Carey out as players flex muscles

IT came like a bolt from the blue one Sunday evening, an email and press release from the Kerry County Board: Ciarán Carey, the Kerry senior hurling manager, had stepped down from the role with immediate effect.

To say it was unexpected would be something of an understatement. Sure there were little things you’d hear here and there but nothing that added up to the manager walking away just a month before the season began. The statement carried the following from Carey: “Due to increased work commitments,” he wrote, “I am unable to give the necessary time required to manage the Kerry Senior Hurling team for the coming season.”

Very quickly, however, it became apparent that this did not quite add up. Carey, an honourable man, wouldn’t have left it this late in the day to walk away and why would he walk away?

Kerry were a team on the up, a team with prospects, a team with genuine prospects for going one better in 2017 and reaching the Leinster championship proper by winning or finishing as runners-up in the round robin.

The Kerryman then learned that in the week leading up to Carey’s dramatic departure a meeting of some of the members of the 2016 panel took place where dissatisfaction with Carey’s management was expressed.

It was thought to be a small core of players critical of Carey, but the Patrickswell native seemingly felt he had no other choice but to step down from the role under the circumstances.

All in all it put the County Board in a difficult position to find a suitable replacement for Carey at such a late stage in the year as most inter-county appointments had been made much, much earlier.

Complicating matters was the handover of the chairmanship of the County Board from Patrick O’Sullivan to Tim Murphy midway through the month at convention. Nevertheless a process for appointing the new manager was rapidly put in place.

Then, just a week before Christmas, Tipperary native Fintan O’Connor was announced as Kerry senior hurling manager. O’Connor had been coach, selector and right hand man to Waterford boss Derek McGrath for the previous two seasons. O’Connor has seen his stock as a hurling coach rise rapidly in that time.

He has also been Coach /Selector at Waterford Institute of Technology for the past three years during which time they reached two Fitzgibbon Cup Finals, winning in 2014. His first decision as Kerry boss was to appoint Tippeary legend Brendan Cummins as the new Kerry senior hurling trainer.

Speaking to The Kerryman in the wake of his appointment O’Connor outlined his ambitions for the job.

“I think Kerry are making huge progress over the last number of years. I think they are a very attractive team to be involved with, the players are very enthusiastic. I know that the people that are trying to support them and help them are very enthusiastic, so yeah, it was something I was mad interested in doing and keen on doing.

“I would be friendly with Brendan [Cummins] obviously, and I would have heard Brendan talking about them since his time down here with Eamonn Kelly so I would have some familiarity, but not a huge amount of knowledge about them. That’s why I am looking forward to doing it over the next months and years, to build on what success they have had.”