By John Harrington

Wicklow football might have technically been at rock bottom after a Allianz Football League campaign that saw them finish bottom of Division Four, but manager John Evans isn’t afraid to aim for the stars.

Beating Offaly on Sunday in the first round of the Leinster Senior Football Championship is the limit of his ambitions right now, but he believes that within a three-year time frame Wicklow should be genuine challengers for a senior provincial title.

“It's not a sprint,” Evans told GAA.ie. “People need to realise that it's not a sprint, it's going to take two or three years to build up a squad that's good enough to challenge for a Leinster Championship.

“To get into a Leinster Final, and not alone that, but to win it.

“You might say these are pipe dreams. Dreams start, but you have to do the foundation.

“With Kevin O'Brien coming in to deal with the U-16s and U-17s and I'm dealing with the seniors and U-20s, we're trying to build a platform number one, and a conveyor belt, number two, that next year and the year after, over a three year period we'll have guys who are high in skill, high in fitness, high in attitude and high in belief.”

Evans has never lacked for confidence, and he has generally backed up ambition with achievement wherever he has gone, most notably when he managed the Tipperary and Roscommon footballers and led both to back to back promotions in the League.

Wicklow present him with his toughest challenge yet, but it’s one he finds energising rather  than daunting.

“I could have gone to a couple of different counties but I took on this one because Wicklow were the weakest, the furthest down you could possibly go, they were exactly the same as where Tipperary were and I hope to try to change that,” said Evans.

“I find it hugely rewarding to see the team improving. At the end of the day, that's what gives me the buzz.

“People get their kicks from different things, I get mine from football. I come away from a training session and if it has been a good one, I'm absolutely uplifted. It spikes my whole thought process and then I'm thinking and planning for the next training session.”

If every Wicklow footballer had the same sort of belief that Evans himself does, then they would surely better themselves in the coming years.

But the sort of self-assurance that is synonymous with footballers in Evans’ native Kerry isn’t part of Wicklow’s footballing DNA in the same way.

“That's the tricky thing in Wicklow alright, getting the self-belief,” admitted Evans. “Now, Rathnew as a club have it. A couple of other clubs have it too, they have that belief. They won't back away from anybody.

“And there are certainly a number of our players who have that belief as well. So it's not that it's not there. But it has to be there from everbody, I'll put it like that. 

“Identity is crucial, and where you're from is your identity. Half the world are looking for identity, we have it here in Ireland in spades.

“Being from Wicklow has its own identity. Often Wicklow are subjected to ridicule in comparison to Dublin, 99 times out of 100, but that's totally unfair.

“We would hope to change that and in the process create our own identity so we can progress.

“Before you do anything you have to have a vision. My vision is to leave Wicklow football in a really healthy, strong, and ambitious place.”