By John Harrington

Carlow’s star forward, Paul Broderick, says it’s vital that team coach Steven Poacher stays on next year if the team is to continue making progress.

Carlow were on of the revelations of this year’s championship, playing five matches and reaching round 3B of the Qualifiers where they gave Monaghan a serious run for their money.

Broderick believes the system of play that Down native Poacher implemented this year was a big part of their improvement as a team and is hopeful he’ll still be part of the management team in 2018.

“Yes, the players would obviously be hoping that he would stay on,” Broderick told GAA.ie

“His coaching is one thing, his people skills is another. He's a fella who seems to have it all wrapped up in one. I'd speak very highly of him.

“I'm not saying he's the only reason why we got to where we did but he was a big part of it.

“We met Steven in November and from then the system and game-plan was everything.

“So everything in training was tailored to meet the system and game-plan, and I suppose things were never that finely tuned before.

“It was perhaps given to you and spoken about but not every single session. Everything you did in training with Steven, you could say afterwards this relates well to the system.

“Another thing he brought in was that every player had to know every position on the pitch because it's relevant if you're going to be moved around.”

Broderick believes team manager Turlough O’Brien deserves a lot of credit for bringing someone like Poacher into his management team and giving him the responsibility he did.

“I would really admire the humility that Turlough showed to stand back and say, 'I've brought this so far, it's time to bring in another coach’”, says Broderick.

“How the two lads (O’Brien and Poacher) and the selectors have all worked together has been brilliant.

“There doesn't seem to be any egos between any of them. They all have the same goal and it's really worked out.”

The challenge for Carlow football now is to build on the good work done this year and improve further in 2018.

Top of their to-do list is winning promotion from Division Four of the Allianz Football League.

Broderick knows that will be a tough task, but says the Carlow players are already looking forward to 2018.

“Yeah, there's an added pressure to get out of Division Four now,” he says.

“It's what we want to do, but the trouble with Division Four is that it's vital to get a good start.

“If you get a good start then you're fighting with the top teams to get out of it. But the trouble at the start is that everyone wants to get out of it and has that as their goal which makes it a real dog-fight. The first three or four rounds are vital so the draw is crucial, who you're home and away against.

“But we're really looking forward to next year. There's a kind of a buzz around the town that's been brought by the fact we had five championship games when normally we would have only had two.

“I think there's an anticipation now for next year which is no harm, even if it adds a little bit of pressure. I think lads are looking forward to getting back in.

“Whereas in previous years when we've taken some big hammerings then lads would be delighted with the break after going out of the Championship.

“But now the feeling after losing to Monaghan is that lads want to get back in there and are not happy it's over, which is a very good.”

Getting players to commit to the cause has always been one of Carlow’s biggest issues.

Even Broderick himself opted out of the panel for three years while he was a student at NUIG in Galway.

But for the first time since he’s been involved with the team he’s confident that everyone who was a member of the panel this year will commit again for 2018.

The other issue that Carlow have had in recent years is their status as a dual county, and the fact that many of their best footballers chose to commit to play for the county hurling team.

Sean Murphy made a massive impact with the footballers this year when he switched across from playing inter-county hurling, and Broderick believes there are other players who could do the same if they could be persuaded.

“For a county of our population to be competitive in both codes as we are takes from our ability to be successful in or one or the other,” he says.

“There's no point saying otherwise, there's a certain amount of lads on the hurling team that we'd love to have.

“They have a few brilliant footballers on their team, lads who've played in Leinster minor football finals in Croke Park, but who are brilliant hurlers too and are fully committed to the hurling team.

“We'd love to have them, but I'm sure the situation is vice versa. There are a couple of lads playing football that the hurlers would love to have. But it is hard to keep both going at a high level and try to progress in both codes.

“Sean (Murphy) would be the perfect example, he's been a revelation for us. To look at Sean in the O'Byrne Cup and look at him with the game he had against Dublin, every single game he's improved and improved.

“I don't know what the limit is for him, because he made serious progress after just one year of football. He'd only played a limited amount of football before this year.

“So, to get Man of the Match in a game of that stature against Dublin, it just shows the impact bringing in lads like him can have.

“He's just one example, there's many more like him out there.”

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