The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
YOUNG PLAYER OF THE YEAR DAVID CLIFFORD CLAIMS THE KINGDOM’S SOLE ALL STAR
Quill and Long to manage minor ladies footballers
DONAL O’Doherty of the Spa club in Killarney is the new Kerry senior ladies football manager, following his appointment at last week’s Kerry LGFA county board meeting at which the inter-county managements at all age groups were ratified.
O’Doherty played senior football for a number of years with Spa and also won an All-Ireland Vocational Schools medal with Kerry in 1990 when they defeated Cavan in the final. Incidentally, the manager of that Kerry Vocational team was Pat O’Shea, the current manager senior men’s county champions of Dr Crokes.
O’Doherty was the manager of the Killarney team that won the senior ladies county championship this year, and he was also in charge of the Spa ladies team that was successful in the Junior grade. He has extensive experience as a coach with Spa at all age levels and is the former manager of the Killarney Celtic senior men’s soccer team.
He is currently the Kerry LGFA Development officer but will now vacate this role to concentrate on his Kerry management duties. He has named Spa clubmate Tim O’Connor as a selector. Donal O’Sullivan of Killorglin will look after the strength and conditioning work. Two further selectors will be named over the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Darragh Long of Austin Stacks and Declan Quill of Kerins O’Rahillys were ratified as joint Kerry minor ladies managers. Long is a former Kerry minor and U-21 star and is in the top five for Championship appearances for his club. Long won a senior county championship medal when Austin Stacks defeated Mid Kerry in the 2014 County Championship final.
Quill is the holder of two All-Ireland senior medals with Kerry and also starred at minor and U-21 level for his county. He played senior football for Kerry from 2001 to 2005 and in total made 14 championship appearances scoring 0-9. He was a regular starter for Kerry in their National League campaigns and amassed 4 goals and 99 points in his 34 games.
Elsewhere, the U-16 management was also ratified and John Doona of Legion making the step up from the U-14 team to manage the team. John will be joined by Nora O’Connor of Rathmore, Eamon Kissane of Beaufort, Gillian Healy from Austin Stacks and Colin O’Leary of Rathmore as selectors, with Padraig O’Sullivan of Southern Gaels as strength and conditioning coach.
The U-14 management will see Charlie McCarthy of Rathmore take the management reigns, where he will be joined by Alan Foley of Beaufort and Hannah Devlin of Killarney Legion as selectors. There will be two further names added to the ticket over the next couple of weeks.