O’Hara’s hatchet job on Sligo manager leaves sour taste

THAT was some hatchet job new Sunday Game panellist Eamonn O’Hara did on Kevin Walsh on prime time television on Sunday night. The former long serving Sligo midfielder opened up both barrels in his strident criticism of the current Yeats County boss after their shock Connacht football championship to the exiles of London in Ruislip earlier in the day.

 It smacked of settling an old score and O’Hara, who admittedly served his county loyally for 17 years, didn’t hold back in condemning the Sligo manager for his role in their provincial championship exit to London. He had fallen out with Walsh last November over a proposed winter training schedule of four nights a week and was subsequently dropped from the panel when he felt unable to meet those demands. Sunday night, however, saw a clearly embittered O’Hara go way beyond the bounds of fair comment.

 He was shooting into an open goal too as The Sunday Game anchor Des Cahill gave O’Hara the perfect opportunity to blow his gasket on Walsh after posing the question why he was no longer involved with Sligo? At 37 years of age, O’Hara’s days in the black jersey were surely numbered anyway, but the manner in which he tore strips – more or less unchallenged – off his former manager made for unsettling TV viewing.

 O’Hara claimed that the former Galway midfielder, who was such a pivotal figure, in the county’s last two All-Ireland triumphs in 1989 and ’91, had lost the support of the Sligo players, labelled Walsh’s winter training programme as “crazy” and suggested that the dedication demanded by the Sligo manager at the time was not reciprocated by the Killanin native himself who, O’Hara alleged, had been interested in the vacant Roscommon managerial position.

 The former All Star also insisted that Walsh’s standard of training, tactical awareness and selection policy were not up to scratch, while he insisted that the problems in the Sligo County Board had masked the team’s poor results over the past two years. O’Hara said that the manager should resign in the wake of the London defeat and that he would be doing the County Board a favour.

 O’Hara wasn’t finished yet: “We got to the Connacht final last year but we’re papering over the cracks. These are players that deserve better quality of training and management, and I think going forward Kevin should make the right decision for the sake of Sligo football and not anyone else. Kevin Walsh made big calls this year and last year – and every one of them has come back to backfire against him. For me, I think he lost the players throughout the year. Kevin Walsh has a lot to answer for.”

 There is little doubt that O’Hara remained resentful over being axed by Walsh after being unable to commit to the squad’s early season training schedule and though he may have been entitled to offer some explanation as to why he was no longer lining out for Sligo, he shouldn’t have been given what seemed like five minutes to character assassinate one of the greatest Galway footballers of all-time. To this day, you will often hear the comment that the Tribesmen have never adequately replaced Kevin Walsh in midfield.

 To allow a panellist go off on such a personal and spiteful rant does not reflect well on RTE. There are two sides to every story and Walsh was presented with no opportunity to defend himself. It’s his fourth year in charge of Sligo and while, obviously, Sunday’s result against London was a huge disappointment, this was a fixture which had danger written all over it for the visitors. Last year, the exiles ran Leitrim to a point and, in 2011, Mayo were lucky to force extra time before escaping Ruislip with their title hopes still intact.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.