Lally: Shefflin destined to follow Cody into Cats job
St Thomas’ boss Kevin Lally reckons Henry Shefflin is destined for the Kilkenny manager’s hotseat after guiding Ballyhale Shamrocks to the All-Ireland Club final at the first attempt. The sides meet in Sunday’s decider at Croke Park, with Galway winners St Thomas’ back in the final for the first time since their 2013 victory, while the Kilkenny winners are hoping to add to their record six wins.
Lally is an experienced manager on the Galway club scene, having spells with his native Pádraig Pearses, Craughwell, and Kilnadeema/Leitrim before being approached to succeed John Burke at the helm of St Thomas. That the side contains five of Burke’s sons - including Galway captain David - was never an issue said Lally. “Initially, when I sat down with the officers here and the players, the one thing they said was that they were looking for an outside voice.
“It meant there were no agendas with any players. Of course there were doubts as there were big boots to fill. John Burke is an iconic figure. This is John Burke’s team, his fingerprints are all over it. He is a great guy and was very supportive when I got the job.”
Victory over reigning champions Liam Mellows saw St Thomas’ win their third Galway senior title in seven years, while a win over Cushendall in the All-Ireland semi-final qualified them for the final. According to Lally, his side need to make bid improvements against Shefflin’s outfit.
“They’re the aristocrats of club hurling. They have six All-Ireland club championships. They are after building a new team on the back of winning a couple of U21 titles in Kilkenny. Henry Shefflin is an iconic figure and I’m sure he is going to be a future Kilkenny manager. He is certainly going about it the right way: His first year managing Ballyhale he wins the county, then Leinster and gets his team to the All-Ireland.”
“We know we have to improve. We weren’t happy with our semi-final performance, so the way we approached it was we needed every day of the five weeks. We had a lot of incremental improvements to work on from the Cushendall game for us to stand any chance against Ballyhale.”
As well as Lally being an outsider in the St Thomas’ camp, he decided to call on the services of former Limerick manager TJ Ryan as coach. Ryan and Lally split the coaching responsibilities, and he says they work well together.
“TJ came in last August or September. He is helping out with the coaching. He has been brilliant round the set up. He is a very positive guy, he has bags of experience at inter-county both as a player and a manager. He has been a brilliant asset to the club. Of course you lean on him. You’d be silly not to.
“As an ex-inter-county manager, he has bags of experience. We get on very well, we have a similar thought process of how we want teams to play and that kind of thing. He’s a great fella to have around.”
