KILKENNY GAA CHAIRMAN Ned Quinn has apologised following the county’s minor footballers’ 17-20 to 0-0 loss to Wexford at the weekend.
Speaking to KCLR 96FM, Quinn admitted he had to take “overall responsibility” for the embarrassing result.
“I would like to say two things first of all,” Quinn said. “As chairman of the county board, I have overall responsibility for all of our county teams so I accept my responsibilities as regards our minor football team as I do with any other team.
The second thing I would like to say, with the aid of hindsight, is to express very much regret that the young players who represented our county and were more than willing to represent their county last Saturday suffered the defeat that they did and I will apologise to them for what happened to them during the game on Saturday.”
Quinn, however, played down suggestions that the team had been poorly prepared for the match, claiming no one saw the humiliating result coming, and added that the footballers’ problems would be addressed by the county board imminently.
“In the lead up to the game, by our own standards, preparations had gone well, and nobody envisaged what was about to happen, but it did happen on the day, and I would apologise to everybody for that.
I will say in the GAA in Kilkenny that over the years we’ve got a lot of things right. We have never been able to get football to where we’d like to get it to and we will have to deal with these issues starting tomorrow night when we will have an executive meeting of the management committee of the county board.
“No responsibility rests with the young players. The problem itself is much deeper.”
Quinn also rejected suggestions that Kilkenny should disband their football team.
“It’s going to be a long and difficult road, but I think we should go that road and make the best efforts possible. We’re going to have knockbacks along the way but I would be opposed to discontinuing football altogether.”
The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!
