They Said It ....
July 2007
"I gave a commitment for two years so I’m going to
stay. I don’t run away from anything like that. We’ve a lot of work
to do."
Wicklow boss Mick O’Dwyer confirms that he has no intention of
leaving the Garden County after their championship loss to Louth
"The overall Championship structure has to be looked at.
The Ulster Championship is devalued; it doesn’t have enough teams in
it. I know it sounds arrogant, but we need more competitive games at the higher
level. If I had a choice, I’d go into Leinster, with minor, U21 and senior
teams."
A place in the Leinster hurling championship is the way forward for
Antrim hurling according to the county’s joint manager Sambo McNaughton
“We went out of the championship on the first Sunday in June and we might
not be out in the Murphy Cup until the middle of July, that’s too long
of a gap. Lads have to go back to their clubs and it is now difficult to get
them for collective training.”
Waterford boss John Kiely believes that it is hard for sides to keep
their focus ahead of the Tommy Murphy Cup
“I’m not criticising the referees, no way. I don’t
understand the whole thing. But what I do know for certain is that there are
assessors in the stands screwing referees. I can’t put it any other way
and I’ve told officials that. I’ve said it at referees meetings,
I’ve said it at Croke Park meetings.”
Kilkenny boss Brian Cody feels that referees are being put under too
much pressure by assessors sitting in the stands – which can lead to
booking and fractured play
"To be honest, I find it a little bit harder to deal with
players now than 20 years ago. Whn I got a young lad 20 years ago and told
him he should do this and this, it was taken on board quicker than by the
current generation. I’m not a psychologist; I can’t explain why
that is, whether education has changed or something. By and large though,
we’re making mistakes out there and not coming to terms with it as quickly
as the last generation of Tipp hurlers I trained."
Babs Keating feels that the players in the new Millennium are more difficult
to deal with than his All-Ireland winning sides of 1989 and ’91.
“Maybe the backdoor has taken some of the gloss off it,
but the Munster championship still sits on its own. People will always have
an eye on later in the year, hoping they will still be involved at the business
end of the All-Ireland championship, but Munster still stands on its own and
is a great opportunity to win some silverware early in the year.”
Winning the All-Ireland through the Munster championship is the aim
of Kerry boss Pat O’Shea who feels it is a better way to go than through
the All-Ireland qualifiers
“I think it’s a two-way process. I think it’s
important that the county takes consideration of the club scene, and equally,
there’s an onus on club players and club structures to appreciate that
your county players have to be protected as far as possible. We don’t
expect to get special or preferential treatment, but we don’t expect
the players to get special treatment either of the nasty kind.”
Unlike many county managers, Tyrone’s Micky Harte understands that
club fixtures must still be played even when his intercounty side is preparing
for championship action