Replying To Royal_Rover:  "Most counties have already abandoned County specific pages at this stage and I encourage the editor to seriously consider abandoning this page too. I find it very disappointing and disrespectful to regularly read disparaging comments about a management team that have contributed enormously to Meath GAA and continue to do so. This forum gives anonymity to users who obviously take pleasure in abusing people who are willing to take responsibility on behalf of the county they love and respect."

Replying To seadog54:  "How do you thimk management should develop themselves? Remember this is an amature sport with lads giving up ever increasing spare time to both manage and play.
As for driving players on again not sure what that involves we have two experts involved with management team so I expect correct measures are been followed. Little point flogging the lads just for the sake of it. Jim Mac expressed his concern about the number of injuries within the Donegal panel maybe he needs to look at his training methods. Its a busy season and difficult to see his side sustaining what we saw on Saturday. We have a decent panel but still a way off from where we want to be, we need a few top class players and to date it looks like we will be waiting a while. We have three games coming up and I would be slow to judge until we see what happens."

Replying To GreenandRed:  "Meath need young lads that want to play for the Royals because they are Meath men and they've listened to the stories of great Meath teams, their beligerence, their spirit, their teamwork and no little amount of skill that brought them to success and they will be proud to fight for the jersey. They'll have the workrate and ability to deal with a lot of adversity before things start to improve. If young lads need to be motivated to play for Meath because they're doing well and they've a good chance to win something, then buy them an Xbox,
and tell them to stay at home, because they'll never succeed in any sport with an atitude like that."

Replying To nobull456:  "I think that is a very good question. Good because it provokes discussion and review between both parties Development can only be imposed as an absolute last resort. It automatically will review to establish needs otherwise it means nothing and a waste of time. The person undergoing development has to bye in and see the need. Therefore there cannot be a readymade or one size fits all answer.Its the process that is important even vital..Looking in from outside i believe there are definate needs for the process as an aid to bringing improvement in particular areas of coaching , .That is just my opinion which is not important The process is most important. The top table have to feel competent and comfortable in undertaking this key task. Thats why i keep harping on about the top table and leadership. I may be doing them an injustice but i dont see that evident up to now.
Your point about it being amataer sport is a practical point no argument yes. BUT it also a "but." Why do you see the need to say but in the same sentence i ask? Delelopment is about people improving their ability to fit the needs of the task. One has to remember the honour and responsibility that goes with the role .I also believe people undergoing any work aimed at improvement should
never be out of pocket.i might even try to add a bit of salt and pepper here to increase the flavour if i could.
The point about the two "experts" means nothing to me In a changing world of sport and all that goes with advances in approach especially mental preparation experts dont exist .The word becomes redundant and replaced by people with a healthy attitude to ongoing learning. COR said it himself he will learn as you go. i totally accept that. He is not an "expert" and will make mistakes. I dont understand why how training sessions are structured to meet needs and benefits are not more visible .again that is just my opinion. I may go harping on this I am playing on home ground on this whole area after nearly 40 years in the area of training and development i do feel competent but see that in the changing world there is the need for continous updating and learning in order to stay with the pace. I might also add i have a good thick skin and have accepted when you play the game you take the knocks... I am happy that my posts aim to be constructive and i will settle for that!"

Replying To bdbuddah:  "The county board have taken on CORs management team. There is no way COR would have agreed to weekly meetings with the county board to demonstrate progress, no management team would. County boards would not be in position to carry out reviews to this detail.

I'd guess the manager would have agreed what support he needs from county board at the start of his term (and each year) and would probably go back to them if he feels changes/ additional support is required as season progresses.

The county board would have dealt with previous management setups in the past and would, at seasons end use their perception of team progress (plus players opinions/ budgtet for county team preparations) to decide whether he should stay on for another term.

In terms of developing himself as manager and his management team, you would have to expect he would be on top of that himself and he and the rest of the management team would be aware of how the best county setups operate and trends in football team preparations/ tactics etc. and are good with the players.

Being a county team manager is a specialised and evolving role, I think it would be difficult for a county board to oversee development for this role, it's the manager that brings expertise to the role himself and then be judged by performance."

Replying To nobull456:  "May i suggest you read your post again.Where did the mad idea of weekly meetings come from?? I am saying perhaps end of season have a properly constructed meeting CB and Manager The agenda is Review of season . Progress against targets, development needs(if any) to meet targets ahead.and agreed. This is where i totally disagree with your approach to development. Delopment needs are arrived at by TWO SIDED DISCUSSION otherwide it is not real Most importantly yes The CB take leadership on this important issue as they are in charge full stop! If they are not in charge of the critical area around development that is aimed at improvement then who is in charge?? If the manager decides he needs additional support out from that of course he is free to do so....I want to emphasise no disrespect to any manager now or in the future with this approach which i see as normal. How the CB equip themselves to discharge this important responsibility is up to them like everything else.
But they cannot opt out by leaving up to the manager alone to decide.
May i respectfully suggest you have far too many assumptions in your post .I want to try to make things happen rather tha assume they will happen"

Replying To bdbuddah:  "It's hard to make out because you keep talking in management speak and constantly talk about reviews.

Some of the worst managed companies I've worked for if you listened to the management speak in their procedures/ trainings sounded like very well run companies.

When a GAA manager is put in place he has to outline his backroom team/ costs so based on previous backroom team county board can compare costs and ask questions at this time.

I think it's very difficult for a county board to have the expertise to get too specific when questioning a potential manager about preparation specifics as I don't think they would have enough expertise.

Best they can do is compare results and costs for different management teams/ setups in other counties and try to make a judgement as to whether another term is warranted (if the manager wants to stay in place).

Even in professional sports which are big businesses (eg. Premier league teams) it usually doesn't work if chairmen of the club interfere with sporting side.

When things are working well on the sporting front they have to try not to interfere and when things are going bad they have to decide is a change warranted and if they make a change they then have to give the new man space to work."

Replying To nobull456:  "Perhaps you have a hang up against management or anything to do with it...or maybe you are just on a wind.Iup It would be great if everthing worked by itself without "interference" as you call it I agree if its not broken dont fix it.
Not sure you believe we should have a county board at all.I f we have to have one what should they be doing.?Who should be in charge .The manager? I believe the county board are in charge and as such they have to have the know how that needed or get it ,bring someone in, or do it by having a couple of people developed (oh theres that management speak again)
If your happy with things as they are and have been for years then leave well enough alone No need for "reviews"or trying to improve , avoid "interfering" it will be all right on the day.Then the manager does a runner (i dont think thats management speak but in another county it was real.)Still dont interfere it will be ok anyway
Still this is an opinion based forum ,and you are entitled to yours just like i am. Our opinions differ......sharply ,and thats ok also."

Replying To bdbuddah:  "No, I always appreciated good management, just wasn't really sure what you actually meant the way you expressed things.

The county board has a lot things to administer, selection of the senior football manager is only one.

Management of a sports team is quiet different to normal business management, for example the most successful premier league teams normally occur when the business side identify the best man available to manage the team, support him with agreed resources and let him get on with it.

I would say this is more the case when your dealing with an amateur county board and management of the county team.

That's not to say the manager has a blanke cheque, the county board have to at the end of management term decide, based on their perception of performance should he get a new term (otherwise the team manager could just stay in place permanently)."

Replying To nobull456:  "Now its me that is confused because a lot of generalities there .Thats fair enough.Specifically are you happy with Meath football now and in the last 15/20 years ?If not how would you try to improve things.? Who should lead the impfovement efforts overall.? What should happen in a review if we have one? How to you think we should try to keep up to date in anything related to improvement? I am not trying to be smart here just like to know how you apply the generalities specifically to Meath football staus now. If you think leave it as it is that your opinnion and thats fine also"

Replying To bdbuddah:  "My post you referred to how the county board deals with the senior county manager only. This is all the post dealt with.

The post never tried to get into how we improve the standard of players available for selection for the county team which ultimately is actually what we'll need to do if we want to compete at the latter stages of inter county football again.

On a high level getting Meath back to being a top county involves the support county board gives clubs for underage development/ county development squads/ minor and u20 teams/ standard of club football in the county etc.
I've some ideas about this from being involved in a club but wouldn't know enough about it to write about it in detail (plus it would be an even longer post if I tried). If we win Leinster u20 this year it may be a sign we are upping the standard of players who will come available to us in coming years.

Team manager Reviews are a time where manager assesses with county board performances for the year, assesses what went wrong with setup (propose changes he would like to make going forward), what worked well and take questions.
County board would challenge him in discussions and on financing of the backroom team.

I just think your constant banging on about these reviews with county manager is over the top,
I honestly don't see us getting as much out of these managern Reviews as you seem to and would be afraid if the county board increased the role of these reviews it will not be a good step.
You do know we have had fiascos with county board groups/ committees intervening trying to get rid of managers in the past (Banty/ McEntee) and had plenty of infighting at county board level?

The manager is under pressure to succeed (especially since clubs can see accounts and have an idea about what the management is doing due to knowing people involved) and this will push him on to keep up to date with best practice in other counties more than any review."

Replying To nobull456:  "Yes as you say in your first paragraph your post refers only to how the CB deals with the manager traditionally and nothing else.. I understand your position now"

Replying To JonnieG:  "well at least we know the identities of bdbuddah and nobull456 now! It is Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan!!
When are you two going to meet at that nice little park in New York?? Or maybe Pairc Tailteann will have to do :)

I personally thought it was a shrewd move by the CB originally to get COR as I thought he would be a great appointment by virtue of the fact that he was on national TV and writes weekly about GAA. So I was sure he would have had the footballing sense to surround himself with one or two masters of the modern intercounty game to coach this team to the next level. Absolutely nothing against the guys that are there but I'm sure they would tell you themselves that they are just starting out when it comes to senior intercounty coaching.

But anyway Im sure the CB are as surprised as I am that this never happened. Surely there are a few football heads in the CB that would pinpoint this as a necessity for our senior teams.
Im more surprised on COR that he didn't identify this glaring hole in the senior team.
I doubt that the CB will want to start micro managing COR and COR would not let that happen. I do hope that he can eventually leave the setup without his rep completely tarnished in any way and that we see a massive fallout between him and meath football.
But either he needs to see the errors of his ways here and start bringing in someone who can start moving these lads to the next level or else he needs to step away and let someone else do that. Before it gets too messy.
To be fair to Dessie farrell he keeps bringing back Pat Gilroy when things need to be picked up a bit. I dont know if thats the dublin CB doing that or him directly though :)

I do think the CB should realize that a top coach is nearly more important than a manager nowadays and that when picking managers from now on the decision should be made based on teh whole coaching ticket and not just take a manager in who has yet to build his backroom team,"

Replying To Ed2010:  "How did he get the job with no decent coaching ticket?"