There are several people who, I have always believed, are the manifestation of what my life would be if all the limbs here were in working order. Take any member of the local farming fraternity you like. As it is, I have and will eternally bust every sinew of of myself to remain involved in agricultural affairs in some capacity or other.
If turning attention to involvement in a GAA capacity – part one thereof you might say – when it came to Gaelic football, one always envisaged oneself being either a midfielder or full forward. So, for the former slot, the vision was always of myself as John McDermott but when it came to the latter, the scene was either Tommy Dowd or Brian Stafford.
Tommy because he had a unique way of almost scooping the ball up into his possession before turning and lashing it over the bar. And Staff, well, because he remains the best place kicker the one seeing eye here has ever encountered. And it will take a bloody good one to dislodge him. Rian O’Neill is the nearest I’ve seen to the Kilmainhamwood colossus but he still has a bit to go.
Switching to hurling, I’ve always pictured myself as one of two Clare men – either Brian Lohan or Seanie McMahon. Full back and centre back. Lohan. He of the red helmet. The red helmet of no strap. Yet which never seemed to move an inch. If there was a modern day incarnation of Cuchulainn grasping the ball and lashing it back at the monster, it was Lohan.
So to McMahon. It has always been my view that centre half back is the most pivotal spot on a hurling team. Pivot of the defence, launchpad of all attacks. McMahon at his zenith was, to me, like an amalgam of the mighty Pat O’Neill of Gowran and Kilkenny and Billy Dooley in his almost static, robotic state at the end of the 1994 All Ireland final.
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I’m nearly 45 now – sweet Jesus – so the wheels of life have turned in such a manner that now the visualisation is of being a manager. Planning training sessions, coming up with drills, laying out cones, forensically analysing oppositions and assembling dossiers of mass destruction with which your own players will be ‘armed’ for conquest of those on the other side of the trench.
There’s not a day goes by that such scenarios aren’t doing laps in the head here. But of course the thing is, at this stage it’s becoming more and more obvious that said opportunity is never going to accrue. Simply because the three or four different individuals who – when transitioning from playing to managing teams – could’ve found some role within their enclaves for yours truly seemed to lose my phone number and/or address right at the time such opportunities arose. It’s unclear as to whether some of those who failed – miserably in some cases – to afford me such opportunities can or will ever be forgiven.
Anyway, don’t let anybody ever tell you lightening won’t strike twice. August 2022, about six weeks on from when he stepped down as Meath manager citing the need for a break after six seasons on the go, Andy McEntee asserted his right to change his mind and deemed himself sufficiently rested to take on a new challenge and thus spent the last three seasons guiding the fortunes of the Antrim footballers.
Now, regardless of what line of work you happen to be in, measurement of success is all dependent on your starting point. For example, if I can get back to rearing calves or store lambs in bunches of four or five or, failing that, venture down the poultry route and manage to begin and maintain a decent level of egg and/or poultry meat production, that to me would mean every bit as much as the small wins do to the farmer out the road who finishes 2,000 bulls a year.
Likewise, while when Andy took over with Meath ambitions would have been aimed quite high and at least partially achieved if we’re honest, whereas, with the greatest of due respect, Antrim would’ve been operating to a differing set of parametres, from whence respectability and competitiveness would most likely have been items number one and two on the Saffron agenda when Andy went in.
They were both accomplished with considerable aplomb. To the extent that the men from the Glens qualified for the Tailteann Cup semi finals in consecutive seasons under his direction before, in the first instance, coming unstuck against the very Meath team he had actually did so much to build.
Mind you, Colm O’Rourke and Sean Boylan’s ‘reward’ for bringing the first men’s adult football trophy to the county in 13 years was to be unceremoniously shafted by the county board. That is not, in any way, a criticism of the appointment of Robbie Brennan. Merely a statement of fact that there should never have been a vacancy there to be filled in the first place.
However, I digress. After again intimating that a break from involvement with teams would again be in the offing, the lure of the sideline has once again proven too much for Andy, as was revealed today (Thursday) when it was announced that the Dunboyne man is to link up with Monaghan. Gabriel Bannigan bringing the erstwhile St Peter’s coach to fill the vacancy in his entourage caused by Andy Moran stepping away from his involvement to take charge of his native Mayo.
The Farney Army definitely got the better end of that deal.
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