Greenfield
County: Meath
Posts: 89

1120415
Liamwalkinstown
County: Dublin
Posts: 2916

1120215 can i just say on this , anyone not picking Heffo as one of the all time greats hasnt a clue what they are talking about.
If you knew how bad Dublin football was in 73! Our first champo game was played in croker the day of a league game involving Cork and Offaly I think it was, and our game was the opening match! The starter if you like. A championship starter to a league game.....We were nothing.
Heffo takes over, and over the next 10 years we play in 8 All Ireland finals and win 4 of them. Sure he wasnt there for one, but it was his team.

Its easy dismiss Heffo as an "over hyped Dub"
But the facts are this, his achievments with that Dublin team equal anything Micko, Boylan or Mickey H have done and possibly surpass them.

Maybe the reason he is not as universally acclaimed nowadays is because unlike Sean and Mickey, most of you dont remember his time, and unlike Micko, he didnt go on to manage half the country after his time with his own county was up?


The matches from the seventies would have been going on when I was a kid, so I wouldn't have really got it. Last year though I read the Tom Humphries Dublin v Kerry book. I never realised how low Dublin football was before 74, and it put a new perspective on Heffernan for me. Definitely up with the best of them. Like all the other greats mentioned though, he had the benefit of managing teams with outstanding players and characters.
I'd highly recommend the book too.


That is an excellent book and Heffo was a great man, not just for Dublin GAA but for the GAA as a whole.

People saying JOM ahead of Heff would want to have a word with themselves!

Liamwalkinstown
County: Dublin
Posts: 2921

On the flourbags name, I can see the logical reason why ye call them that, but I was once told there was a funnier, naughtier reason than simply due to the white jerseys....
You any clue???

As far as I know its because of all the times they have waved the white flag of surrender in Leinster finals against the Gallant Men of Laois.

No - actually i havent a clue :(

Sam09, Joe Kernan is a great manager, the fact that it didn't work out with just one of several teams he managed doesn't detract from that. (And the circumstances of such a short stay with Galway has baffled many I'm sure). It takes more than just good players to make a great team, managers, selectors, backroom staff and all those things come into the making of a great team

However, is it fair to categorise Kernan as one of the 'greatest'?.......No, probably not

gigoer
County: Wexford
Posts: 1331


suppose your right. but certainly the squad of players he had and the lack of competition in Armagh club football contributed greatly to crosses success. Kernan was good but not one of the greats

sam09
County: Tyrone
Posts: 156


but certainly the squad of players he had and the lack of competition in Armagh club football contributed greatly to crosses success.

Perhaps, but I would imagine the same could be said for a lot of managers

Mickey harte . Never forget how magnanimous he was in defeat when we beat Tyrone in 2006 . Laois fans yahooing behind him andhe was. So gracious . Legend

I did mention heffo in my original post.
And to the louth guy who said that we have to mention meath? You need to see a doctor if you do not think sean boylan was one of the greatest of all times

Who managed Wexford to their four in a row back in the day?

I miss Patrique's input on a thread like this!

Football
Joe Kernan
Micky Harte
Jack O Connor
Seamus Mc Enaney

Hurling
Brian Cody

Micko Dwyer
Micky Harte. A GENTLEMAN

Sean boylan or mickey harte

Cody and O Dwyer, end of argument.

I see the monaghan poster put up seamus macennerny.
I don't think many of my county men would agree with you there. As for me I don't make any comment or judgment on any body until they have proven one way or another. So I hope come september I will be in full agreement with you on. Come on banty

Hughie O'Reilly managed Cavan to 3 All-Irelands and Cootehill Celtic to a championship 3 in-a-row having never won a championship before or since.

Mick O'Dwyer is the greatest
Heffo is second
Boylan is third
Mickey Harte fourth
Pete McGrath is fifth

By the end of the 10's Pat Gilroy will join that list ;)

I think Heffernan and Boylan deserve particular credit for their achievements as, unlike any of the other names mentioned, they both won Ireland with virtually 2 different sides. Heffernan's 1974 and 1983 winning sides had only 2 players in common, while no-one from Boylan's 80s side was still around in 1999. It's also worth pointing out that both these managers took over counties in the doldrums, and neither county had had recent underage success to build on.

(I should also add that Dr Eamonn O'Sullivan trained many different sets of players to titles over his 40 years on-and-off with Kerry, but the level of his involvement was very different to modern managers.)

TC

Wasnt MArtin O'Connell on both teams?

Just wondering now, I may well be wrong!

He wouldn't have been on the 1999 team Liam. O'Connell and Colm Coyle were both there in 1996, to my memory the only 2 survivors from the 87/88 side.

Modern Day

Football -- Mickey Harte
Hurling -- Brian Coidy