Coast clear for Mulholland to take over as manager
Date Published: {J}
THE county’s football delegates will be asked to ‘rubber stamp’ the appointment of Alan Mulholland as Galway senior football manager at a meeting this coming Monday.
The Football Board executive, having interviewed Mulholland for up to an hour at the Claregalway Hotel on Tuesday night, will recommend to delegates that they formally ratify the Salthill native’s appointment as successor to Tomás Ó Flatharta.
The 42-years-old bookmaker, the first Galway man of the last three managers to be appointed boss of the senior team, is expected to be unanimously backed by club delegates, who had demanded at a ‘heated’ meeting following the sacking of Ó Flatharta that the next manager be a local.
Mulholland – unlike the two managers before him Ó Flatharta and Joe Kernan who were let-go after less than 12 months following unsuccessful results on the field – will be given time to develop and nurture a ‘new’ and young team. He will be given a three year deal, with a review after the second year.
Given his knowledge of the younger players in the county, Mulholland is expected to introduce and blood new youngsters to the senior set-up.
A report in a national newspaper this week linking former Galway manager Liam Sammon – who was one of Mulholland’s interviewers on Tuesday night – to the new senior backroom team has been dismissed as “pure speculation”.
The Irish Times said on Tuesday: “In an echo of the successful Dublin management structure that delivered All-Ireland success to the county, Mulholland, like Pat Gilroy, another former county player in the 1990s, is expected to involve veteran coach Liam Sammon in a role not dissimilar to that played by Mickey Whelan, who announced his retirement at the weekend, in Dublin.”
Whelan is a former Dublin manager, who joined Gilroy’s backroom team earlier this year. The Football Board and Mulholland are understood to be baffled as to where this speculation came from. It is understood Sammon, who is currently the chairman of the county’s football coaching group that includes development squads, is good friends with Mulholland but it is unlikely he will return to the fold on any permanent basis. Football Chairman John Joe Holleran said the speculation was “not true”, adding “there is no basis to that speculation”.
Dónal Ó Fátharta (An Spidéal), a selector with Mulholland at minor and U21, and Tuam Stars trainer Alan Flynn, a selector/trainer with Mulholland this season will form his backroom team.
Ó Fátharta was involved with county minor teams before Mulholland took over in 2006, has been involved with Galway Vocational Schools squads and steered An Spidéal back to intermediate in the past couple of years.
For more. read this week's Connacht Tribune.