Liam Griffin
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| Liam Griffin | |||
| Personal information | |||
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| Sport | Hurling | ||
| Place of birth | Rosslare,County Wexford | ||
| Inter County Management | |||
| County | Years | ||
| Wexford | 1994-1997 | ||
| Achievements | |||
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| Wexford |
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Liam Griffin (born 1947) is an Irish former hurling manager and former player with the Wexford senior inter-county team.
Contents |
[edit] Early life & business career
Liam Griffin was born in Rosslare, County Wexford in 1947. His parents ran a guesthouse before buying a small hotel in the town in the late 1950s. Griffin was educated locally and later worked in his parents’ hotel. In the 1960s he became the first member of his family to study hotel management at the Shannon College of Hotel Management and he later spent a decade working in various hotels in Wales, Switzerland and Ireland. In the 1970s Griffin left the hotel industry and joined Bord Fáilte to gain experience in the wider tourism industry. He later returned to buy his parents hotel in Rosslare at the end of the decade and began building up his business empire. By the start of the 2000s the Griffin Group, run by Liam and two of his sons, controlled three hotels across the south-east coast of Ireland.
[edit] Hurling career
[edit] Player
Griffin played hurling with his local club in Rosslare and had some success. He also lined out with the Wexford hurlers at various levels, however, by the age of twenty-one he knew that he couldn’t continue as a player.
[edit] Manager
In spite of cutting his inter-county hurling career short Griffin became interested in coaching. Since the early 1970s he coached juvenile teams in the Wexford area and in the early 1990s he completed a diploma in sport psychology. In 1994 Griffin was appointed manager of the Wexford senior inter-county team. Wexford hurling was in the doldrums at the time as the team hadn’t won a senior All-Ireland title since 1968 or a senior Leinster title since 1977. Griffin’s first season in charge in 1995 saw little in the way of improvement as Wexford were knocked out in the early stages of the Leinster championship. In 1996 he made wholesale changes throughout the team and brought in a new training regime. Clare’s All-Ireland victory in 1995 spurred on the so-called ‘weaker counties’ and Griffin tried to get his players to believe in themselves. Griffin’s motivational techniques paid off as Wexford defeted Offaly to capture their first Leinster title in nearly twenty years. Wexford later qualified to play in the All-Ireland final where Limerick, the defeated finalists of 1994, provided the opposition. The Munstermen were slight favourites going into the match, however, Griffin’s side lead by a point at half-time in spite of being reduced to fourteen players. The team hung on in the second-half to clinch a 1-13 to 0-14 victory, their first All-Ireland in twenty-eight years.
In spite of guiding his native-county to an emotional championship title Griffin decided to retire as manager at the start of 1997 due to personal issues. He later served as an analyst with The Sunday Game television programme.
| Preceded by Christy Keogh |
Wexford Senior Hurling Manager 1994-1997 |
Succeeded by Rory Kinsella |
| Preceded by Ger Loughnane (Clare) |
All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final winning manager 1996 |
Succeeded by Ger Loughnane (Clare |
[edit] Teams
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