MEATH FOOTBALL:THE EXECUTIVE of the Meath County Board held an "information" meeting last night following the weekend resignation of football selectors Liam Harnan and Barry Callaghan but in the meantime county chairman Cyril Creavin insists the players remain committed to manager Séamus McEnaney in the build-up to their Leinster quarter-final date against Kildare on Sunday week.
Harnan and Callaghan confirmed their decision to resign as McEnaney’s selectors on Sunday evening, citing “personal reasons” – although McEnaney’s recall last Friday of 38-year-old Meath forward Graham Geraghty, who hasn’t played championship football since 2008, was apparently central to that decision.
Geraghty played the last 15 minutes of Meath’s challenge game against Galway, played behind closed doors in Mullingar on Sunday. Meath won by two-points, and according to Creavin, the players distanced themselves from the controversy afterwards, saying their only concern was the Kildare game in Croke Park on Sunday week.
“Right now it is a question of trying to continue on the way we are, unless someone comes up with a different suggestion,” said Creavin. “But we have a team manager in place, the backroom staff, etc. They’re still there, and the players are willing to focus and train on towards Sunday week.That was their wish after the game on Sunday.
“But what they’re saying is it’s not their problem, but a problem for the county committee. It’s nothing to do with the players. So we’re meeting just to inform the committee as to what is going on.
“So it’s more for information purposes, nothing else, just to keep the rest of management committee informed as to what’s going on. Because up to now it’s only myself and the county chairman who have been in touch with the team management. So we’ll put some information out there about what happened, and where we see things going, maybe even come up with a suggestion as to where we might go from here.”
It would appear then McEnaney has the backing of the players, at least for now, although with Harnan and Callaghan gone, there is no Meath representative among the backroom staff. McEnaney’s third selector is Paul Grimley, formerly of Armagh, plus trainer Martin McElkennon, formerly of Cavan.
There was some speculation yesterday Pat Coyle, who managed Meath to Leinster minor honours three years ago and was the county’s junior manager this season, would come in as a replacement selector but this has proved untrue. “No, that’s the first I heard of that,” said Creavin. “That would only be speculation. But the truth is we’ve done very little on this, because no one else has been spoken to yet. I doubt we’ll even go down that line, to be honest.
“As I say the players are prepared to keep training and focus on Kildare on Sunday week. That’s their attitude, that’s what they were saying after the Galway game. They felt they’d played very well. Their only focus now is on that game. They have their training programme for the next two weeks . . . So all trains lead to Croke Park on Sunday week.”
Meath also played a challenge game on Friday, beating Westmeath in a match for which Harnan actually took charge – although Geraghty did not feature in that. Harnan only cited “personal reasons” for vacating his position, but has since indicated neither he nor O’Callaghan would return under any circumstances.
Ironically, McEnaney, the former Monaghan manager, received strong backing from Harnan ahead of his appointment last October, and the two-time All-Ireland-winning Meath centre-back has been seen as a central part of the coaching set-up since then. However it has also been suggested part of their grievances was that McEnaney didn’t attend many championship matches in Meath.
