MICKEY Harte made the initial inquiry to join the Offaly management team and, after positive initial discussions, Declan Kelly says he was delighted to get the three-time All-Ireland winner on board.
Kelly, who will jointly oversee the fortunes of the Faithful county alongside the Tyrone native, managed Offaly to Leinster and All-Ireland U20 success in 2021 and was appointed senior manager for last season. His team failed to break out of Division Three and after losing to Dublin at the Leinster semi-final stage, they didn’t make it out of their Tailteann Cup group.
Harte has been brought in to add some experience to the management team and after 20 years in senior inter-county football including spells in Tyrone, Louth and last season in Derry (winning trophies in all three) he will certainly do that.
“Mickey made an inquiry in relation to Offaly football and what was the state of play and I said: ‘Listen, let’s go and chat to the man’ and that’s where it came from,” Kelly explained.
“I was walking around in the parade thinking I wasn’t going to play...” Armagh Sam Maguire winner Blaine Hughes came perilously close to missing All-Ireland final
“It’s no way to promote the game in Armagh...” Hurling championship semi-final in doubt as Craobh Rua object to fixture congestion and burn-out issues
“We definitely felt it was something to tease out and have a chat about and we had a sit-down and a talked it through and for us it’s a positive move to get the man on board. He was down with us last week, very enthusiastic and from my first conversation with him I could see he had a good handle on the players and that was something I was very impressed with. He knew the players and the age-profiles and he spoke a lot about what lads he had seen before on the U20 scene were doing currently.
“That was very positive to hear. We’re looking to give ourselves the best opportunity to be the best we can and we’ve been in Division Three for a number of years now.
“It’s a very, very competitive division and games are very tight and the aim is to get up to the second division and into the Sam Maguire competition. That’s our goal going forward.”
Offaly have also recruited a new coach in Sligo native Luke Bree. Harte has been the undisputed number one up to now but Kelly explained that himself, Bree and Harte will collaborate to make all the calls relating to selection and tactics.
“Mickey has got on very well with the players and people in Offaly in general so far,” he said.
“From underage up to senior level we have been very competitive in Offaly for the last number of years and Mickey coming on board will give that extra bit of belief in what we need to do to compete and be successful at senior level.
“Mickey has a proven track record and his knowledge of county football is second-to-none so that’s what we’ll be looking forward to getting into.
“We’ve a new coach in Luke (Bree) coming in as well so we’ve talked about how we want to play and it’ll be a joint venture between us all.
“The three of us will work together and in the selection of teams and panels it’ll be Mickey, myself and the head coach, it’ll be very tight on that front. We’re still a number of weeks away from getting a panel together – the end of November is the official start date.”
