Brian Whelahan driven by gut instinct to help arrest Offaly decline

If, like with buying a house, there is no such thing as perfect timing, only gut instinct, then no wonder so many managers take or leave jobs as they do.

And if only Roy Keane knows exactly why he didn’t take the Celtic job last weekend, when the timing looked pretty good, the same could be said about Brian Whelahan taking the Offaly hurling job last October, when the timing looked awful.

Offaly were just out of another disappointing championship, losing to Kilkenny in the Leinster quarter-final, then to Waterford in the preliminary round qualifier.

Bad to worse

Meanwhile their underage record went from bad to worse, and the prospects for 2014 didn’t look good either when they drew Kilkenny again, the team they haven’t beaten in the championship since the 1998 All-Ireland final, and have lost to in their nine meetings since.

Former Clare All-Ireland winner Ollie Baker had spent two years in charge, but left a frustrated if not disheartened man. There was little expectation of them being promoted from Division 1B of the league, and talk of poor resources and training facilities was rife.

Around the same time, Whelahan had taken over as Offaly minor hurling manager, which looked like a pretty good move. That would at least afford him the chance to work from the bottom up, nurture the county’s best talent, and ideally bring them onto the senior stage without any immediate expectation.

A few weeks later Whelahan was told he could actually have the Offaly senior job if he wanted it, such was the apparent dearth of suitable candidates.

Which is where the gut instinct kicked in – because while a lot of people were telling Whelahan that the timing surely wasn’t perfect, he still felt somehow drawn into the position.

“I do think the Offaly hurling project, to call it that, is a number of years away from where it needs to be. But I just felt, when the position became available to me, that at the end of the day I am an Offaly hurling man, and it’s my belief that to get in there, and start getting some positives out of it, would reflect right back down the line.”

It gave Offaly hurling a temporary boost to think the two- time All-Ireland winner, four- time All Star, and only hurler still playing when the GAA named their team of the millennium in 2000, would be guiding them through 2014. Yet that soon wore off when Offaly endured a dreadful league, and only escaped an embarrassing relegation to Division Two by overcoming Kerry in the relegation playoff.

Perfect example

Still, Whelahan hasn’t lost heart, and points to neighbours Laois – who ran Galway so close last Sunday – as a perfect example of what can be done with the right attitude and approach.

“It’s about making a sound basis for the team . . . I really do feel we need to look at what Laois have done, next door to us. They have done it at the top and bottom, brought everyone into it, because that’s what needs to be done. The senior management, under-21, minor and development squads have worked collectively and that has raised the entire profile of the county.

“But I would say Offaly are in a very challenging position at the minute. We haven’t arrived at this juncture overnight. There has been a gradual decline in our results, and I suppose in our performances. We really need to have a look at our underage structures . . . Clare didn’t just arrive on the scene last year out of the blue. They were appearing in minor finals and won the last two under-21 titles. So the work was being done back eight or 10 years ago and continues to be done.”

There was another boost last week when Croke Park announced that Offaly would now get an added €45,000 per year from the €900,000 set aside for so-called weaker hurling counties (Antrim, Laois, Carlow and Westmeath). Whelahan is adamant that money will only make a difference if it’s spent in the right places.

Apocalypse

None of that will make a difference on Saturday evening, when Offaly travel to Nowlan Park to face Kilkenny, again – with Sky Sports in town, too. Last year, Offaly put four goals past them and still lost, although that did prove to be the sign of the 2013 apocalypse in Kilkenny hurling.

Kilkenny have a growing list of injuries, although Whelahan isn’t being distracted by that. “Well I think Kilkenny are in a totally different place this year than they were last year. I know they won the league, last year as well, but from a freshness point of view, I think they are in a much better position. And they have some of the top hurlers in the country, chomping at the bit, trying to get on the team.

“When you have Tommy Walsh and Brian Hogan getting very little game time, and Eoin Larkin too, well these guys are top-class hurlers. That still makes Brian Cody the envy of every manager in the country right now.”

The same Cody, by the way, who took over the Kilkenny job, 15 seasons ago, with not ideal timing.