Canavan calls it a day with Fermanagh footballers

Peter Canavan has stepped down as manager of the Fermanagh senior footballers. The Tyrone All-Ireland winner had been in charge of the county for the past two years, having succeeded John O'Neill in 2011.

County PRO Jonny McManus said last night: “Peter informed the chairman and earlier in the evening had told the players. Clubs will be asked to nominate candidates for the position and the county will set up a sub-committee to appoint a new manager.”

He also acknowledged that there had been issues around the resourcing of the county team, which had had an influence on events.

This was Canavan’s first inter-county management position and he took Fermanagh out of Division Four in his first season in charge and nearly achieved a second successive promotion last spring.

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Championship fortunes weren’t however as successful with defeats by Down and Cavan bringing an abrupt end to his first campaign.

Cavan again proved his nemesis this year beating Fermanagh in both Ulster and the qualifiers but in between Canavan led the team to an exciting win over newly-promoted Division One side Westmeath in Mullingar.

Meanwhile the meeting of the Disputes Resolution Committee was ongoing last night, as Limerick pursued their objection against last month's All-Ireland minor semi-final defeat by Galway, which featured a programming error in the Hawk-Eye score detection system.

The county’s case has already been refused by the Central Competitions Control Committee and the Central Appeals Committee.

Limerick’s appeal to the DRA, the GAA’s independent arbitration tribunal, was lodged last Friday and yesterday was the soonest a panel could be convened.

A verdict is expected by this morning at the latest, as the minor final between Waterford and Galway is scheduled for finals day next Sunday.

Finally, the weekend’s Sunday Game Live coverage of Dublin’s victory over Kerry in the All Ireland semi-final was the most watched sports event on television so far this year.

The coverage of the game reached almost 1.215 million viewers.

Seán Moran

Seán Moran

Seán Moran is GAA Correspondent of The Irish Times