WHEN MICKEY HARTE departed the Tyrone hot seat, no one would’ve guessed his next destination. Or, indeed, the two that would follow that.
As he heads into a 23rd consecutive season in inter-county management, Harte’s obsession has taken him to Louth, then a Division 4 outfit, Derry, his home county’s most bitter rivals, and now back down the divisions and three hours down the road to Offaly.
“I’m still not ready for the pipe and the slippers,” he said after his Derry tenure was cut short. “I like what I do and I like managing.”
Even then, the Faithful Fields was hardly seen as the nearest or optimum job for Harte given the vacancy next door in Monaghan and links to Kildare.
Not to mention that Offaly was one of the counties that already had a manager in Declan Kelly. The Kilconfert man was seen as an obvious choice when he was appointed last year having guided the county’s U20s to the 2021 All-Ireland.
His debut campaign didn’t go to plan, requiring a final-day relegation escape to remain in Division 3 and ending with a winless Tailteann Cup exit which included a 14-point hammering against London.
Half of the team that concluded the season in possession of starting jerseys came from that U20 success; Cormac Egan, John Furlong, Lee Pearson, Cathal Donoghue, Cathal Flynn, Jack Bryant, and Keith O’Neill.
Therein lay the attraction from Offaly to Harte and vice versa. Kelly’s first year didn’t live up to expectations but there’s no doubting the talent at their disposal.
Six of those players listed above featured in the U20 end-of-season award selection in 2021 including Player of the Year Bryant.
Could you say there’s any less potential in Offaly after finishing sixth in Division 3 than there was in Louth after finishing bottom of the same division before Harte arrived?
Harte was credited by the players with revolutionising Louth’s approach and sees the “huge potential” in Offaly. Having delivered back-to-back league titles and a Leinster final, the Wee County turnaround will become the blueprint and benchmark for Faithful progress.
And Harte will have seen enough of Offaly up close and personal to convince him of their calibre. In 2021, Louth were beaten in extra-time by John Maughan’s men and in 2023, his team outlasted Martin Murphy’s side in another extra-time battle.
For Harte, this will provide a tonic after his term in Derry turned from triumph to disaster in the change of ends from league to championship. With his usual right-hand man Gavin Devlin signed up to a Louth GAA development role, it gives him a ready-made structure to slot into.
For Offaly, the hope is that his guiding hand will spark their rising stars to establish themselves on the senior stage.
The co-manager set-up remains strange in GAA circles – and indeed across most sports. To paraphrase a former Louth underage footballer, Steve Staunton: with whom does the buck stop?
Tyrone is unique in that Harte’s predecessors and successors were both joint-managers.
Art McRory and Eugene McKenna led the Red Hand County to the 1995 All-Ireland final. But Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan were the true success story of the shared responsibility set-up after they delivered Sam Maguire to the Red Hand County in their first year at the helm.
Elsewhere, such success has been limited. In Mayo, Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes were ousted after a year in charge. In Roscommon, Fergal O’Donnell stepped back from his partnership with Kevin McStay after one season. He said at the time it was to avoid “a potentially divisive contest for the position of manager”.
In hurling, Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor had a trophy-laden underage run which didn’t quite translate to a senior breakthrough with Clare.
Given the time investment required in modern-day management, such a division of labour can make plenty of sense. In the best of those examples, the pairings had been fostered from underage grades up.
With Harte’s travel from Tyrone, Kelly can provide boots on the ground and a quick-start guide to the players at their disposal. Harte will pour all his trophy-winning nous into player development and team structure.
But any new partnership requires the right chemistry. Harte and Kelly will have to develop that fast to ensure they remain on the same page.