FLANAGAN HITS BACK AT CRITICS
OFFALY manager Pat Flanagan demanded a ‘retraction’ from his critics at a face-to-face meeting last week. Flanagan has come under fire from two delegates at a recent county board meeting in the aftermath of his team’s 30-point defeat to Armagh, with one delegate claiming that the players were not playing for the manager, while the other claimed it was a ‘scandal’ he was still in charge. That led to a meeting with club representatives last week, where Flanagan revealed on Midlands Radio yesterday that he had confronted his critics. ‘I was very disappointed with some of the comments and I asked the gentlemen at the meeting to retract those because there was absolutely no substance whatsoever in those comments, they were untrue and they were really wide of the mark. ‘Hopefully that will happen in the near future in the medium that they used to put them out there because my backroom team and my players don’t deserve that and I certainly don’t deserve it. ‘There’s no place for it in Offaly football, it went out to the national media. All it’s going to do is bring Offaly football down, it’s not going to progress it in any manner,’ said Flanagan. While Offaly remained mired in relegation trouble at the foot of Division 3, they produced a much improved performance at the weekend when going down to Tipperary. However, Flanagan is still without Niall McNamee who has not featured this season.