ANTHONY DALY LOOKS set to stay on in charge of the Dublin senior hurlers for a fifth campaign despite the disappointment of the 2011 season that featured relegation to Division 1B of the league along with championship defeats to Kilkenny and Clare.
Dublin county board chairman Andy Kettle confirmed yesterday to TheScore.ie that Daly was ‘about 99% certain’ to be at the helm come the start of next year after the former Clare All-Ireland winning captain held a meeting with both Kettle and Dublin board CEO John Costello.
“The situation with Anthony is that both myself and John Costello met him for quite a long time last Saturday week. Anthony is about 99 per cent certain to come back on board. 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.”
Kettle insists that any potential changes to the Dublin back room team will be the manager’s decision but interestingly the chairman alluded to Daly’s desire to manage more closely the players interaction with the media and their usage of social media sites like Twitter.
This could see the Dublin hurlers follow the example of their football counterparts whereby manager Pat Gilroy controls their access to the media by restricting the exposure to weekly press conferences.
“Anthony is a very driven person,” said Kettle. “He 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 like profiles, twitters, social media and even media in general.”
“I wouldn’t say a crack down, what I’d say is that it may be managed a little better. The way Pat Gilroy manages media is a very good example. In fairness to Anthony he will look at everything closely. Probably, from his point of view, to come back again with the same group, both in panel and backroom, mightn’t be the best idea in the world.”
Kettle believes the nature of Dublin’s defeat to Clare inspired Daly to return for another stint in charge as he did not want to bow out on such a low note.
“Anthony would have had a lot of enthusiasm himself. After the game in Cusack Park against his own county, it was 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.
“What we need to do with Dublin senior hurlers this year is get it back up to at least where it was in 2011. We have slipped and no one can deny it. People were talking about Dublin in the top four but they’re talking about Dublin in the top seven or eight now.”
