Tinryland management team resign

Tinryland’s hopes of appearing in a third county final in a row have been dealt a severe blow with the news that the entire management team comprising of John Nolan, Evan Doyle, John ‘Sparks Murphy’ and Richie McGrath have stepped down.

They have been replaced by an interim management team comprising of Paul Broderick, Conor Byrne and Eddie Dowling.

Tinryland lost their opening game of the championship to Old Leighlin who were reduced to fourteen players early in the second half on Friday. It was an inconsistent performance. With nine minutes left they had cut a seven-point deficit to two but it was their rivals who went on to clinch a 2-12 to 1-10 victory.

It is believed a lot of the players were in favour of reverting to the old style of play which former manager, Stephen O’Meara had introduced. Whatever happened after that is unclear but by the middle of this week, relations between the management team and the players seems to have broken down.

Bernard Mullen, Chairman of Tinryland, was sorry that the management team felt they had to resign but could see the reasons why.

“We changed because it was a system which was not working for us. What we wanted to do, we thought lads would be able to change and adapt a lot quicker.

"We quickly realised we couldn’t do that,” he said.

He confirmed that the management team and the players “could not see eye to eye on it.” 

“The players were resorting to what had been tried and tested,” said Mullen, who added that their performance against Old Leighlin was “neither one thing nor the other”.

“It was going to be too much. It came to a head during the week when the manager said it was not going to work.” 

In the end, John Nolan shook hands with the players, members of the club and left. He was followed by the rest of the management team and now the pressure will be on the players when they play Bagenalstown Gaels in their second-round game at Netwatch Cullen Park on Saturday.