Déise board set to address exit of minor boss Flynn
The executive of the Waterford County Board is meeting on Thursday to discuss the resignation of Waterford minor football manager Tom Flynn, who quit the post last week following a dispute over dual players.
Having held the position of minor manager since October of last year, the Waterford board are likely to arrange a meeting with Flynn in the days after Thursday’s executive.
Failure to bring him back in as minor manager would leave the board in a difficult position to try and source a replacement, given the 2019 season is fast approaching.
Flynn, along with his backroom team of Ollie Costelloe and Richard Finnegan, resigned last Thursday following an alleged breach of an agreed training plan between the Waterford minor hurling and football management with regard to dual players.
At a meeting earlier this month — attended by Flynn, Waterford minor hurling boss Darragh Duggan, county chairman Paddy Joe Ryan, and secretary Pat Flynn — it was agreed that dual players, who were part of the U16 hurling and football development squads preparing for next year’s Munster minor championships, would train with the hurlers one weekend, the footballers the next, and so on.
Tom Flynn, in a statement issued last week, said dual players trained with the hurlers on Friday, November 16, despite that being an agreed football weekend.
The dual players then trained with the footballers the following day.
“It was always our ambition that an arrangement would be agreed to allow the appropriate managing of dual players but recent events imply a total unwillingness of the hurling management to co-operate,” Flynn claimed in his departing statement.
There is potential for this squad to really make a mark in next year’s Munster MFC, which makes our decision to step down more demoralising.
A reply from Waterford coaching and games development stressed their commitment to promoting equally the hurling and football development squads.
They added that agreed training dates were to be passed onto dual players once training panels were put in place, and while the extended hurling panel was furnished to the relevant coaching and games personnel, no such football panel was issued.
“Co-operation between the respective groups is essentials,” Waterford chairman Paddy Joe Ryan told the Irish Examiner last night.
“We would like to resolve this as soon as possible.”
The chairman added: “I have the highest respect for Tom Flynn. He is an absolutely brilliant volunteer.”
