another big trial on, I think, March 6th and everything is going to be left open this year."

Whelahan also saw the Limerick job as coming along at just the right time: "Well I felt it was either this year, or I wouldn't do any job at all, that I'd be getting too old for it.

"And I have to say the hurling board has backed me up all the way. But then there are two boards down there. A football board and a hurling board, which I didn't realise at first.

"I also have a great back-room team. Declan Nash and Damien Quigley are two great selectors, and everything is very well organised. When I walk into the dressingroom I'm not worried about anything other than the team. And when we come to training the lads have a list for me, with who is training and who is injured."

There's no doubt that Whelahan also viewed Limerick as a team with real potential. "Well, you go back to the years when Offaly won three All-Ireland minors," he says. "We got 15 or 16 hurlers from that time. Some of the finest hurlers we got came through from those years after 1989.

"Last Sunday I had two players hurling in the Gaelic Grounds for the first time, so there are still some good young players coming through. But there's a lot of work to do in Limerick, I'll be straight about that. They are a bit off the mark at the moment, not a long ways, but there's a lot of work to be done."

Still, it's not entirely a question of out with the old and in with the new. The captaincy for the year has gone to Ciarán Carey and Whelahan clearly feels the former three-time All Star still has something to offer.

"Well, it was a club decision, in that Patrickswell nominated him. So I had no real say in the matter. But I'd absolutely no problem with it.

"Ciarán turned 34 years of age two weeks ago. So he knows it's his last fling and it's up to himself how he wants to embrace it. But he's a good chap, a very good captain to talk. And I think he's going to put the effort in."

After Sunday's meeting with Cork, things hardly cool down with a game against Tipperary, before Whelahan returns to his native Offaly on March 14th. But he expects every game to offer a different challenge: "I think it will be a good old league, very competitive. With Ken Hogan in Tipperary and Anthony Daly in Clare. I'd watch Clare now because they're not looking too bad. And Tipperary will be knocking at the door again."

l Offaly footballer Cathal Daly was mistakenly included in yesterday's list of players sent off in the opening rounds of the National Football League.