AS players, we knew they were thinking along those lines the night of the semi-final defeat. It was a bad end to a bad day for us. Obviously you want to win to be successful, but personally I wanted to win an All-Ireland for those two.
Getting to an All-Ireland semi-final, people probably thought everything was going along smoothly, but with injuries and that in the last few years, we have struggled very badly for numbers.
Whenever you don’t have the numbers every night at training, it’s very hard to get your message across at training. Very hard to work on different situations, and that’s one thing that frustrated me because nobody gave more to the club than those men.
They always set the right example and always did what was best for the club and it was just disappointing that they weren’t getting the right go at it.
They never really got a proper crack at it until the influx of new minor players started coming through last September. Then they were able to coach us and train us the way they wanted, and obviously our performances on the pitch backed that up.
Everything seemed to fall into place in the last six months and I hoped that, with a full squad to work with, they would have been willing to stay on and go a bit further.
But I completely understand their decision. They have given their whole lives as footballers and since they quit they have thrown themselves straight back into management.
They have young families, other commitments outside of our club, and they owe us nothing. It was a privilege to play under them.
Looking to the future, Gareth O’Neill coming back is a very exciting appointment for the club.
He’s extremely knowledgeable, very clued into what’s happening and a great reader of the game. Gareth is very strong and disciplined, and extremely organised. By the time the season starts he’ll have everything off to a tee – that’s the sort of man he is.
Sometimes people who are very organised struggle to get that message across, struggle to get people to buy into it, but that’s what Gareth’s brilliant at. His man-management is brilliant.
When he and Tony McEntee were there before, Tony might have done most of the talking to the media - that’s just their personalities, Tony would be more outgoing - but they very much worked hand-in-hand.
I rate that as the most enjoyable period of football I’ve ever had, and that was purely down to the culture those men created within the club.
I’m looking forward to getting a call from Gareth some time soon to say we’re getting going for the new season.
