Football

Players need six weeks' preparation: Fermanagh boss Ryan McMenamin

Fermanagh will be much-changed this year.<br /> Picture Margaret McLaughlin
Fermanagh will be much-changed this year.
Picture Margaret McLaughlin
Fermanagh will be much-changed this year.
Picture Margaret McLaughlin

FERMANAGH boss Ryan McMenamin feels players should be allowed more than a month to prepare when the ban on collective training is eventually lifted by the GAA.

The former Tyrone star argues that the shorter League programme planned will mean more intense matches, raising the risk of injuries, especially if preparations are limited:

“Ideally you would like six weeks, although there’ll probably be a spate of injuries no matter what. You have to look at the welfare of the players.

“You can’t really expect them to come back in four weeks; all the evidence is that that would really only be three weeks, because the last week before a match, preparation would be more tapering than anything else.

“They are amateur players. By right you would want to give them enough time to prepare properly, especially now that the GAA insurance scheme isn’t covering the wages of players [if they’re unable to work due to injury].”

Fermanagh are set to be in a new Division Three North along with Ulster rivals Cavan and Derry, plus Longford, and McMenamin anticipates tight tussles ahead:

“It has left the League basically as a Championship. It’s just going to be bang, bang, bang. It is going to be high intensity, players will be going for five, six weeks in row, it’ll be Championship level.

“Are you really only going to give them four weeks to prepare for five weeks of high end matches? It’s kind of a wee bit crazy.

“At the minute we can’t plan, that’s the problem for every manager. If the GAA had said you were back on the 4th of April, that’s grand, you could work from there. Or if you were back [training] at the start of March but not be playing matches until six weeks later then you could start planning your friendlies. But we don’t know at the moment, it’s a mixture of delays and rumours.

“It’s impossible for managers to plan. Everyone is waiting for clearer dates.”

Amidst all the uncertainty, McMenamin does know that he’ll have to work without two important sets of siblings this year – the Jones brothers, Ryan and Conall and the Corrigans, Tomas and Ruairi.

‘Ricey’ accepted the various reasons for the quartet stepping away from the inter-county scene, explaining:

“Conall and Ruairi probably felt they should have got more game-time [last year], that comes down to opinions between them and the management. Those two boys feel they want to give the club scene more time this year.

“With Tomas and Ryan, work is a factor for them, they couldn’t commit as much as they have done before. Ryan probably felt maybe that he had done it all, 10 years of county football, that he could give it no more and he had to move on.

“County football is the kind of thing, you have to enjoy it, or else you move on. The bus never stops. It didn’t stop for me when I retired. There’s always someone else to replace you. It just doesn’t stop.”

Yet even without them McMenamin is optimistic about the talent on the Erne county panel: “They were four great servants for Fermanagh but we have to move on. We have a very good young squad coming through, with a lot of good young footballers who want to play for Fermanagh, which is great. We have to develop those boys and give them the best opportunity to play for Fermanagh.”

At least one experienced player - Sean Quigley – has returned, having removed himself from the county panel in 2020.

Again, McMenamin had respect for the player’s decision, saying: “You can’t put a gun to people’s heads – if they don’t want to be there, they don’t want to be there.

“He said himself he didn’t have the hunger for it last year, he was honest enough, we had a good discussion about it. I always say, if you’re not enjoying it you shouldn’t be there.

“Sean’s working away hard. We all know he’s a great footballer and now he’s getting himself in shape, doing it for himself. When I spoke to him in December he already had a mountain of work done.”