Dust yet to settle as revolt backfires

GAA NEWS ROUND-UP:THE FIRST big intercounty managerial controversy of 2012 appears to have reached a crescendo and subsided. For now anyway.

We’re talking about the plummeting reputation of Meath football, both on and off the field.

The developments of recent weeks have left the Royal landscape in an unadulterated mess, but at least the footballers can move on after Wednesday night’s failed attempt by the county board executive to remove the management team of Séamus McEnaney, Graham Geraghty and Tom Keague.

The nine-point defeat to Louth in Navan on April 8th saw Meath relegated to Division Three. It prompted county chairman Barney Allen to seek McEnaney’s resignation, while simultaneously sounding out former manager Seán Boylan as his replacement.

All this was done without consulting the full executive or club delegates.

Meanwhile, having gained the players’ support, McEnaney refused to step aside. For whatever reason, Allen was unable to secure a two-thirds majority to oust the current management so, in true GAA fashion, he made an immediate about face, stating the Monaghan man had the full backing of the county board.

Late Wednesday night, Allen, an old hand at the GAA’s  politics in his fifth and final year as chairman, merely shrugged his shoulders and stated how difficult it is to garner such a majority.

The votes of 15 county officers and 59 club delegates resulted in a 43-31 tally supporting the motion of no confidence – 49 votes were needed to initiate a second secret ballot, whereby Boylan and the bainisteoir bib could have been reunited, after seven years, ahead of the Leinster championship opener against Wicklow on May 27th .

“If you had asked me after the Louth game I would have said that he would have lost the vote,” said Geraghty yesterday. “But obviously the clubs went away and had a think about it and as the week went on it looked like he had more of a chance to stay. I’m just glad it has all been put to bed and we can get on with preparing for Wicklow.

“It was a big upheaval, it has been very stressful for the players who don’t want to do anything but to play football. They are sick of all this and they got dragged into it again.”

Geraghty found himself in a particularly unenviable position as both player and selector in the Meath camp. Already a divisive figure last year, when Liam Harnan and Barry Callaghan resigned in protest at his return to the panel aged 38, Geraghty didn’t attend the recent player meetings to discuss McEnaney’s position.

This, naturally, will become a live issue once again should Wicklow or Carlow beat them this summer.

“But I think this whole episode will bring the players closer together,” continued the 1999 All-Ireland winning captain. “If ever you wanted a launching pad for some sort of response this is it.

“Obviously we have a lot of problems to iron out and we can do that by putting some confidence back into the players. The next few weeks are about lifting morale. A lot of that will be down to the players themselves and they’ll have to lift each other.

“Certain elements of the county board did themselves no favours over the last couple of weeks in all of this.”

With McEnaney remaining and Allen’s blasé attitude to the failed removal, Boylan comes out of this debacle the worst off – despite being described on several occasions during last Wednesday’s gathering as a man of the highest integrity. He was unavailable for comment yesterday but there is never a shortage of people, including Geraghty, willing to speak well of the herbalist.

“It was very unfair of Barney to put Seán’s name out there. It over-complicated the matter. They should have waited until the vote was over and take it from there then if they needed a new manager.”

Former Meath player Evan Kelly, who won two All-Irelands under Boylan, echoed these sentiments when speaking at yesterday’s launch of the “Race the Rás” charity cycle (all money raised will go to the National Breast cancer Research Institute and Aware).

“It’s definitely unnecessary publicity that Seán could do without,” said Kelly. “Seán obviously thought they were in trouble and offered a solution for them. It back-fired on them.”

Boylan, Allen claimed, will continue to work with underage squads in the hope of breaking a chronic lack of silverware below senior level.

“That’s usually the barometer for how you judge a senior team – how many minors they have won in the past four or five years – but it doesn’t necessarily follow through,” Kelly continued. “But it is definitely an indication.

“Seán was always great at manufacturing players. If we didn’t have a player he would go and pick someone, myself included, and turn them into what we needed. Seán was very good at doing that.

“But what needs to be done in Meath at the moment is to go with what we have and try and get the best out of this bunch.

“It’s going to be tough for (McEnaney), there’s no doubt about that, but if they do get a few results in a few weeks’ time that will put all that to bed. It is going to be an interesting couple of weeks for the players, the county board and the manager.”