AS Mick O’Dowd traipsed off the Athletic Grounds turf last October, sunken by a premature end to the season, he swore that was it. His managerial career that had spanned over two decades had come to an end.
He’d just witnessed his Ballymacnab side crash out of the Armagh Senior Championship to eventual winners Clann Eireann at the last four stage, having led with minutes remaining on the clock. There were plenty of ifs, buts and maybes, but the game was up.
O’Dowd, who claimed championship gold in Monaghan and Cavan in his time, insisted the journey had run its course.
That was until his native Clontibret found themselves without a leader and O’Dowd answered the call. He returned home for one last hurrah.
“I swore on everything that is holy to me that I would never ever do it again," O'Dowd said, "but when your own club comes calling there’s very little you can do about things. This will be the end of it, I can guarantee that. I’ll probably do this year and next year, I’m going to do a couple of years.”
As time rumbles on, the workload and the time commitment attached to a management job continues to grow along with expectations.
“It’s hard going, it’s an awful lot of time. You’re moving up now even at club level to 20 or 25 hours a week, it is very, very difficult.
“You’re there an hour before (training), you’re taking phone calls, you’re ringing everybody to physios to food providers, players and players are in college and in Dublin, especially with the rural clubs.
“Can you get home for training at this stage? Can you do the training on your own or is there a group of you that can train on your own? Players are demanding more and more, trying to get dieticians in, sports psychologists, trying to find these people.
“It all comes back to yourself at the heel of the hunt. Everywhere I’ve gone, I have to say the committees that I’ve worked for, the chairmen that I’ve worked for have been more than understanding. It’s got to be a serious role.
O'Dowd added: “It’s always a massive honour to look after your own club, it’s probably the biggest honour you can have even maybe more so than playing for them. It’s great playing but playing is enjoyable, management is about relief, trying to get things right, trying to bring through new players, trying to keep old players on.
“When you’re playing football, you have to worry about, 'I’ve to get out in front of him, catch it and give it to somebody'. In management, you just have so many different aspects to look at...
“You’re trying to get players rehabbed, you’re trying to give young players time in league games where it matters, where they can learn new skills.
“You’re trying to keep older players on and try and let them determine how they can train so they’re going to be at their best when you need them in the championship.
“The main job was to try and have a decent league, that we weren’t in the relegation play-off. Now, the next job is to try and win as many games as you can and try to win the championship which is the goal of everybody.”
Of the last nine championship titles that Clontibret have captured, O’Dowd has been part of five - either as a player or as part of the management team.
He featured when the club ended a 26-year wait for a championship title in 1994 and picked up a second medal three years later.
By 2006, O’Dowd was the boss, and he took the O’Neill’s club to back-to-back crowns before returning as part of John McEntee’s management team in 2019 when they interrupted Scotstown’s stranglehold on the Mick Duffy Cup.
That was the last time Clontibret climbed the summit of Monaghan football, and they haven’t reached a final since.
“John McEntee was the manager, John Paul Mone, Padraig McGuigan and myself, we were all Clontibret fellas.
“I would never say anyone is 'back room', we all had equal says. John was the manager and very good, I enjoyed working with him for the couple of years. Naturally enough you never see eye to eye with everybody, nobody ever does, and you don’t want that.
“If you’re a manager you don’t want guys to just say ‘yeah, you’re right’; it’s pointless. You need guys who are going to challenge you and you pick them for a reason. You need push back and you need help, and you need advice as well.
“That year was a strange year. We got through every game by about a point, penalties in the first round of the championship, we won 2-0 on penalties and we got through and that made us battle hardened.
“We came through tough games and Ballybay and Scotstown knocked the hell out of each other in a two-game session (the semi-finals) and Scotstown then beat Ballybay, who would have been ahead of us in the pecking order and probably still are.
“I think Scotstown just got caught on the hop that year to be brutally honest. Now, we played exceptionally well, I have to say John and the guys on the team, John Paul Mone had the guys very well prepared, and we hit the ground running and got ahead early on, we got it right."
In his first year back in the bainisteoir bib, O’Dowd took his Clontibret charges to the top of the Monaghan league, losing just two games. In a lot of other counties, Clontibret would have been crowned league champions but in Monaghan, there are league semi-finals and finals.
O’Dowd’s men lost heavily to kingpins Scotstown in their last four clash, but there’s no complaints from the Clontibret contingent.
“The reasoning here is it would be very unfair on the likes of Scotstown, Inniskeen and maybe ourselves but very much Scotstown and Ballybay who would have three, four or five on the county team, they just don’t play games and it hurts you.
“Those two or three players are huge especially if you get a few injuries or boys deciding, especially after COVID, that they’re going to go on a six or eight-week holiday or go to America for the summer, which they're fully entitled to.
“But it does deplete you radically if your panel is not big. The bigger clubs might be able to do it, but that’s why the leagues are the way they are.”
With the league action done and dusted it’s all about the championship and replicating the days gone by of Clontibret reaching the promised land.
They face Donaghmoyne and Aughnamullen first in the group stages before taking on the big hitters of Ballybay and Scotstown.
It’s familiar territory for O’Dowd. He’s shared the dressing room with Noel Marron and Davy Lennon, the Donaghmoyne manager and coach and it was Aughnamullen who gave him his first shot in management.
O’Dowd worked with Marron as part of Frank Brady’s management team that took the Monaghan minors to an Ulster title in 2013 in what proved to be a historic year for the county as the dominated the province.
“Monaghan broke a real hoodoo that year. We played Tyrone in the final of the league, and we had a major comeback that day and got over the line and funny enough in the Ulster final we had another major comeback (against Tyrone) and got over the line.
“It was a good year, the seniors won, and the ladies won that year too and the ladies minors won as well so it was a major year for Monaghan football, very enjoyable for Monaghan people.”
But O’Dowd and Marron will be in opposing corners come Sunday afternoon and both men know the huge pressure that comes with the opening round of the championship.
“Noel Marron’s a very astute fella, Davy Lennon, funnily enough, me and Davy played on the same hurling team in ’97, the same Monaghan hurling team that won an All-Ireland. They’d know me fairly well and I’d know them very well.
“I wouldn’t know the Donaghmoyne players that well because they were intermediate last year, but they won a couple of minors, they were in two or three minor finals there, so they have a raft of players coming through and they had a very good league.
“We would need to win our first two games to have any chance of progressing and of course Donaghmoyne know they have to win their first game against us to have any chance of progressing as well.
“It’s probably our biggest game, it’s the first game of the championship and you have to get the points on the board and get something out of that game.”
Verdict
SCOTSTOWN are the team to beat when it comes to the Monaghan championship and Colin McAree’s men head into the campaign hoping to claim their seventh senior crown in eight years. Can anyone stop them is the big question ahead of the opening weekend?
Ballybay, led by Jerome Johnston and Mark Doran, remain at the front of the chasing pack and their first up for Scotstown as the pair collide on Sunday in round one. They’ll also do battle for the league title later in the season.
Clontibret were the last team to defeat the Monaghan kingpins on the championship stage and they join Ballybay and the Scotstown men in group one, making up a group of death.
Aughnamullen and Donaghmoyne have been dealt the short straws as they’ll link up with the trio to make up group one. Gabriel Bannigan’s side competed in the top tier for the first time in 26 years and survived relegation to Division Two with a one-point win over Carrickmacross.
Carrickmacross weren’t just as lucky however as they lost out to Castleblayney in the relegation play-off final. Johnny Murtagh’s side failed to pick up a single win throughout the league campaign but remain in the division thanks to that victory on the final day.
Murtagh will come up against his former Crossmaglen teammate and manager Oisin McConville when Castleblayney and Inniskeen clash on Saturday while Carrickmacross face Latton in the first round.
Truagh look like the early favourites to top group two following their impressive 2021 championship displays. Pascal Canavan guided his side to the championship final last season for the first time in 20 years only to lose out to the might of Scotstown.
