TIME FOR CHANGE. TIME TO GO, KEVIN.
London have beaten Sligo in the Connacht Championship and it
really isn’t a shock. RTE might call it the ‘first shock of the summer’ but if
you’ve seen the 2013 version of Sligo you will know different. Kevin Walsh knew
it last week as he got the excuses in early declaring how Sligo struggled
against ‘lower ranked teams’. Ross Donovan gave an angst ridden, confidence
sapping interview to Newstalk about the perils of playing London in Ruislip. Some
pitfalls included airport security, the plane landing and staying in a hotel.
This wasn’t a pair of rookies talking; this was the manager and the team
captain. It appeared the only white flags that Sligo would be raising against
the exiles would be flags of surrender.
Sligo’s one point Connacht Championship defeat to London may
be the most significant loss of Kevin Walsh’s tenure but in truth somewhere
between the FBD league final and the Divison 3 hammering by Monaghan in Clones
Kevin Walsh lost the dressing room. His players lost faith in the training, in
the team selections but most of all in the manager himself. Kevin Walsh asked
for more of a commitment from the players in the Autumn. No player who did not
give a full winter time and spring time commitment would be considered for
selection for Sligo. In discarding Eamonn O’Hara based on this diktat, Kevin
Walsh alienated many in the squad with a massive u-turn when drafting in
Mayo-man James Kilcullen in the midst of a relegation campaign. Sligo’s need
for a midfielder was acute but at what risk including Kilcullen?
On Saturday night, while Sligo were settling into their
hotel in London, James Killcullen was playing for Ballaghaderreen against
Aghamore in the Mayo Senior championship. He would be a second half substitute
against London as things got desperate. He made an impact at midfield were
Gilmartin and Taylor had singularly failed to control a rampant London engine
room. Had Killcullen started maybe Sligo would have fared better at midfield
and therefore controlled the flow of play. He didn’t start because ultimately
his commitment lay with his club side in his own county championship. In
spurning 20 years of commitment from Eamonn O’Hara for 20 minutes of commitment
from James Killcullen Kevin Walsh made a huge mistake. On Sunday he compounded
that mistake further by sitting James Killcullen on the bench until it was too
late. The manager had lost faith in his convictions.
The players can’t be held blameless for the embarrassment of
the London defeat. They represent the paucity of talent in the county in
general but you must wonder about all those called into the squad for the FBD
Connacht league. When the pre-league cull was over not too many new faces
remained and the National League squad had a grimly predictable quality about
it. With only two recognized scorers taking the field on Sunday the worst case
scenario emerged: a game where both Adrian Marren and Mark Brehony struggled to
score. Could Walsh really have countenanced the exclusion of Stephen Coen in
the face of so few alternatives up front?
The biggest error in this sorry mess was the Sligo county
board waiting for Kevin Walsh to make a decision last autumn about his return.
Walsh allegedly interviewed for the vacant Roscommon managers job. Kevin Wash
wasn’t waiting around for Sligo at that time. Now in the wake of the worst
result in our football history Sligo should not wait for him.
