THE LIST of high-profile Irish football figures from the men’s game who have tried their hand at coaching in women’s football is not long.
Former League of Ireland stars like Noel King, Mick Cooke and Terry Eviston have managed internationally or in the women’s top flight. Moreover, ex-Ireland international Colin Healy was recently announced as part of Eileen Gleeson’s WNT staff.
However, they are the exceptions rather than the rule, though the increased investment and attention on women’s soccer could see that change in years to come.
Dominic Foley, who won six caps for Ireland, is the latest anomaly, as he was appointed manager of Treaty United last November.
As a player too, the Charleville native was not afraid to try something different — his career encompassed not just stints in England with Wolves and Watford, but also for Braga in Portugal and Gent as well as Cercle Brugge in Belgium amid an era when Irish players venturing any further than Britain was even rarer than it is today.
It is over a decade since the 47-year-old hung up his boots, finishing his career with Limerick in 2012.
Foley then picked up a Uefa A coaching licence in 2016 but resisted approaches from (the old) Limerick FC and a few others, preferring to coach locally, including a stint at the Limerick Institute of Technology.
The ex-Bohemians player was also initially reluctant when approached by Treaty United ahead of the 2024 campaign.
Their men’s manager Tommy Barrett recommended Foley to new CEO and COO, Ciara McCormack and Marie Curtin, who are similarly both ex-Ireland internationals.
“When I got the phone call, it was a case of: ‘No, not a hope. I haven’t time to do it and I have no interest in doing it,’” Foley tells The 42.
From the outside, it is easy to see reasons for such scepticism.
Last season, the club finished second from bottom in the Women’s Premier Division, picking up just eight points from 20 matches.
The team, of course, were consistently hindered by a lack of resources. In addition, between Treaty and Limerick FC, their predecessors in the Irish top flight, there had been a series of ownership changes and a recurring lack of stability in recent years.
However, McCormack and Curtin assured Foley it would be different this time. The club were moving towards a professional setup and had big plans, including substantial investment in players, staff and facilities, making it a “more attractive environment” than before.
“The more I spoke to them, the more interested I became,” Foley recalls, and he agreed to take over after a couple of meetings.
The timing felt right — his kids have grown up and can “fend for themselves, more or less”.
In addition, part of the arrangement means that while usually meeting up with the players four or five times a week like all professional sides, Foley will still hold onto his day job.
He works locally for the Ford Dealership company Cavanaghs, managing their Mallow branch.
Foley’s brother owns the company and they have granted him leeway to leave work a little early or take the occasional half-day if necessary.
Most evenings, he undertakes the half-hour journey home to briefly catch up with his wife and kids before another 45-minute drive to training and then arriving at his house most nights at about 10.15pm.
It is a big commitment but one he is at least willing to try.
“Maybe I’ll stay with them for two or three years,” he says of Treaty. “Or whether after a year I’ll decide: ‘This is why I did stop [being involved in soccer].’ So it’s a bit of an experiment. But I’m enjoying it so far.”
Foley also downplays any suggestions that Treaty United could be used as a stepping stone in his burgeoning managerial career.
“People have been saying: ‘Now, that you’re back in it, have you ambition to do this, have you ambition to do that?’
“I have no ambition to do anything, only a good job at Treaty this year. If somebody offered me a job in Dublin for 20 times the remuneration I’m getting from expenses in Limerick, I wouldn’t do it.
“Unfortunately, the League of Ireland is not an appealing place for [many] managers. It’s a tough industry. You have very little security. It can be here today, gone tomorrow, unless you’re at the elite clubs like some of the guys in Dublin now at Shamrock Rovers, what they’ve built up there is kind of a beacon and probably something to aim for, for the rest of us. But it’s taken a lot of time and help from councils et cetera to get the facilities they have.
“So it’s not for me at the moment. I’m happy being local and being around my family — this is what I want to concentrate on, for now.”
For the players, it is also a considerable sacrifice and one where there is no long-term guarantee of success.
After the disappointment of last year, Foley has overhauled the squad to the point that it is virtually a new team.
The manager reckons there are “probably about six or seven” remaining from last year’s squad of 22.
Like most teams in the division, it is a very young group, with the lack of older players reflecting the instability that continues to characterise women’s football in Ireland for all the progress made.
“The majority of our girls would be all under 22,” he says. “I think there’s a fine line with these girls. Some in the League of Ireland are on contracts for a certain amount and some girls might be on expenses depending on how far they’re travelling, some are on nothing at all. So to ask these girls to commit to four to five times a week is a lot.
“[The owners’] message was: ‘Well, if they want it bad enough, then they’ll do it.’ And the girls that are out there want to do it. So it was my first venture into the Ladies League of Ireland — I was just wondering how it would go. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the commitment.”
The newly built squad includes seven Canadians (Talia White, Kayla Kyle, Caleigh Boeckx, Delana Friesen, Anne-Marie Ulliac, Erin Van Dolder and Stefanie Young), one American (Jillian O’Toole), one Japanese (Ayaka Ikeza) and one Australian (Eliza Campbell) with North Vancouver-born McCormack’s connections key to those deals.
“I did a wish list with [Ciara] of what positions I would like players in to strengthen us and she’s gone away and done the job, so she’s been brilliant for us.
“[Some of the new players have] come through the college football scheme in America and Canada, where they would have been used to training three or four times a week and playing at quite a high level. So they have come in already with a more professional attitude and maybe what our girls weren’t used to. They’re all super fit and good footballers, which is very important.
“The standard of training has increased, obviously you have better players involved. And the girls in or around our squad know they must step up a level to compete for places.”
Attracting players from elsewhere in Ireland and even individuals originally from Limerick playing at other clubs has sometimes been a challenge.
“I think that’s going to be a two or three-year project,” Foley adds. “Girls will see that the club is being run properly now, and the club has ambition and will start moving up the league, hopefully.”
Treaty are the only Women’s Premier Division side whose campaign does not kick off this weekend. They are the odd ones out in an 11-team league and will instead get underway at home to DLR Waves on 16 March.
The early signs from pre-season matches have been promising and the manager is hopeful the women’s team can help reinvigorate Limerick sports fans’ love for the domestic game.
“Limerick has always been a big soccer city. I grew up playing in the Limerick leagues. Even though I’m from Charleville, we used to play in Limerick because it was closer to us instead of driving two and a half hours every morning to play in the Cork league.
“So I’ve known Limerick soccer since I was U10s. There’s a lot of love for it there. Unfortunately, over the last 10 years, there’s been [instability].
“It would be great to get some stability and to set a base that we can build on persistently, instead of moving forward two and three steps and then coming back to move forward.”
