Offaly under-20 manager Declan Kelly has vaguely criticised a school’s decision to play one of his players in the week of a Leinster championship match.

Jack Bryant was set to line out for Offaly under-20s in their provincial clash against Louth last weekend, but he picked up a hamstring injury playing for Coláiste Choilm during the week.

The Tullamore school were comfortable winners of the game as they won by 7-09 to 1-03 and led by 6-04 to 0-03 at half time with Bryant picking up the injury in the 41st minute.

And Kelly has questioned why the player was still on the field of play when it was known that he would be playing for Offaly under-20s.

“I wasn’t at the game the other day. I just saw the half time score and they were nineteen points up. We have a lot of lads we are managing this year, a lot of school lads playing football, a lot of freshers lads,” Kelly told the Midland Tribune.

“It is about managing their work load and managing how you look after them. I think we definitely struck a very good balance this year. If lads were playing games, there were a couple of league games we didn’t play them or we’d give them half an hour and took them off.

“As I said I wasn’t at the game but I know Jack got injured midway during the second half. I know Sean ended up playing the full game and ended up having to play a championship match three days later. I wasn’t at it, you would probably have to talk to the Coláiste Choilm management on their thinking as to why that was. I can’t answer it to be honest.”

The Allianz Hurling League returns this weekend, make sure you join the hoganstand.com match tracker for live scores from the third round of games.

Tweet

Most Read Stories