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DARRAGH FOLEY has defended his former team-mates in the wake of Carlow chief Shane Curran’s resignation.

Ex-Roscommon keeper ‘Cake’ was only appointed last September, but vacated the hotseat on Wednesday, just 11 days out from the Leinster SFC clash with Meath.

Tyler Miller/Sportsfile

Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

In a statement, the outgoing management cited ‘ongoing issues with certain players, which were further compounded by the failure of several squad members to return home with the team after last weekend’s NFL game in London’.

But Carlow great Foley fought the panel’s corner when responding to a social media post referencing a recent interview with Niall Carew, in which the ex-Carlow gaffer said he was ‘putting out fires every week with players’ during his tenure.

The county’s all-time leading scorer, who retired in November, wrote: “Managers always blame players for their failings so they can pick up a job somewhere else.

“The current group of Carlow players have been let down time and time again. I’m delighted to see them make a stand and not accept poor standards anymore.

“Nine players and a coach that works with Carlow GAA left the outgoing set-up over the last few weeks. Onwards and upwards hopefully now.”

Carlow finished fourth in Division 4.

But rumours of discontent had emerged locally after coach James Clarke was one of several members of the camp who opted to step away.

Speaking to the Carlow Nationalist earlier this month, Curran said: “When you’re committing to the group, you’re committing to the group, not just yourself. That’s the bottom line.

“Players have to understand they’re part of a wider community when they’re in that group. If they’re not prepared to abide by those principles they have to decide to move on.”

Carlow GAA bosses are scrambling to source an interim management team to take charge for the meeting with the Royals at Páirc Tailteann on Sunday week.

Current Under-20 manager Simon Rea is prepared to fill the vacancy.

He said: “I’m willing to help Carlow GAA in whatever way I can.

“I don’t know the full context behind why Shane left, but it’s not good for Carlow — bottom line.”

NO one likes a spoofer.

And that is why most throw their eyes to heaven when they hear the Government is winning the battle over housing supply.

Ben McShane/Sportsfile

Everyone either knows from personal experience that finding a place of your own has never been more challenging or knows someone who has struggled to do so.

The FAI used to be fantastic at that sort of spoofing too.

I can still remember a ridiculous situation in 2009 when the FAI went into an Oireachtas joint committee and showed them Drogheda United’s ground as an example of improvements being made.

Yes, Drogheda United! A venue that an estate agent might describe as a “period building and fixer- upper’s dream”. But the response among politicians was to talk about Thierry Henry.

Since then, the FAI have become better at telling it like it is.

Drogheda’s Sullivan and Lambe Park was used in the Facilities Investment Strategy in 2022 as an example of why funding, and lots of it, was required.

And academy chief Will Clarke’s presentation to politicians in Leinster House last year laid out how the future success of the national team requires funding now.

But Chief Football Officer Marc Canham seemed reluctant to call his proposal to bring players in during school holidays to train under FAI coaches a “stopgap”.

He said it would offer a “short- to medium-term” solution instead.

But if it looks like a stopgap and quacks like a stopgap, it probably is a stopgap.

That is unless it does not look like a stopgap. When there is no Government funding for the future guaranteed yet, who knows?

After all, the income levy introduced in 2009 was due to be a short-term one before it became the Universal Social Charge.

Its abolition is now included in someone’s manifesto during every election campaign.

LOI clubs rejected Canham’s proposal anyway, but the FAI Chief Football Officer believes it is just the start of a negotiation.

Clubs saw it as a poorly conceived plan. Many of the best players go on trials abroad during holidays and others join their first teams for training.

But the biggest concern was how slowly the wheels of bureaucracy turn to get the vital funding.

YEARS & YEARS

The FAI will meet Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Patrick O’Donovan and his Minister of State Charlie McConalogue next week.

But it is almost four years since Taoiseach Micheál Martin told Off the Ball that more funding was needed for League of Ireland academies. His and McConalogue’s party Fianna Fáil even included it in their election manifesto, though Government formation talks watered it down to “exploring” it.

That was a step further than the FAI has got but there remains frustration at how slowly things are moving.

There have also been own goals.

The FAI missed the application deadline for the €5.4billion Brexit Adjustment Reserve Fund — a “missed opportunity” was how Canham put it last year.

And it is unlikely next week’s meeting will end with the tap being turned back on.

After all, a Government funding audit into academies is underway.

Given FAI Connect has a full database of players, facilities were audited in 2022 and Clarke’s presentation highlighted staff and contact hours, hopefully it is a quick process.

But it is also necessary to win over politicians who do not need long memories to know football is not to be trusted.

And it is not only the ‘old’ FAI.

Last year, they even redacted their address during that comical Oireachtas hearing over former CEO Jonathan Hill’s holiday pay.

Minister O’Donovan, who was over the OPW, has also made a virtue of watching the pennies in his new role as he looked into the Arts Council and its spending.

But he also knows how sport is about funding. This past week, I have got three emails about his announcements.

When the controversy about John Delaney was just two weeks old in 2019, he declared him to be a “great man to support the clubs”.

Irish football needs the State to do just that now.

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Joe Johnson is a retired professional basketball player from the United States. He played in the NBA for 18 seasons ...

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