Billy Sheehan set to join Stephen Wallace’s Offaly coaching ticket
Kerry native Wallace was recommended for the position of Offaly manager earlier this month and is now in the process of putting together a backroom team.
Sheehan was part of Peadar Healy’s Cork backroom team during 2016 and 2017, a somewhat stagnant period for the Rebels where they were relegated from Division 1 of the league and failed to make it beyond the fourth round of qualifiers. Sheehan had been linked with the vacant Laois job which was filled by fellow Kerryman John Sugrue at the end of August.
Wallace will go before the Offaly County Board for ratification at their next meeting on Tuesday, October 3. The county failed to win a championship game this year, while last year’s Leinster preliminary quarter-final win over Longford was their first in the province since 2007.
The new manager will have the benefit of a set training base, with the Faithful Fields training centre to be officially opened by incoming GAA president John Horan this Saturday.
The facility includes four pitches, all of which will be floodlit, six dressing rooms, a dining area, two meeting rooms, wall ball, gym and an all-weather training area.
Some €2.6 million has so far been spent on the project, which was built debt-free as a result of extensive fundraising.
Should Wallace receive the green light on October 3, he’ll become the fifth Kerry man to join the current list of inter-county managers. Eamonn Fitzmaurice has one year left to run on his term as Kerry manager, former Roscommon and Tipperary boss John Evans was recently appointed to the Wicklow post, Liam Kearns is set for two more years in Tipperary and there is also the aforementioned Sugrue, who was part of Pat O’Shea’s Kerry backroom team in 2007 and 2008.
