LAST NIGHT LIAM McHale was announced as the Cavan senior football ‘player performance coach’ – but what does that role entail?
McHale who now coaches Roscommon club side St Brigid’s, the 2013 All-Ireland champions, will vacate the role at the end of the current season to fully commit to Cavan for the 2015 season.
On the appointment Cavan GAA PRO Declan Woods told TheScore.ie that the Mayo man adds to an exciting trio of new faces in Terry Hyland’s management team.
McHale will effectively be the team’s skill coach, operating in a similar manner to Mayo’s Donie Buckley.
“Liam’s role will be that he’ll be involved in the training of the team he’ll be involved with working with management in terms of a play style development. So he’ll be working with the players in their training and from a developmental point of view.”
McHale’s new role will signal the end of his tenure as St Brigid’s coach. The Ballina native is into his third year with the South Roscommon club, having been Kevin McStay’s right hand man during the 2013 All-Ireland success.
“He’ll most definitely be expected to be there at all the trainings, he will be a fundamental part of the management team and like all of management team he will be on site at all times,” explained the Cavan PRO.
“My understanding is that when Liam’s current responsibilities and commitments are expired, he will be 100 percent committed to Cavan.
“We had two vacancies and we were getting pushed for answers. Now we’ve filled these roles and and I suppose the management felt they needed to bring in these guys to add to the skillset of the group – and that’s done now and we’re looking forward to division 2 of the league.”
McHale is joint by fellow new appointees Kevin Downes and Eoin Maguire, together filling the vacant roles of selector and strength and conditioning coach after the departure of local man Joe McCarthy and the reputable Peter Donnelly.
While McCarthy has decided to focus on the U21 this year, Donnelly has returned to the Tyrone fold.
Woods added that “effectively we’d like to stress the fact that there are three additions, obviously the name to have popped up is Liam and rightly so – he’s a popular guy and a well know figure throughout the GAA world.
“But we’ve brought in Kevin who is very well know in Cavan, and was hugely involved in London GAA when they had their amazing run in 2013. While Eoin is in from Dublin and we’re looking forward to him coming in as a strength and conditioning coach as well.”
