Pádraig Nolan

Pádraig Nolan (born 1964 in Kilcock, County Kildare, Ireland) is an Irish sportsperson. He is a former inter county manager who briefly played for Kildare in the late 1980s. He managed the Offaly and Kildare inter-county Gaelic football teams.

Playing career

Nolan represented Kildare at the end of the 1980s, a career which included one historic achievement. He was on the Kildare team which lost to Kilkenny in the O'Byrne Cup.[1]

Managerial career

At comparatively young appointment at 35 to the Offaly job in 1999. His first year in charge saw Offaly dethrone the reigning All Ireland champions Meath in the Quarter finals of the Leinster Championship. Offaly fell to Kildare after a replay in following round. In 2001 Offaly saw off Laois in the Leinster Championship, but narrowly lost to Dublin in the semi-final. With this being the inaugural year of the 'back-door', Offaly got a qualifier game against Louth 6 days later, but lost to an agonising late winning point from Louth. 2002 was to prove Nolan's final championship in charge of Offaly. After again edging out neighbours Laois in the opening Leinster Championship fixture, Offaly were pitted against Kildare with a place in the Leinster final at stake. Similar to 2000, Offaly lost in a replay. As was to prove a trait for Offaly, they failed to make progress through the Qualifier system and lost to Limerick in their first Qualifier fixture. Nolan stepped down from the post and was succeeded by Paul O'Kelly.

Following on from this, Nolan took charge of Kildare [2] where he guided them to a Leinster Final in 2003, where they were beaten by Laois. He resigned in 2005 [3] and hasn't managed at inter-county level since.

References
  1. "Nolan relishes Offaly role". Irish Times. 22 January 2000. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  2. "Padraig Nolan named Kildare football manager". .breakingnews.ie. 17 October 2002. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
  3. "Nolan steps down in Kildare". RTE.ie. 19 July 2005. Retrieved 8 October 2014.
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