Pat Nolan: Mickey Harte-Declan Kelly arrangement the ultimate fudge by Offaly county board
On the back of the review of the 2024 season, the board either had to back Kelly to the hilt or move him on. Somehow, they have managed to do neither
On 5.15pm on Monday, a delegation of Offaly footballers were summoned to a Zoom call where they were told that Mickey Harte would be coming on board as joint-manager alongside Declan Kelly.
The players were taken aback. There hadn’t been a squeak about any of this locally. At 5.27pm, the news was released on Offaly GAA’s social media channels.
The county board, furious after an attempt to entice Eamon O’Shea and Liam Sheedy to head up the hurling management team was leaked a couple of years ago, had kept this one well under wraps.
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His recent struggles in Derry notwithstanding, the impending appointment of Harte in itself is not one that should be ridiculed.
Taking Louth from Division Four to Division Two and a Leinster final was one of his most impressive feats and there is enough potential in Offaly to bring them on a similar path.
It appears certain that he will have to find a new coach, with Gavin Devlin, who worked with him latterly in Tyrone, Louth and Derry, now heading up Louth’s underage set up.
But on numerous occasions over the past 20 years or so, Offaly have appointed managers that wouldn’t get a look-in anywhere else. Now they’ve got a proven winner on board.
This is not the way to do it, however.
Had Harte been appointed a year or two ago with Kelly as part of his management team, perhaps even with a view to succeeding him, it would have stacked up.
Maybe the county board envisages that Harte will be the de facto manager, with his experience and knowledge rubbing off on Kelly, who would be his No 2 in everything but name.
But if that is the case, just make Harte the manager altogether and be done with it.
Harte is not one to defer to anybody on football matters and it’s impossible to imagine him playing second fiddle here.
And Kelly himself is a man of conviction who can point to Leinster and All-Ireland under-20 titles, county championships in Westmeath with St Loman’s and various other titles in Offaly which form an impressive CV.
He is not known for taking a backward step and how this was sold to him - and why he accepted what is a dilution of his authority at best - is mystifying.
Who will pick the panel? The team? Decide on tactics and style of play?
Who will have the final word on a 50-50 call? It may seem petty, but who will have ‘Bainisteor’ emblazoned on their back on the sideline?
It’s difficult to imagine the two men, strangers to each other, finding a middle ground on everything and it’s not realistic for them to carry equal status in the eyes of the players.
So, who will they look to as the main man? Most would conclude that it would be Harte. Where would that leave Kelly, coming from a position of being outright manager over the past year? Perhaps he is happy to accept a reduced status - for now.
Kelly appeared the obvious appointment 12 months ago on the back of a traumatic year for Offaly football.
But, even before last Christmas, there were rumblings from the camp. The League started with four successive defeats though Offaly did just enough to avoid relegation, beating already doomed Limerick at home in their final game by a point to stay up.
The Leinster Championship win over 14-man Laois offered some encouragement but they were inevitably swamped by Dublin in the next round.
Things nosedived in the Tailteann Cup, with a 14-point defeat at home to London arguably the worst result in the county’s history. They were subsequently well beaten by Limerick before seeing out the year with a loss to Down.
A subsequent review shone a negative light on the management team. A significant number of players indicated privately that they would not be back next year under the same regime.
Offaly chairman Michael Duignan is a man for whom optics carry a disproportionate level of importance. Dealing with the negative PR that would accompany jettisoning a manager who had delivered an All-Ireland under-20 title after just one year was too much to countenance.
On the back of the review of the 2024 season, the board either had to back Kelly to the hilt or move him on. Somehow, they have managed to do neither.
Firstly, Kelly was told that changes would have to be made to his management team, which has effectively been gutted in recent weeks as a result.
Now there’s the ultimate fudge, with Harte’s arrival as co-manager.
It’s likely that players who were heading for the exit door will now check back, but that’s not to say that this new managerial arrangement makes sense.
There are instances of joint-managers working well in tandem; think of the Eugene McKenna-Art McRory and Brian Dooher-Feargal Logan tickets either side of Harte’s lengthy tenure in Tyrone.
But those pairings had long-standing relationships before coming together. Harte and Kelly have nothing of the sort and, at this remove, bear more resemblance to, say, the ill-fated Kevin McStay and Fergal O’Donnell partnership in Roscommon.
Duignan’s five-year term ends in December. There will likely be a mess arising out of this that his successor will have to clean up.
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