Anthony Daly is now “99pc” certain to stay on as Dublin hurling manager for a fifth consecutive year.
However, county chairman Andy Kettle has hinted at a possible change in approach to the job in 2013 as Dublin pick up the pieces from a very disappointing season.
Asked whether Daly would return with the same back-room team as he has had in the past, Kettle said it would “be down to him” before adding “probably, from his point of view, to come back again with the same group, both in panel and back room, mightn’t be the best idea in the world.”
Daly met with Dublin chief executive John Costello and Kettle on Saturday week last, and Kettle has hinted at changes in approach to media interaction from next season onwards.
“Anthony does feel there’s a lot more in Dublin, he does feel that he made one or two mistakes that could be corrected and he does feel that maybe Dublin lost their way a little bit and the mind went away from hurling onto other matters,” he said.
When pressed on what “matters” they may be, Kettle conceded it was “like profiles and Twitter and social media”.
“And even media in general,” he explained.
influential
“I wouldn’t say (there will be) a crackdown, what I’d say is that it may be managed a little better.”
He added: “There are a few little i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed, but if I were a betting man, I’d be putting a few bob on Anthony being Dublin hurling manager next year. But many a slip between cup and lip. But, as I say, 99pc certain.”
The manner of Dublin’s championship exit and how and where it happened has been influential in shaping Daly’s likely decision to continue.
“Anthony would have had a lot of enthusiasm himself and particularly after the game in Cusack Park (Ennis) against his own county… probably not the one he wanted to go out on and probably an advantage to me to be able to remind him that he mightn’t want to go out on that note.
“That would have been possibly one of the many reasons,” Kettle said.
Kettle conceded that Dublin’s standards did fall in 2012 from where they were just 12 months earlier.
“What we need to do with Dublin senior hurlers is turn it around and get it back up to at least where it was in 2011,” he said.
“We have slipped and no one can deny it. People were talking about Dublin in the top four. They’re talking about Dublin in the top seven or eight now.”
– Colm Keys – Irish Independent
