Speculation is growing that former Offaly and Kilkenny manager Diarmuid Healy will be appointed Dublin's Director of Hurling. Healy, a highly respected figure in the game, masterminded Offaly's great breakthrough in Leinster in 1980 and at All-Ireland level a year later.
He was also in charge when the county added a second All-Ireland in 1985 before going on to manage his native Kilkenny. Although he took the county to the 1990 National League, Healy was not altogether happy in the position and stood down after a heavy championship defeat by Offaly. But his achievement with Offaly stands the test of time. Only two counties have won the hurling All-Ireland for the first time in the past 80 years. Waterford in 1948 and Healy's Offaly in 1981.
In recent years he has continued his development work both in Kilkenny and also recently in Laois.
When contacted Healy declined to comment. Similarly the Dublin county board would neither confirm nor deny the appointment but a source acknowledged that Healy was "well in the running". But the county board isn't due to meet until April 7th and the meeting will have final approval on the appointment.
The position of Dublin Director of Hurling is the central idea of the Blueprint for Dublin Hurling (November 2001). The director will be expected to help devise and implement a strategy for developing the game in the capital.
Meanwhile, Wexford county board last night played down the significance of a no-show by players at a medals' presentation in the county last Sunday.
County PRO Alan Aherne said that the incident was unfortunate in that GAA President-Elect Sean Kelly had been invited to make the presentation.
"There were 103 invited to attend and only 33 turned up with 10 apologies, and there were 60 absentees. It was to present medals to last year's Leinster under-21 and intermediate teams as well as the last few Walsh Cup winning sides. A lot of the players wouldn't be on a county panel at the moment."
Ahern said that the absenteeism had been unfortunate but denied that it was an orchestrated gesture.
"There was a certain annoyance that so many didn't pick up the phone to say they wouldn't be there. But I don't think it was planned. I'd imagine it was more apathy because the lads that weren't there were a cross-section of all the teams, not just senior panellists."
On the teams front, Limerick have recalled Maurice O'Brien and Ollie Moran for Saturday's bottom of Division One NHL match against Derry at Kilmallock. The selectors have also left a vacancy at centrefield. O'Brien and Moran come in for defenders Brian Geary (finger injury) and Stephen McDonogh, who is getting married the same afternoon. The vacancy at centrefield arises because Clement Smith is out of the country.
Finally, TG4 have outlined the reasoning behind their decision not to maintain live coverage of the National Leagues this weekend. The NHL fixtures were switched by the GAA's Games Administration Committee so that the programme wouldn't clash with Sunday's rugby Grand Slam decider between Ireland and England.
"The match hadn't gone to listings simply because there's a three-week deadline that we couldn't meet," said TG4's Head of Sport Ronan Ó Coisdealbha.
"The decision was only taken the week before last. We had asked GAC to consider giving us the Tipp-Cork match on Sunday at 4 p.m., but they moved all the fixtures forward by a day, which was disappointing for us.
"Our experience is that if we don't get into the television listings our audience falls away significantly and also from our experience Saturday matches have not been successful, so we decided against sending an outside broadcast unit to one of the matches this weekend."
LIMERICK (SH v Derry): T Houlihan; D Reale, E Mulcahy, M O'Brien; E Foley, O Moran, M Foley; P Lawlor, AN Other; C Fitzgerald, TJ Ryan, B Foley; D Sheehan, B Begley, M Keane.
LIMERICK (MF v Waterford): T Enright; M Fitzgerald, P Fox, E Geoghegan, P Hyland, S Fox, AN Other; J Ryan, M Fitzgerald; R Egan, J Cooke, P Keating; S Buckley, G Ahern, B Fitzpatrick.
