Football

No extra pressure to survive in first year insists Monaghan boss Seamus McEnaney

Seamus McEnaney has returned to the Monaghan hotseat, and will hope to keep the Farneymen in Division One as their campaign gets under way next week. Picture by Sportsfile
Seamus McEnaney has returned to the Monaghan hotseat, and will hope to keep the Farneymen in Division One as their campaign gets under way next week. Picture by Sportsfile Seamus McEnaney has returned to the Monaghan hotseat, and will hope to keep the Farneymen in Division One as their campaign gets under way next week. Picture by Sportsfile

SEAMUS McEnaney left Monaghan in Division One at the end of the first stint in charge of his native county – and he insists there is no extra pressure to keep them there in his first year back.

The Farneymen drifted down to Division Three between the reigns of McEnaney and Malachy O’Rourke, only for the Fermanagh man to lead them back into the top flight in 2014.

They have remained their ever since and, with O’Rourke having stepped away last summer, it is the returning McEnaney who leads them into battle against Galway next weekend.

“Malachy has done a fantastic job for seven years and left them in a really good place, he left them in Division One, so I am just here to build on the good work Malachy has done,” said ‘Banty’, whose side face Tyrone in tonight’s Dr McKenna Cup final.

“We are delighted to be in Division One and after seven league games we will see where we find ourselves, but it is no extra pressure, no.

“In the first round of league we are playing Galway in Salthill, Tyrone the next week and Dublin the following week, so there are no easy games in Division One but sure that is where you want to be.”

After departing Monaghan the first time around, McEnaney went to manage Meath and then Wexford. He is delighted to be back in his native county but says it is the players, rather than the place, that matters most.

“When you go into a dressing room you make a bond in that dressing room and if you are passionate about the game and passionate about winning then that dressing room means an awful lot to you,” sad the Corduff man.

“When I spent my time in Meath and maybe moreso in Wexford it was a lovely warm environment to be in, albeit it’s a small population of people in Wexford who follow Gaelic football.

“But you start with your club and of all the places I have ever been, with Monaghan in Ulster finals or Meath against Dublin in front of 80,000 in Croke Park, I would still say nothing is as close as winning the intermediate club championship with my club in 1998.”