Pat Spillane: My pick of the bunch as new GAA bosses bed in

We all know when it comes to under-the-counter stuff in the GAA we have no equals in practising the three monkeys’ mantra of ‘hear, see nor speak no evil’.

As ex-GAA president Peter Quinn once said about investigating under the table payments, it wasn’t possible to locate the table, never mind the money.

Paying club managers is now a runaway train with €70 to €100 per session is seemingly the going rate. Some enterprising coaches are getting away with managing two clubs at the same time.

Kerry were once the best boys in the class – they didn’t pay their club managers. Now I’m not so sure about that.

The gas thing is that under-the-counter payments to inter-county managers is not as rampant as it used to be.

Of the 27 inter-county football managers in situ at the moment, I estimate about 11 are being paid more than the permitted expenses.

That percentage is probably higher for inter-county hurling managers.

The biggest problem facing the GAA is not the actual payments to those managers, but the expense associated with their bloated backroom teams.

Here’s what baffles me. At what point will players look around at a training sessions and think, who are the fools here? They’ll say, ‘we’re the only people not getting paid to be here’.

I imagine that day of reckoning is not too far away.

The thing, though, that is really concerning me about modern-day Gaelic football and hurling is the amount of people it seems are needed to train a team. The majority of inter-county teams have 20-plus personnel involved – and that’s a conservative estimate.

I could fill the rest of the column with the astronomical figures involved in inter-county training. But here’s a simple figure. The estimated cost of a single inter-county training session these days in €3,000.

GAA Director General Tom Ryan warned in his annual report last year that the increased spending on inter-county training is unsustainable. And he’s right.

This was brought into focus for me again recently. Cavan have appointed one of their own, Raymond Galligan, as their new manager. Now Raymond is a legend of the game in that part of the world and has given his life and soul to Cavan football.

But his backroom team is something else! It includes assistant manager Eamonn Murray, ex-manager of Meath’s All-Ireland winning women’s team. The new forwards’ coach is Tyrone All-Ireland winner Stephen O’Neill, and the goalkeeping coach will be Gary Rogers, the former Dundalk FC netminder.

There’s also a liaison officer, Ronan Flanagan, and a life coach, Catherina McKiernan. OK, I give up. I haven’t a clue what that role entails.

Anyway, thank God for Mickey Harte. His shock decision to become the new Derry manager is pure box office.

It is also manna from heaven for hard-pressed GAA columnists who are short of material at this time of the year.

So what is the state of play in the revolving door of GAA county managers?

Harte’s decision to leave Louth means there were 11 vacancies for new bosses ahead of the 2024 year.

Mickey Harte (Derry), Jim McGuinness (Donegal), Mark Fitzgerald (Clare), Jimmy Lee (Limerick), Declan Kelly (Offaly) and Ray Galligan (Cavan) have filled six of them. Positions in Louth, Laois, Tipperary, Waterford and New York remain vacant.

Newcomers

Out of the six newcomers, two are outsiders and of the 27 bosses in place for 2024, only nine are outsiders which I think is the lowest figure in recent years. Here is my take on the new bosses.

Mickey Harte (Derry)

I get his appointment. His record is excellent, three All-Ireland titles with Tyrone during an 18 season reign and then guiding Louth from Division 4 to Division 2 as well as a place in the Leinster final during his three years there.

He is one of the top five all-time greatest football managers in my rankings list behind only Mick O’Dwyer, Jim Gavin and Kevin Heffernan, with Seán Boylan fifth.

He could be the missing piece of the Derry jigsaw, but frankly I have my doubts.

For a man of principle his decision to leave Louth with a year of his contract left doesn’t sit well with me and neither does his decision to accept an offer to manage one of Tyrone’s most bitter rivals.

I would never manage Cork for example. Even in this day and age there is loyalty to your native county.

Tyrone failed to win an All-Ireland during the last 10 years of his reign, which suggests he had gone stale as a manager.

So what can Mickey bring to the Derry table in terms of tactical nous? His All-Ireland winning teams were built around a brilliant defence and a counter-attacking plan.

But Derry are probably the best team doing that at the moment anyway. They don’t need a manager who has majored in these tactics.

What they needed was a manager who was capable of improving their forward play. And I cannot see Mickey being that kind of coach.

At the moment, Derry are the third best team in the country. They are not far away.

So, delivering the All-Ireland to Derry is Harte’s job. Nothing else counts.

I doubt if he will succeed. I have an inkling this relationship could end in tears before the end of his three-year term.

Jimmy McGuinness (Donegal)

He is the best manager Donegal could have got. He will unite the players and the potential is there as the squad tick a lot of boxes.

But as I pointed out after his appointment, it will be exceedingly difficult for Donegal to gain the kind of edge in fitness they had in 2012. All the top teams have a similar level of fitness now.

I have doubts as well as to whether he can get the unconditional buy-in he got from the players in 2011 and 2012.

Not all footballers are prepared to park their lives and focus only on inter-county football for a couple of years. There is more to life than winning an All-Ireland medal.

And finally, will his game plan evolve from the one he used 10 years ago? It certainly needs too.

Donegal will improve, but I doubt if he can repeat what he did first time around and win an All-Ireland in his second season. The fans needs to be more patient this time.

Mark Fitzgerald (Clare)

This is a county which has been punching above its weight for a number of years and have a fresh crop of decent players coming through from this year’s U-20 team.

But Fitzgerald has an unenviable task following in the footsteps of the greatest manager in the history of Clare football – Colm Collins. Methinks there is a rocky road ahead. They will be playing in Division 3, and I fear the glory days under Collins will not be repeated.

Ray Galligan (Cavan)

A very well respected local appointment. This year they achieved their primary aim of securing promotion to Division 2 which means there is a good foundation laid. But their form in the wake of winning Division 3 was extremely poor and they were atrocious when losing to Down in the Tailteann Cup quarter-final.

They are a team in transition and they desperately need an injection of pace. It could be a difficult 2024 despite their All Star management team.

Declan Kelly (Offaly)

Another good local appointment, he comes with an impressive track record at club level. The icing on the cake was managing the Offaly U-20 team to the 2020 All-Ireland title.

There is plenty of fresh talent coming through and most of the players sidelined with injuries this season will be back in the spring. Getting out of Division 3 has to be his priority but just ask Dessie Dolan, the Westmeath manager who also has a talented squad, how difficult a job that is.

Jimmy Lee (Limerick)

Another top class local appointment. He was successful with Newcastle West, guiding them to two Limerick county titles as well as a Munster final appearance.

There is a sense of continuity about his appointment as he was part of his brother Billy’s Limerick management team.

But following in the footsteps of his brother (even he is departed since last year) is an unenviable task. Billy managed Limerick to a place in Division 2 as well as a Munster final appearance in 2021.

They were definitely punching above their weight in those years, so I imagine a difficult couple of seasons lie ahead.

Rush

In relation to the other vacancies, I fear there won’t be a rush of candidates to replace Mickey Harte.

Louth probably overachieved under Harte, and I can’t see them either staying in Division 2 or reaching another Leinster final.

As for Tipperary, Laois and Waterford, they are all in Division 4, and reviving their fortunes wouldn’t set the juices of any potential manager running.

*By the way, next Saturday, October 7, in Spillane’s Bar in Templenoe, my old Sunday Game sparring partner Joe Brolly will launch my new book ‘In the Blood’ at 5pm. Plenty of fun and craic guaranteed. All are welcome.