Conor Hayes has poured cold water on Davy Fitzgerald coming to Galway and believes they should appoint from within.
Fitzgerald, who has just completed three seasons in charge of Wexford and has yet to declare his intentions for 2020, has been linked to the role after Michael Donoghue’s surprise resignation.
However double All-Ireland winning captain Hayes, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the GAA Museum in Croke Park yesterday, believes that Fitzgerald would be too radical an appointment for Galway right now given how settled the team is.
His preference is for one of Donoghue’s right-hand men to pick up the baton.
Hayes said: “You had a good management team there as well, himself and Franny (Forde) and Noel Larkin and Damien Joyce and all the group they had seemed to be getting on well with the players.
“There was very little disaffection among players and them so it was a good arrangement. He (Donoghue) was obviously going to have to bring in a couple of players as well and maybe chop it and change it a small bit.
"But the fear you have is that someone new would come in and say, ‘We are going with something completely different here’ or change it around too much.
“I still think the continuity is important and there is talk that Franny Forde and Noel Larkin might take over and keep that continuity.
“I think that might not be the worst thing that would happen because I think there is a backroom team there already of statisticians and dieticians that are working well with the players and if you try and impose that on a bunch of players that have been there for the last six or seven years or more, that can be difficult too.
“So I don’t think it’s time for a full change of scenery. Continuity would be great and I think this bunch have another All-Ireland final in them.”
Hayes also suggested that it’s too soon for under-20 manager Jeffrey Lynskey, who has enjoyed great success at minor level in recent years, to take on the job.
He continued: “Whether he's ready for that (senior) level, with that bunch of players, I just don't know. It would be a difficult bunch of players… not that they're awkward or anything like that, but it would be difficult to go into a bunch of players that have been successful and that have been playing to that high level.
“There's talks of Davy Fitz doing it but I don't know if that's a runner at all. I would imagine he's probably going to stay with Wexford.
“If he went in he's going to bring in a new (backroom) team too, it could be hit or miss with him too.
“In fairness to him, he comes in with great gusto into each county. It could blow the whole thing apart.
“Now it could work as well, it could drive them on to win two- or three-in-a-row as well. But I don't think so.
“They're an established bunch of players at this stage. From what I hear of them, what they're saying, that they meet and they talk and they get things done, I think it's important that the board listen to them as well.”
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