“I FELL ASLEEP at the wheel coming home last year on a Friday night…” Ciaran Meenagh says.
He drops it in and moves on instantly. So casual is it said, that you wonder if you heard it right.
The Derry manager is outlining for the media how obsessed he is about Gaelic football and how deep that goes.
So here’s the context;
“It’s wile hard. It’s hard to rear a family and all the rest. You wouldn’t be doing it forever, put it that way. I’m 46 years of age and if I keep going the way I’m going, I’ll be burnt out in a few years. It is all-consuming. But what do you do?
“I’m addicted to football. I’ve served an apprenticeship for quite a bit of time now. If I wasn’t with Derry, I’d be back with Down.
“When I was with Down, I was driving 1,000 miles a week. That was on top of working full-time. I’ve been with my club seniors for six years, I took the club U16s last year as well. That comes at a cost and you have to be prepared to pay that price.”
The price involves falling asleep at the wheel.
It happened on a stretch of road in Killeeshil, Tyrone. He went into the ditch and came back out. The airbag was not activated. He came to in complete panic.
“When something like that happens, I’m really good at dusting myself down, shrugging my shoulders and getting on with it,” he continues.
“I drove another five minutes, pulled in, slept for 20 minutes and then drove home. I usually don’t tell the wife any of these sorts of things but I had to tell her that one because the side was pulled out of the car. That’s what goes with the territory of the job.”
Deals
He’s made deals with himself since. One night he got as far as his driveway and hadn’t the energy to get into his home, falling asleep parked on the driveway. These nights, he knows a spot in Dungannon and pulls in to sleep for 20 minutes.
The last car he had, his father is now driving, and he estimates there might be 250,000 miles on the clock.
Managing Derry is closer for him than coaching with Down. That mean fewer miles on the road.
Ciaran Meenagh speaks to his players as they face Cork during his first spell in charge as interim manager. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
But there’s still a payoff.
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“What you get from not having that travel, you multiply that many times over for the pressure of the role I’m in now. It’s a privilege to be in that position, but I see it very much as a position of serving players I’m very close to, to give them the best opportunity to regain some successful bygone times they’ve had.
“If I can do that, I’ll happily retreat into the sunset after a number of years and enjoy a bit of downtime.”
Loughmacrory
We doubt it. Simply because he would find something else to do, even if it’s with his club Loughmacrory.
Last winter, they won their first ever Tyrone county title, beating Trillick in the final.
Meenagh was coach to the team. Marty Boyle – known as ‘The Brain’ to the Loughmacrory players – was manager and Luke Barrett was another coach. Both are in the Derry backroom now.
Loughmacrory players celebrate last year's Tyrone county senior final win. John McVitty / INPHO
John McVitty / INPHO / INPHO
Back in 2019, he accepted an invitation to join Damian McErlain’s backroom as a coach and he has been involved in county football since.
He’s not a take it or leave it type. He admits to being on social media and while he keeps a very low profile, he spends a lot of time listening to the various GAA podcasts and reading articles.
The dizzying rate of tactical development under the new rules has spiked his interest. But he admits that he’s had to stop consuming so much.
Meenagh during his playing days for Tyrone U21s against Mayo in an All Ireland final. INPHO
INPHO
“The more data and more information there is, probably the more confusing it becomes,” he says.
“It’s overwhelming. It’s a quagmire. At times you have to detach yourself. Otherwise, you don’t have your own vision.
“I see last week someone talking about switching defence and the data around kickouts and you can bogged down in that, and down a rabbit hole and lose perspective. You could have twenty things in your head.”
What he does is trust himself, and what he terms as his grá for the game.
Teacher
“For me, the greatest teacher is the game itself, figuring out how they attack and how they defend. What are they trying to do on kickouts, where do their strengths lie? What are their key match ups?
“Trying to get the cornerstones right, how we go about it, what we do for our kickouts and then if they do that, how do we adapt?
“But the players have only so much capacity as well. Another thing, with all the theories and so on, you have a limited time with the players. So you have to prioritise the key fundamental things you want to work on.”
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That can be tricky. He has surrounded himself with strong characters. As well as Boyle and Barrett, there is also Darren McShane, Benny Heron and Chrissy McKaigue, as well as his former handball rival, Paul Brady as a performance coach.
“The amount of time and communication that goes on among the backroom team, it’s phenomenal. We train like every other team, three times a week, sometimes four,” says Meenagh.
“But management, we would have virtual calls another night or two on top of that and I would talk to individuals outside of that. I don’t know how many hours you spend on the phone every week.
“Picking your fifteen is a tough part of the job because everybody is so invested. It could swing either way and there will be so many opinions within your management team. Then picking the 26, for a player to be left out of the 26…and then having a conversation about ‘If X happens, what do we do Z?’
“There’s so many permutations that you have to have thought out. What will half-time look like if this is this way, so players have clarity.
“It’s all-consuming. Very, very challenging.”
They meet Antrim this Saturday. While Mark Doran’s Saffrons had a mixed league with a poor start, they won their last four games.
Meenagh has paid them the respect of getting along to some of their games when scheduling allowed. Every element of Derry’s preparations this season has the backdrop of two years of hard times. They have had to learn humility the hard way.
“I suppose when I went into the changing rooms this year I had hundreds of conversations with players. There was a lot of one to ones, a lot of small group work,” he says.
“In terms of the psychological work you would have done as a collective I wouldn’t have got bogged down with that. But as we started to play games and we started to analyse clips and look back at things that happened last year, there was a process of trying to nurture some of those answers out of that.
“But there was also a process of honesty and challenging them as well.
“It is a big body of work, let’s be honest. What those players went through for twenty months, we are all confidence creatures, aren’t we?
“And if we are getting defeated all the time, through no fault of anyone’s in particular, that’s a process.”
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'If I keep going the way I’m going, I’ll be burnt out in a few years'
“I FELL ASLEEP at the wheel coming home last year on a Friday night…” Ciaran Meenagh says.
He drops it in and moves on instantly. So casual is it said, that you wonder if you heard it right.
The Derry manager is outlining for the media how obsessed he is about Gaelic football and how deep that goes.
So here’s the context;
“It’s wile hard. It’s hard to rear a family and all the rest. You wouldn’t be doing it forever, put it that way. I’m 46 years of age and if I keep going the way I’m going, I’ll be burnt out in a few years. It is all-consuming. But what do you do?
“I’m addicted to football. I’ve served an apprenticeship for quite a bit of time now. If I wasn’t with Derry, I’d be back with Down.
The price involves falling asleep at the wheel.
It happened on a stretch of road in Killeeshil, Tyrone. He went into the ditch and came back out. The airbag was not activated. He came to in complete panic.
“When something like that happens, I’m really good at dusting myself down, shrugging my shoulders and getting on with it,” he continues.
“I drove another five minutes, pulled in, slept for 20 minutes and then drove home. I usually don’t tell the wife any of these sorts of things but I had to tell her that one because the side was pulled out of the car. That’s what goes with the territory of the job.”
Deals
He’s made deals with himself since. One night he got as far as his driveway and hadn’t the energy to get into his home, falling asleep parked on the driveway. These nights, he knows a spot in Dungannon and pulls in to sleep for 20 minutes.
The last car he had, his father is now driving, and he estimates there might be 250,000 miles on the clock.
Managing Derry is closer for him than coaching with Down. That mean fewer miles on the road.
But there’s still a payoff.
“What you get from not having that travel, you multiply that many times over for the pressure of the role I’m in now. It’s a privilege to be in that position, but I see it very much as a position of serving players I’m very close to, to give them the best opportunity to regain some successful bygone times they’ve had.
“If I can do that, I’ll happily retreat into the sunset after a number of years and enjoy a bit of downtime.”
Loughmacrory
We doubt it. Simply because he would find something else to do, even if it’s with his club Loughmacrory.
Last winter, they won their first ever Tyrone county title, beating Trillick in the final.
Meenagh was coach to the team. Marty Boyle – known as ‘The Brain’ to the Loughmacrory players – was manager and Luke Barrett was another coach. Both are in the Derry backroom now.
Back in 2019, he accepted an invitation to join Damian McErlain’s backroom as a coach and he has been involved in county football since.
He’s not a take it or leave it type. He admits to being on social media and while he keeps a very low profile, he spends a lot of time listening to the various GAA podcasts and reading articles.
The dizzying rate of tactical development under the new rules has spiked his interest. But he admits that he’s had to stop consuming so much.
“The more data and more information there is, probably the more confusing it becomes,” he says.
“It’s overwhelming. It’s a quagmire. At times you have to detach yourself. Otherwise, you don’t have your own vision.
“I see last week someone talking about switching defence and the data around kickouts and you can bogged down in that, and down a rabbit hole and lose perspective. You could have twenty things in your head.”
What he does is trust himself, and what he terms as his grá for the game.
Teacher
“For me, the greatest teacher is the game itself, figuring out how they attack and how they defend. What are they trying to do on kickouts, where do their strengths lie? What are their key match ups?
“Trying to get the cornerstones right, how we go about it, what we do for our kickouts and then if they do that, how do we adapt?
“But the players have only so much capacity as well. Another thing, with all the theories and so on, you have a limited time with the players. So you have to prioritise the key fundamental things you want to work on.”
That can be tricky. He has surrounded himself with strong characters. As well as Boyle and Barrett, there is also Darren McShane, Benny Heron and Chrissy McKaigue, as well as his former handball rival, Paul Brady as a performance coach.
“The amount of time and communication that goes on among the backroom team, it’s phenomenal. We train like every other team, three times a week, sometimes four,” says Meenagh.
“But management, we would have virtual calls another night or two on top of that and I would talk to individuals outside of that. I don’t know how many hours you spend on the phone every week.
“Picking your fifteen is a tough part of the job because everybody is so invested. It could swing either way and there will be so many opinions within your management team. Then picking the 26, for a player to be left out of the 26…and then having a conversation about ‘If X happens, what do we do Z?’
“There’s so many permutations that you have to have thought out. What will half-time look like if this is this way, so players have clarity.
“It’s all-consuming. Very, very challenging.”
They meet Antrim this Saturday. While Mark Doran’s Saffrons had a mixed league with a poor start, they won their last four games.
Meenagh has paid them the respect of getting along to some of their games when scheduling allowed. Every element of Derry’s preparations this season has the backdrop of two years of hard times. They have had to learn humility the hard way.
“I suppose when I went into the changing rooms this year I had hundreds of conversations with players. There was a lot of one to ones, a lot of small group work,” he says.
“In terms of the psychological work you would have done as a collective I wouldn’t have got bogged down with that. But as we started to play games and we started to analyse clips and look back at things that happened last year, there was a process of trying to nurture some of those answers out of that.
“But there was also a process of honesty and challenging them as well.
“It is a big body of work, let’s be honest. What those players went through for twenty months, we are all confidence creatures, aren’t we?
“And if we are getting defeated all the time, through no fault of anyone’s in particular, that’s a process.”
*****
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Ciaran Meenagh Derry GAA Gaelic Football Manager