Galway hurling plunged into crisis as all senior managerial candidates pull out
Comment by John McIntyre
HOW has it come to this? An embarrassing and demoralising scenario where interviews for the vacant Galway hurling manager’s post were due to be held on Saturday . . . only that there is now no one left to be interviewed!
You couldn’t make it up. The only three nominations – Noel Larkin, Francis Forde and Tony Ward – all withdrawing from the race within hours of each other last Monday.
This latest crisis to grip Galway GAA – so soon after the county’s long-standing sponsor Supermac’s going public about its concerns relating to governance – has dragged Galway deeper into the mire and left most supporters mortified.
In my near-39 years reporting on Galway GAA affairs, this is arguably the worst calamity of them all. Heading into mid-October and a team which only won the All-Ireland title two years ago has nobody in charge. And there is unlikely to be any quick fix either.
That storm clouds were gathering even ahead of Micheál Donoghue’s shock resignation in August, which begs the question: why didn’t the various stakeholders come together to thrash out a solution which might have avoided all of this controversy?
Sure, given that the outgoing team management’s relationship had broken down with the County Board, it would have taken some prolonged and serious negotiation/mediation to have arrived at an acceptable compromise, but nothing of the kind took place.
The players want continuity and so do the vast majority of supporters, but once Larkin and Forde insisted on some pre-conditions before either of them would step up to the manager’s role, that prospect of that happening was wiped out.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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