Colm O'Rourke 'angrier than he has ever been in football' over Meath management review fiasco
The former RTE pundit said in August that he was not able to announce his new management team before a deadline set by the Co Board
Royal County legend Colm O’Rourke has blasted the Meath County Board in a scathing and lengthy interview with a local newspaper.
O’Rourke stepped down as Meath senior football manager on August 26th last after a two-year stint in charge which saw him win the Tailteann Cup in 2023.
Kilmacud Crokes’ All-Ireland club winning coach Robbie Brennan has since been appointed to replace O’Rourke on a management ticket that includes Tyrone’s Joe McMahon.
O’Rourke, who won two All-Ireland titles as a player with Meath in 1987 and 1988, said on the day of his departure that it was because he was not in a position to announce his new backroom team before a deadline set by the County Board.
What has now incensed the former Sunday Game pundit is the suggestion made at a County Board meeting last Monday that he, in fact, wasn’t given a deadline.
The County Board had appointed a committee to review O’Rourke’s two years in charge and said that in order to make a positive recommendation they would need him to have a full backroom team in place.
Two of O’Rourke’s management team, Barry Callaghan and Stephen Bray had previously stepped away due to other commitments.
"I have never been more annoyed by anything in football than what has happened in this review process and what has happened since has greatly angered me," O'Rourke told the Meath Chronicle newspaper.
"I wanted to get over the disappointment of not being reappointed, I want to see the Meath team do well, I want to see the new management doing well, but I don't want to be treated with such lack of respect as I was shown at the Co Board meeting last week, and that includes Sean Boylan and all the other people that were involved with me.”
At last Monday’s meeting the Chairman Jason Plunkett said that the review committee never gave O’Rourke a deadline, but said they needed names to come back with a recommendation for him to continue as manager.
“Ultimately Colm O’Rourke resigned from his position with no pressure from the review committee,” the chairman continued.
The former schoolteacher O’Rourke disputes that there was no deadline put in place.
"In actual fact there were two deadlines put to me. One for the middle of August and one for a management meeting which I believe was due to take place on Monday 26th August.
"When the first deadline was set the chairman (Jason Plunkett) and Liam Keane made it clear that we had to have a full management team in place and if that didn't happen then the review committee would not be recommending me for a third year as manager.
"Not only that, I also have an email from the chairman which read that himself and Liam Keane would not be recommending me for manager.
"I got that email in August without explanation, without reason, just a statement that they would not be recommending me. That email was before I was given a deadline to get a management team in place.
"So Sean Boylan and myself then met the two gentlemen (Plunkett and Keane) and we were told that we had to have our management team in place by the last week of August.
"At that stage I told them who the people we wanted were, but that they wouldn't be named until after their involvement with their club teams, one in Meath and one in another county, was finished.
"We were told that they didn't think this would be acceptable to management, so I basically got fed up with them at that stage because I felt that the whole process was not carried out properly.
"I'v been involved in professional reviews in my capacity as a school principal and I never saw one like this before. It was at that stage that I decided to withdraw.
"Why would I walk away from a job I wanted, unless unreasonable demands were being made of me. When I got that email informing me that they would not be recommending me I was a bit taken aback to put it mildly.
"Any suggestion that there wasn't a deadline or that the gun wasn't being put to my head, that is quite untrue."
The Meath County Board didn’t wish to comment when contacted by Irishmirror.ie on Friday night.
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