It seems managerial ratification season has been getting steadily more interesting by the year and this season's offering has continued the trend more than anyone could have expected. First up we had the Mayo heave with Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly. That ended up relatively stress free. The players made their feelings known and the pair stepped down. Now it's only a matter of time before Stephen Rochford is officially appointed.
Then we move on to Galway and Anthony Cunningham's rather less clean cut departure. Ratified by the county board without the backing of the players it was never going to end well and so it has proved. Things became increasingly bitter, and the eventually the only possible outcome came to pass.
We may have assumed that all that business would have been the most farcical ratification of the season but a new contender has emerged. Whatever about the Galway players' feelings, at least Anthony Cunningham wanted the job. You can't exactly say the same when it comes to Offaly U21s.
According to Midlands 103, the Offaly county board ratified Declan Kelly as the county's U21 football manager on Wednesday. Less than 24 hours later however, they were back to the drawing board looking for someone else to take the post. The rather key issue that was overlooked was the fact that Kelly did not actually give his consent for his name to be put forward for the role.
It seems there had been talks between Kelly and the county board but a number of key matters still needed to be sorted out. That didn't happen, Offaly jumped the gun with his ratification and Kelly has now withdrawn his name from the process entirely.
If RTÉ are looking for any ideas for a new show to replace Love/Hate, could we suggest a dramatised reinterpretation of what happens behind the scenes of a GAA county board. It would make Sky One's Dream Team look positively tame.
