Sligo County board last evening (Monday 11 July, 2022) confirmed the management teams for its intercounty senior and U20 football squads for 2023. 

Tony McEntee who was appointed for a three-year term in November 2020 will continue as senior football manager.  Tony will be joined again by Joe Keane (Assistant Manager). 

Easkey’s Noel McGuire and goalkeeping coach Paul Durcan from Drumcliffe-Rosses Point will be selectors with Sean Boyle – Sligo GAA’s Athletic Performance Coach – leading on Strength & Conditioning. 

It was agreed also to create an option of a possible further year to be triggered on review at the end of next season. 

Paul Henry from Curry who led the management team when Sligo won the Connacht Minor Championship in 2021 will manage the U20 team for 2023. Paul will be supported by Enda Mitchell (Coolera-Strandhill), Colm McGee (Tubbercurry), Ross Donovan (Eastern Harps), JP Carden (Enniscrone-Kilglass) and Pat Kilcoyne (Tubbercurry). That team will also be responsible for the U20 team for the 2024 championship season. 

Paul and his team will also continue to oversee the work that he has begun this year on bridging the gap for younger players between County U17 and U20 who are not part of the U20 Football panel. Further appointments will be made to the coaching and support team next year to maintain this group. 

Sligo GAA Chairman Sean Carroll said, “we are pleased to confirm these arrangements ahead of our club championships so that both management teams can progress their work and also work with a degree of co-ordination as they prepare for competition in 2023.” 

“I want also to pay tribute to Dessie Sloyan and his management group of Eamonn O’Hara, Con O’Meara, Richard Kennedy, Paul Higgins and Sean Smith who completed a three-year cycle as managers of Sligo’s U20 team in 2022 and delivered an exceptional outcome winning a Connacht championship for Sligo in this grade for the first time ever and a championship on home soil for the first time ever. Dessie and his team has broken new ground for Sligo GAA in how they have approached their work and how they have built a sense of purpose and capability in the U20 panel. From last Autumn, we had made decisions that provided for continuity in management of our senior and U20 teams into 2023 which means that there are no positions of that profile immediately available. We very much however want to have Dessie and his team involved in the future development of both playing and coaching talent in the county and we will be engaging with him and his team over the coming months to identify where and how best that can be achieved. We also look forward to sharing the U20 success, and that of the players who were nominated for player of the season awards more proactively with the clubs and the youth of the county after the summer holiday period”.