‘Worst state of affairs’ for Tyrone hurlers

Tyrone hurler Sean Og Grogan

By Alan Rodgers

THE Tyrone senior hurlers have slammed their County Board for a failure to appoint a new manager just a month before the National League begins.

Dunloy native, Dominic Kearns, had been selected for the post and is understood to have taken two training sessions before leaving following concerns from the players.

The squad has also been hit by the continuing withdrawal of a number of the Dungannon Eoghan Ruadh players over what’s believed serious concerns that they have about the treatment of their club and the county panel in 2015.

Now a leading member of the Red Hand squad has slammed the crisis facing them at the start of 2016 as the ‘worst state of affairs’ he has ever seen.

Sean Og Grogan said they felt massively letdown by the County Board’s failure to properly replace Mattie Lennon, who guided the team to a National League title and Nickey Rackard Cup success.

“It’s the worst state of affairs that I’ve seen in my time with the squad. We’ve just a month to go to the start of the league and there’s no manager, no team and no training,” the Carrickmore Eire Ogs player said.

“We are feeling massively letdown by the County Board. It was hoped that they would have realised that our progress and success in the past couple of years meant that a manager with a proven track record at inter-county level was needed.

“Somebody of the calibre of Mattie Lennon or Tom McGill is required to maintain and build on the progress that has been made. But the danger now is that the failure to appoint someone is completely undermining the success that we’ve had in the past four or five years.

“Unfortunately, they (the Tyrone County Board) picked the first and only person to have applied for the post. No disrespect to the man, but he didn’t fit the requirements of the team at this time.”