DOWN hurling manager Mickey Johnson has ruled himself out of the running to replace Kevin Ryan as Antrim boss.
Johnson, who guided Armagh to the Nicky Rackard Cup and the Ardsmen to within a puck of the sliothar of beating his native Antrim in last season’s Ulster final, says he wants to concentrate on managing Down.
The Belfast man, who was a candidate for the post in 2012 when Ryan was appointed, says his decision not to put himself forward on this occasion is “all to do with timing”.
“I’m currently the Down senior hurling manager and I will be the Down senior hurling manager, as far as I’m concerned, in 2016,” said Johnson.
“It’s all to do with timing. It’s an absolute privilege for anybody to be involved with any county team – to be involved in your own county team would be an absolute honour whether it’s minor, U21 or senior.
“Of course it’s everybody’s aspiration to manage their own county at a time, but it’s all to do with timing.”
With two meetings possible next year, Johnson said he didn’t want to comment on Antrim’s prospects for 2016 and beyond.
“It’s not really appropriate for me to pass comment on that,” he said.
“I’m the Down manager and we will probably meet Antrim in the Christy Ring Cup this year and we’ll more than likely cross swords with them in the Ulster Championship. It’s not for me to be giving advice to Antrim.”
Instead, he is concentrating on the Ardsmen and hopes to improve on a promising first season at the helm that included a promotion challenge in NHL 2B, reaching the semi-finals of the Christy Ring Cup and that narrow loss in the Ulster Senior Hurling Championship final.
“We’ve had a meeting between ourselves as a management and we’re out with the players now,” he said.
“We ran a thing on a Tuesday after every game called ‘tell the truth Tuesday’ which is about feedback from players who hadn’t got opportunities or didn’t perform in a League match to get feedback from us and then go again at training on the Thursday night and be ready for selection for the Sunday.
“They’re now feeding back about us (the management) and telling us what was right about the set-up, what we could improve on and trying to get that extra inch.
“I recognise that there were mistakes made this year – on the line and on the field. We can address the field-of-play issues to some extent through coaching and helping to improve how decisions are made on the line would require us beefing up our management structure and that’s what we’re trying to do at the minute.”
Johnson wouldn’t divulge who he wanted to bring in, but did say: “We’re in discussions with people.
“We’re not sending cars down to Munster looking for an answer for it.
“There are very capable people in Antrim who can look after Antrim and very capable people in Down and Ulster to look after Down.
“I don’t have an issue with people bringing coaches in to help out, I’ve used them in the past myself but I think there are capable people there and what’s the point of having guys involved at club level or at county underage if there can’t be a natural progression to senior level?”
DERRY have begun the search for Brian McIver’s successor as senior football manager.
Clubs were notified on Wednesday that the County Board would be accepting nominations for the position until next Monday.
During McIver's three years at the helm Derry won promotion to Division One of the NFL (and reached the final in 2014) but found Championship success harder to come by.
In 2013 the Oak Leafers lost to Cavan after extra-time in round three of the Qualifiers and the following year Longford shock them in a round one meeting at Celtic Park.
This season Derry saw off Down in Ulster but lost a nip-and-tuck provincial semi-final against north-west neighbours Donegal. They recovered to beat Wexford, but McIver resigned after a 1-11 to 0-8 loss to Galway.
