New Wexford Hurling Manager

[youbetterbelieveit]

I think this is a very good appointment. Bonnar has been around for a long time on the college hurling scene and should know his stuff regarding wexford, players, as the majority wexford students go to WIT.


Bonnar takes charge of Wexford
12 November 2008


Former Tipperary star Colm Bonnar was last night named as the new Wexford hurling manager in succession to John Meyler.

One of the stars of Tipp's All-Ireland victories of 1989 and '91, Bonnar has been appointed for an initial two-year term and takes over at a time when many in the county are still smarting over the controversial dismissal of John Meyler last night. Meyler was sacked after a four-player delegation met Wexford chairman Ger Doyle to seek a change of management.



After an illustrious inter-county career which ended in 1998, Bonnar has since built up an impressive CV as a coach and physical trainer. Living in Waterford where he works as Sport and Student Development Officer in Waterford IT, he trained the Deise hurlers from 1999 to 2002 and later fulfilled a similar role with his native Tipperary in 2004 and 2005.

He has been manager of Waterford IT's Fitzgibbon Cup for the past six years, winning the competition four times in that period. He played in 10 All-Ireland finals with Tipp at all levels from 1982 to '98, and is also the holder of five Munster medals.

A member of one of Tipperary's most famous GAA families, Bonnar won an All-Star in 1988 and captained Cashel King Cormaces to their first county and Munster club senior hurling wins in 1991, which gave him the Tipp captaincy the following year.

[orangeman]

Bonnar would know his stuff - but as always results will decide his fate - I hope he gets treated better than John Meyler who was treated abysmally.

[lynchbhoy]

Bonner would be decent but Wexford would need Jesus himself right now.

Good memory of Colm Bonner - he was in his first year of managing the Gaelic sports teams in waterford when I was in first year there.
Colm was known as a bit of a forgetful non academic kind of guy - 100% commitment though and decent with it.
We got to the AI Fresher football final and the night before the game we had a bit of a kick around/training session with Colm giving us a few words of wisdom before we left the training gorund.

colm 'Well lads, make sure you get a good nights rest tonight and before ye go to bed, pack your hurleys and your helmets and gear ready for tomorrow morning'

one of the lads - 'Colm , its football'

Colm  - 'oh jeezuz sorry, anyhow make sure your ready to play queens tomorrow'

another of the lads - 'Colm, its jordanstown'

Colm - ' oh fcuk thats worse'



We lost ! but I still laugh at this exactly 20 years later. Colm was all the time saying the wrong things which were somewhat amusing though could deflate a team only - that we all knew he wasnt worried about the opposition etc and meant nothing bad.Best of luck to him in Wexford.

[youngfella]

A few good games and the wexford people will rally behind the yellowbellys on the field. Be nice to see someone challange the cats.

[INDIANA]

taken from the tribune, the below the issues between the players and meyler.



John Meyler also paid the price not so much of player power but of player frustration. The weekend before this year's Leinster final the Wexford senior team played a local intermediate club, Shelmaliers, in a challenge game. The players were baffled by the choice of such meagre opposition; was the coach using the game as a chance to try out some gameplan for Kilkenny? The answer was no. A senior player duly contacted Meyler wishing that some game plan would be devised for Kilkenny and was told he would discuss it on the Friday at 6pm before training.
A few players met in midweek and devised the plan of playing four men in the half-back line and bringing Stephen Doyle out to midfield to stifle Cha Fitzpatrick. When the players arrived at 6pm on the Friday, there was no sign of Meyler and when they eventually got speaking to him, Meyler cut them short, saying "the time for talking was over". The players' game plan, of course, worked remarkably well for the first 35 minutes, before Meyler at half-time moved Doyle back to a more orthodox spot and Wexford were duly annihilated.