JOE CONNOLLY KNOWS something about winning All-Irelands, having skippered the county to the title in 1980.
But he doesn’t envisage on of his countymen making a victorious speech, as he famously did in 1980, any time soon.
“There is a lack of hope in Galway hurling at the moment,” Connolly said on TG4′s Seo Spoirt last night.
“There are many things that should have been over the past 20 years that didn’t happen. If you want to be successful in hurling, you need one of two things — good structures within the county or a good management team. If the structures aren’t there but if you have a great management team, like Jim McGuinness for example, you can overcome those issues.
“In Galway I don’t think we have those things. It’s a great pity that Galway hasn’t done the things that are needed. There’s no structure to help young players make the step up to senior. There’s no structure in the county. There are no targets and no organisation.
“For Anthony (Cunningham) and the management team, they’re great men whom I know personally. But out of the 24 league games Galway have played under them, they have yet to win two consecutive games.
“You can’t make progress with that type of inconsistency. Every year, Galway produce a big performance. Sometimes, we have a big year – 2012, 2005 and 2001. When we get close in Galway, those with power say – “We’re not far off, we’ll keep going the way we are.”
He continued: “Galway hurling is an important transition. But when you see the lack of progress in the senior team, you have to blame what is not being done within the county in terms of those little steps.”
Its thanks to Billy that our amateur boxing team setup and training regime is the envy of all. No wonder the US want to poach him. Without Billy we would not have had that medal haul in London 2012, and without Billy we wont be able to match it in Rio. Its not the IABA that success lies with, its Billy and his team. They’d be fools to not give him everything he wants and anything he needs to keep that success going.
The fact that our boxers stay amateur thanks to healthy funding of 40k and coaches etc all paid for helps. While boxers in other countries are forced into professional ranks in order to go into a full time set up. Here Boxers are afraid to leave the handy number in the amateur ranks, It is ridiculous that the public fawning all over a few bronze medals(third/fourth place) in a second tier competition while Andy Lee winning a proper world title goes nearly unnoticed.
Give him what he wants!! The boxers are consistently winning medals! No brainer here
what Danny said
Resolved soon.. What a joke they should ask Billy to name his price..
Excellent trainer, really good guy too.
Deserves as much as what Martin o neill/ keano etc getting. And I’ll bet what he’s asking is reasonable, his back room team as well. Smarten up IBBA.
If the Web summit is anything to go by Billy will be leaving soon.
It’s just madness that we cannot just secure this man! We have the best track record in amateur boxing in the world per capita, yet the boxing always struggles with funding! But we pump money into the athletics, for what?? So we can get to a few semi finals! Doesn’t make sense at all!
wat time is joe ward for ghtin