CONOR LAVERTY WAS 16 when he dipped his toes into management for the first time.
Laverty’s first foray on the sideline was a major success. Along with his minor team-mate Gary McEvoy, Laverty led his Kilcoo U12s all the way to the county title.
On Sunday, a Kilcoo side featuring Laverty and a number of players from that victorious U12 side meet Derry giants Slaughtneil in the Ulster club final.
It might seem a strange decision for a club to trust a 16-year-old to manage a group of kids just four years his junior, but that’s the point. Kilcoo do things differently. They’ve won five Down SFC titles in-a-row, so something must be working.
“It was just we were trying to get young coaches in place,” says Laverty. “Trying to get the right people in charge of the teams with the right attitude and the desire and vision of where we wanted our club to go to and thankfully it’s paid off.
“A number of years ago there was coaching structure put in place in the club. A lot of hard work, an emphasis put at underage, we won three Down minor championships in a row and a lot of boys are coming to the fore for the senior teams.
“We hadn’t won a senior in 72 years and in ’03 we made a breakthrough and won a senior league, first time in numerous years we’d won anything at senior level. In ’09 we won our first (senior) championship.”
For all their recent successes in Down, Kilcoo haven’t yet managed to crack the Ulster code. The closest they’ve come was losing the final to Crossmaglen Rangers by 3-9 to 1-9 in 2012.
“We are looking back on it now as a learning experience and trying to bring that experience from the past campaigns to use this year. Hopefully we can use it in the final as well.
“We know that we’re very lucky to be so successful, we also know that we’ve worked very hard to get where we are. As a group we have an ambition and a vision of where we want to go and we’re very driven towards that.
“I would go as far as saying that this current Kilcoo panel is equal to if not above what a lot of county teams are. It come down to the players, the management, and the mindset and commitment of the group as a whole. They are a very driven bunch of players.”
Captain of Down in 2015, Laverty opted out of Eamon Burns’ squad last year. At the moment the talented forward has no plans of returning.
“With a young family I just wanted to really concentrate on the club for the next few years. You only have a short spell of playing days and I really wanted to give it my full effort to the club.
“This is probably the first year in five or six years I haven’t been playing with the county. It was great. I have a young family and I could spent a bit more time (with them). I also took the U8s and U16s. I had been taking them (before) but it just made it very difficult to do both when I was playing with Dowm.
“When your club is at the top level you have to be training equally as much and preparing equally as well. The only difference I found was travel, you still have to go yo your gym three times weekly and do your recovery and pre-hab. The only difference was down the road and you are there.
“The main thing is everybody plays Gaelic Games to enjoy it but also that everybody wants to win, there is pressure there to win of course, and when you are training and pushing to hard you want to see success at the end of it.”
From those early days coaching the club’s U12s, Laverty moved on to summer camps, before he eventually landed the Down GAA coaching officer role. After 10 years coaching in primary schools, he found a new post in the GAA development office of Trinity College.
“For me the most important thing in a club is for current players and past players to put back in. The way I look at it, is that someone done it for me and gave me the opportunity to be part of this team and this club. So it’s only about right that we give back our time.
“And you do enjoy it, it’s something you love doing. We’re only a small village so everyone needs to pull together and that’s what’s working so well for us.”
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