Cloonan and Curley join hurling backroom team
Galway hurling manager Anthony Cunningham will have a whole new backroom team in place for the 2014 campaign when he meets the players for the first time since being reappointed for a third season this weekend.
On Monday night, delegates at a County Board meeting ratified Cunningham for a third season at the helm, along with new selectors Eugene Cloonan (Athenry) and Damien Curley (Kiltormer).
The appointments of former All-Star attacker Cloonan and full-time GAA coach Curley bring an end to Cunningham’s three year working relationship with Mattie Kenny, who resigned in August, and Tom Helebert.
Cunningham, Kenny, and Helebert guided the Galway U-21s to the All-Ireland title with victory over Dublin in 2011, before bringing the seniors to a replayed All-Ireland final in their first season in charge last year.
But the 2013 campaign never took off, amid concerns over their unconventional ‘three man’ management team. Given Cloonan and Curley’s relative inexperience in terms of working with adult teams, Cunningham is now set to take on a more conventional management role.
Kenny resigned in the aftermath of the disappointing All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Clare in Thurles in late July, while Helebert’s role remained uncertain until Cunningham unveiled his new management team on Monday night.
The inexperience of both new selectors may be a cause of concern, although Cloonan has worked with a variety of underage club teams, plus the Galway U-17 Development Panel, while Curley is a full-time GAA coach at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT).
Cloonan is considered one of the greatest Galway forwards not to have won an All-Ireland senior intercounty medal and lined out for the Tribesmen from 1997 to 2008. As manager, he guided his native Athenry to the county minor final two years ago, while Curley was wing forward on the Kiltormer side who won the All-Ireland club title in 1992. Extended report in this week's Connacht Tribune.