BAD WAY TO DO BUSINESS

U-21 manager wasn’t told his job was gone

LAST year’s Wicklow Under-21 joint manager Jonathan Daniels has voiced his hurt at the poor communication from Wicklow County Board after he learned he would not be getting a third year in charge via a third party.

Wicklow GAA County Board sent an email to clubs instructing them that the ratification of the Under-21 management team of Johnny Magee, Paddy Dalton, PJ Cunningham and Paul O’Riordan would be on the agenda at next Monday night’s County Board meeting in Ballinakill.

However, nobody informed Jonathan Daniels who has served two terms at the helm of the Wicklow Under-21s, once on his own, and then last year as joint manager with Johnny Magee, and the Blessington club man only found this out this week when a third party showed him the email.

“I think it’s a massive lack of respect,” Jonathan Daniels told the Wicklow People. “I’ve had no contact from anyone since the Laois game (on March 9), not a phone call, not a comment in passing, nothing. Regardless of whether you want to stay around or not, you still want feedback, or a review.

“I would have liked to have been considered. Even doing the job (over the two years) there was a lack of communication.

“It’s not what you’d expect. You’d like more support, you’d like to have contact with people but the lack of communication is shocking.

“I wasn’t given a two-year contract. After the first year I was approached in the summer about doing a second year and I presumed that I would be approached this year to see if I was interested or not. It’s not how you’d like business to be done. It’s a bad way to do business,” he added.

County Board Chairman Martin Coleman said that Jonathan Daniels had got a two-year term and that that term was now up.

“He got a two-year term with a review after each year and his term is up,” said Martin Coleman. “We did a review and all management teams were invited to the review,” he added.

However, Jonathan Daniels says that he was asked to a management meeting to discuss a “strategic review” of all Wicklow teams but not a specific review of the Under-21 team who, interestingly, were the only Wicklow team to record a championship victory in 2016, and that he had replied to say that he couldn’t make it on the night. Included in his email, he says, were points he felt needed to be addressed but to date he says he has not received a reply.

When asked why Jonathan Daniels was not receiving a third year at the helm of the Under-21 footballers, Martin Coleman said that, “the Under-21 and Senior management combined is better for all of us and the Senior management are taking over and Paul O’Riordan is the link with the young lads coming through that we want to keep,” he said.

Martin Coleman also added that “in hindsight”, a phone call to Jonathan Daniels could have been made.