O'Rourke angered by suggestion he wasn't given a deadline

Former Meath boss responds to claims made at last Monday's Co Board meeting

On Monday morning 26th August Meath GAA released a statement that Colm O'Rourke would not not be seeking reappointment as Meath senior football manager - the remainder of the statement included the expected niceties.

Later that evening O'Rourke told the Meath Chronicle that the reason why he would not be seeking a third year in charge was because he was not in a position to announce his new management team before the deadline set by the Co Board.

The Meath GAA Co Board executive were due to meet on that Monday evening (26th August) to discuss the findings of the review committee's work into O'Rourke's tenure as Meath manager.

The following evening, Tuesday 27th August, the Co Board delegates met where it emerged from Co Board vice-chairman Paddy Kelly that, as a member of the Executive, he was not engaged in the process that led to O'Rourke not being reappointed.

Kelly said that as a member of the management committee he was no wiser than any of the delegates as to what happened.

When O'Rourke heard Kelly's comments he wrote to the Executive committee asking if the Executive committee as a group had set a deadline and what were the terms of reference of the review committee?

The reply received was that the matter was discussed and they would be making no further comment.

At last Monday night's latest Co Board meeting Skryne delegate Oliver Harrington voiced his displeasure at some of the answers he had received regarding the process at the previous meeting.

Chairman Plunkett told that meeting in Dunganny that the manager had lost a number of his backroom team, including Barry Callaghan and Stephen Bray, and they (the review committee) had told Colm O’Rourke that in order to make a positive recommendation they would need him to have a full backroom team in place.

At that meeting the chairman reiterated that the review committee never gave Colm O’Rourke a deadline, but in order to come back with a recommendation to the county committee they would have needed names.

O'Rourke firmly disputes that statement by the Chairman and insisted that not only was there a deadline put in place, he had actually received an email from the chairman on 12th August saying he would not be getting a third year in charge.

O'Rourke was prepared to move on with the decision he made not to go forward for a third year in charge and give his full support to the new management and the Meath players, but he feels he must address what he regards as 'quite untrue' statement.

"I have never been more annoyed by anything in football than what has happened in this review process and what has happened since has greatly angered me," O'Rourke told the Meath Chronicle today.

"I wanted to get over the disappointment of not being reappointed, I want to see the Meath team do well, I want to see the new management doing well, but I don't want to be treated with such lack of respect as I was shown at the Co Board meeting last week, and that includes Sean Boylan and all the other people that were involved with me.

"What the chairman said is quite untrue (that there was no deadline put in place).

"In actual fact there were two deadlines put to me. One for the middle of August and one for a management meeting which I believe was due to take place on Monday 26th August.

"When the first deadline was set the chairman (Jason Plunkett) and Liam Keane made it clear that we had to have a full management team in place and if that didn't happen then the review committee would not be recommending me for a third year as manager.

"Not only that, I also have an email from the chairman which read that himself and Liam Keane would not be recommending me for manager.

"I got that email in August without explanation, without reason, just a statement that they would not be recommending me. That email was before I was given a deadline to get a management team in place.

"So Sean Boylan and myself then met the two gentlemen (Plunkett and Keane) and we were told that we had to have our management team in place by the last week of August.

"At that stage I told them who the people we wanted were, but that that they wouldn't be named until after their involvement with their club teams, one in Meath and one in another county, was finished.

"We were told that they didn't think this would be acceptable to management, so I basically got fed up with them at that stage because I felt that the whole process was not carried out properly.

"I'v been involved in professional reviews in my capacity as a school principal and I never saw one like this before. It was at that stage that I decided to withdraw.

"Why would I walk away from a job I wanted, unless unreasonable demands were being made of me. I pointed out to the two men of the review commitee that there was no hurry to make appointments as training wasn't allow start back until December.

"When I got that email informing me that they would not be recommending me I was a bit taken aback to put it mildly.

"Any suggestion that there wasn't a deadline or that the gun wasn't being put to my head, that is quite untrue."

While the details of the review committee's were never made public it had been suggested that the feedback from the players wasn't very positive.

However, O'Rourke believes that that might not be the complete truth and while he agrees there were concerns raised by the players, he and his management team were in the process of addressing those issues.

"It was suggested that the players were not happy, but we met with the player's leadership group and that wasn't the message," insisted O'Rourke.

"As a management team we had our own review at the end of the campaign and basically we came up with the same things that the players wanted.

"They wanted a change in direction in coaching and Barry Callaghan was the first to say that was needed.

"If the players were so dissatisfied as we are led to believe then it is strange that I got 24 individual messages or phone calls from players to thank me, and it was nice to be treated with such courtesy and respect by them.

"As part of our own review we spent a lot of time with people like Declan Darcy in Dublin, who has trained five All-Ireland winning teams and Paul Kinnerk in Limerick and what came out of those meetings is that our training methods were not dissimilar to what all the successful teams have.

"I also spoke to Jim Gavin about the idea of leadership training and he put me on to someone very good in that regard. I had numerous consultations with Pat Gilroy about different things that he thought we should be doing.

"There were a lot of plans in place for next year, but unfortunately I wasn't given the opportunity to implement them.

"We did think there was a need for a change of voice and Barry was the first to say that.

"I don't know if Barry and Stephen (Bray) leaving was being used as an excuse to force me out!

"Barry Callaghan is a very successful business man and Stephen Bray is very involved in the development of underage in O'Mahonys, so they were leaving for their own reasons.

"They are still very good friends of mine, it's not as if there was any disagreement among management that they left," said the two-time All-Ireland winner.

Did O'Rourke feel as if the review committee were speaking on behalf of the whole Co Board executive? And if that was the case how disrespected did he feel by the whole process.

"That was the clear impression that was given to me. Then Paddy Kelly, who is vice-chairman of the Co Board, spoke at the subsequent Co Board meeting and said he knew nothing about the review process.

"The obvious thing for me would have been to bypass the management and seek the support of the delegates at the Co Board meeting.

"I'm quite sure I would have won the support of the delegates decisively, but I felt I couldn't be manager of the Meath team without the support of the most important officers of the Co Board, it just would not be tenable.

"It is disappointing not to have been given a third year. I had a vision which I set out to them for the next five years. I had told them the people who I wanted involved in management.

"I had gone to Cathal O Bric and spoke to him about getting involved with the view to taking over next year and he was keen on the plans we spoke about.

"We had planned what the future would be for the next four or five years and that he would be the one to take over and drive it forward because we had brought in a lot of young players who were familiar to him.

"I thought that we had so many players in the 21 to 24 year age group that we would get better each year over the next few years and that Cathal would be the man to bring it on.

"Just look at Kieran McGeeney taking 10 years to win an All-Ireland. He made incremental improvements, he didn't win an Ulster championship match for six years.

"Brian Lohan in Clare had done five years. What you need is a Co Board with a bit of vision and a bit of courage to support a manager through years when everybody knew things wouldn't be great, but we would make improvements.

"I hope the new management now get that time needed."

So does O'Rourke believe that some on the Meath Co Board lack vision and courage?

"Absolutely. What some yielded to were the voices that were saying things were terrible and you need to change," said the former manager.

"What we need to do is to keep going on the path we are on. There will be a lot of bad days in the next few years. I don't think we will win the All-Ireland next year, but I would hope that this management group are now given a period of time to keep working away and make improvements.

"Next year I believe there is a good chance of getting promotion. Last year we had Dublin in Div 2 and they went on to win the All-Ireland, Derry were also in Div 2 and they were beaten narrowly in an All-Ireland semi-final.

"This year we had Armagh who went on to become All-Ireland champions and Donegal who were beaten narrowly in the All-Ireland semi-final. There are no teams of that strength in next year's Div 2, so there is a great opportunity for Meath to get promoted.

"I am very positive about the future if things are done right, but I wouldn't have much faith that that will happen.

"We have a good solid group of players and if the new management are given time to work with them then I'm sure there are great times ahead.

"All I want is to see Meath successful. The bigger picture is the promotion of football and the interest of football in young players and nothing helps that more than a successful Meath team - that is all I want.

"My only involvement, and the group I was with, Trevor Giles, Stephen Bray, Barry Callaghan, Shane Supple, Sean Boylan, our sole aim was the betterment of Meath football.

"A lot of us had success with Meath and all we wanted for the players was the success and enjoyment that we experienced," concluded O'Rourke.