Mac’s our Man!

Date Published: 20-Nov-2008

A TURBULENT couple of months for Galway hurling concluded at the Raheen Woods Hotel in Athenry on Tuesday night when Hurling Board delegates were informed that John McIntyre had been appointed as the new manager of the county’s senior hurling team.

Delegates had reacted with initial shock, and then a round of applause, to the announcement that the 47-year old Tipperary native had been appointed to the position which was left vacant by the sacking of Ger Loughnane on a 28-26 vote last month.

A veil of secrecy had been kept over the announcement until the 11th hour as neither McIntyre nor the two remaining candidates in the race, Michael Bond and Noel Lane, had been informed of the decision until just before the meeting. The initial field of eight candidates had been whittled down to three following a first round of interviews late last week.

McIntyre, the Sports Editor of this newspaper, will now become the first manager to lead the Tribesmen into the Leinster championship next year, following another decision which proved divisive two months ago. He had two stints in charge of Offaly, most recently standing down after a three year term in 2007.

There was a clear feeling that a line had been drawn in the sand at the Athenry venue on Tuesday and there were no dissenting voices from club delegates following the announcement by Hurling Board Chairman Miko Ryan, who had led a five man subcommittee to appoint the new manager.

McIntyre had assembled a strong backroom team, including double All-Ireland winning minor manager John Hardiman (Athenry), his selector (and Galway Bay FM analyst) John Moylan, and 1980 Galway captain Joe Connolly. The team will be trained by John Kearney of Kilbeacanty, who looked after the physical preparations of Alan Mulholland’s Galway minor side who won last year’s All-Ireland football title at Croke Park.

“I think people believed that Ger Loughnane would deliver an All-Ireland. None of the candidates promised any miracles, but they know there is hard work ahead of them. Say if we won a National League this year and got into an All-Ireland final, sure it would be a wonderful improvement,” said Ryan after the meeting.

“It has been a turbulent few months. Hopefully, that’s all gone and over now. I think tonight everyone has accepted it and gone home happy and that we’ve done a job as good as we can. Hopefully, we can all move on from here for the betterment of Galway hurling.”

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