Stephen Wallace isn’t a happy camper.
The Kerryman was sacked from his position as Offaly senior football manager on Wednesday night. On Thursday afternoon, he spoke to Colm Parkinson on The GAA Hour Football Show.
Even though the Offaly footballers suffered a disappointing loss to Wicklow in their Leinster Championship opener at the weekend, Wallace feels he was hard-done-by to get the boot.
He deems that a number of external factors, such as his suspension due to an incident in a Kerry club game, such as the Offaly county board’s negligence of their own players, such as reports and claims that he maintains are false and unfounded, contributed to his fate.
Amidst all of this, Wallace constantly and consistently insists that he had not lose the Faithful dressing room.
Many of these claims came from the mouth of former inter-county referee, Brian Gavin. Gavin was on Midlands Radio, was on Off The Ball, was on Game On, in the aftermath of his county’s loss to the Garden County and he provided a fairly damning scoop on the state of the camp.
Wallace was quick to pull up Gavin on the ‘hatchet job’ he has performed on him.
“I have my own belief why Gavin is using the Offaly senior football team as cannon-fodder, in his campaign or his crusade, but this isn’t about Brian Gavin.
“I’m sure he’s very proud of himself, but this is all un-founded, as Nigel Dunne’s statement proved. He basically discredited what Brian Gavin said about him, because what Brian Gavin said was incorrect and it was sensationalised. He named players without having spoken to them.”
Gavin had claimed that Dunne had left the dressing room at half-time, about to head away in his car, frustrated at being substituted in the first half. Dunne tweeted the following.
https://twitter.com/NigelDunne21/status/996518355048845313
That wasn’t the only statement Wallace called Gavin out on.
“As recently as Tuesday morning, he made a statement that my suspension had been increased 8 weeks to 12 weeks, this is categorically and 100% lies, but he has been given free reign to do a hatchet job on me.
“Sean Pender was portrayed as grossly unhappy and disruptive – Sean Pender was taken off on medical grounds – the medical team said he would destroy his quad muscle and wouldn’t play again in 2018 (if he kept going), he would die on the field in an Offaly shirt, he didn’t want to come off, but he understands the process.”
“You’d swear 20 Offaly fellas were punching the heads off each other in the dressing room, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Who even ran with this to Brian Gavin is the bigger question here?”
“I have my own personal opinion on what Brian Gavin is at and what he’s about, but a man said to me once just after I was leaving college and I was naive, he said to me, ‘if you want to fight with a pig, you have to be willing to roll in the muck and who wants to get all shit and dirty.
“Nigel cut him off with his statement, and I think that should be the end of Brian Gavin’s nonsense.”
Overall, the Ardfert native has a sour taste in his mouth surrounding the whole thing. After signing a three year deal with the county at the start of the year, he felt a positive O’Byrne Cup and League campaign were far too quickly dismissed after this first round championship loss.
He felt his suspension counted against him, even though Offaly County board chairman Tommy Byrne had assured him that it wouldn’t.
“We lost a game of football. We need to be realistic about this. The players were bitterly disappointed, but we had no God-given right to beat Wicklow. It’s an Offaly team in transition, but they’ve won one game in the Leinster championship in the last ten years.”
“The fall-out from it, people saying it’s the worst day in the history of Offaly GAA, the over-reaction has probably cost me my job. We lost the game and it’s cost me my job. Nobody’s looked at the good performances in the O’Byrne Cup, the great wins we had in the National League to keep a young team in Division Three…
“Tommy Byrne knew since the beginning of May that I was suspended, why sack me last night, and use my suspension as an excuse or the reason?”
You can listen to the full, irate Wallace interview, and much more from Thursday’s GAA Hour Show here.
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