As one manager steps out another steps in

The county managerial merry-go-round keeps on spinning. Every so often it stops. Some get on, some get off.

Most recent to disembark were Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan. Just before that, it was Colm O’Rourke. By then, Glenn Ryan, Vinny Corey and Mickey Harte had dusted themselves down, and if their heads were spinning at one point, they had time to recover their composure.

There were others, some of whom had charge of hurling teams. One of the latter, Davy Fitzgerald, had a ticket bought before there was another stop. Henry Shefflin is still on the ground.

Fitzgerald taking up the Antrim post is interesting. When he quite Waterford, he said the commute from Clare for training sessions was becoming difficult. Now he’ll be heading to the other part of the country, and, in fact, was in Ballymena the Sunday before last for a club match.

When it seemed Dooher and Logan had it in their gift to remain as long as they wanted after leading their native Tyrone to All-Ireland glory as joint managers in their first year in charge, they chose to opt out.

Results hadn’t been good since the defeat of Mayo in 2021, but consensus in the Red Hand is that it was for health reasons that Logan may not have wished to continue, while Dooher is in the North’s leading veterinary post.

Dooher belongs to the club to which Kieran McGeeney was admitted on the day Armagh won this year’s All-Ireland. Like his one-time opponent, Dooher can claim to have captained and managed an All-Ireland-winning team.

It’s a thought: if the two boys had quit, say, a month earlier, would there have been an approach made to Mickey Harte to succeed them? If there was, we can only imagine what the answer would have been.

No, there would have been no bad language, maybe just a polite ‘no’. It hurt Harte to have been refused an a year’s extension to his time in charge of the Tyrone team, and to go back would surely be turning the other cheek. 

By the way, it’s a certain Martin Sludden who’s the current Tyrone County Board chairman.

Colm O’Rourke’s decision two years ago to take over the running of the Meath team was firmly in the category of courageous. As a long-standing pundit on the Sunday Game, he’d have been critical of players, teams and managers.

Now he was entering the ranks of the latter, hoping, no doubt, to right the things he saw others getting wrong. He often spoke about having a plan that would take time to implement; when he began with a win in the Tailteann Cup, his and his team’s confidence could only have been boosted.

This, however, wasn’t a good year for him. Failure to win league promotion was followed by a poor championship campaign which ended with a rout in Inniskeen. That it was Louth who inflicted it wouldn’t have sat well with just about everyone in the Royal County.

There are several vacancies to be filled right now, Dublin’s football among them, maybe. As always, there’s little coming from the capital. Well, not exactly.

Inside Track’s ears-to-the-ground has it that if Dessie Farrell stands down, his place will be taken by either Dermot Deasy, Jason Sherlock or Johnny Cooper.

Malachy O’Rourke – not to be mistaken for his namesake who is helping to plot the good old Dundalk Gaels’ championship bid – is being tipped to return to Monaghan as Corry’s successor.

And who knows who’ll be next to put his head on the Meath chopping-block. Could it be too late for Matt Kerrigan to have a go?

Kildare have gone with Brian Flanagan as a replacement for Ryan. One of his assistants, Aidan O’Rourke, had an unsuccessful two-year stint as Louth manager, and after that was with Paddy Carr at Donegal. This year he was in charge of the Armagh minors.