ALL IS NOT WELL FOR WALLACE AND OFFALY

STEPHEN WALLACE learnt one of the harsh lessons of modern management this week — that most careers usually end in tears. While that has always been true in English soccer, it is looking increasingly like a truism in modern GAA. The number of bulletproof managers around can be counted on one hand. To be able to choose the time and manner of your departure is a luxury only available to the likes of Jim Gavin and Brian Cody. I discovered myself that most management careers end in tears. Not in my adopted counties of Galway or Leitrim, but in my native Mayo, when I went back for a second time. You are never a prophet in your own land. I don’t know Stephen Wallace personally, but I am aware of how successful he was with Kerry junior footballers. However, events surrounding last Sunday’s shock Championship defeat to Wicklow had all the hallmarks of a troubled and unhappy camp. Whatever was the reason, Offaly football now seems to be in complete disarray. The images of a suspended team manager sitting in the stand, where he has been banished for a couple of months, painted a picture of isolation. And then there was the number of key players that left the panel in advance of the Championship. That does not suggest it was a happy camp. Leaving aside the rumours of a dressingroom bust-up at halftime, as a county, Offaly have a history of player unrest. Their hurlers famously ousted Babs Keating in 1998 with Galway man Michael Bond installed midseason. They ended up as All-Ireland champions by the end of that summer. We can say with some certainty that is not about to happen in this case, and I can’t see a rush of applicants looking to succeed Stephen Wallace.