Football addict Ciarán Meenagh can't kick the habit
Derry manager Ciarán Meenagh before the Bank of Ireland Dr McKenna Cup semi-final match between Derry and Donegal at Celtic Park in Derry. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile.
Self-confessed football addict Ciaran Meenagh has learned to dust himself down and move on, but he’s had scary incidents to deal with.
One of those stands out in the head of the current Derry manager.
It happened at Killeeshill on a Friday night night last year - invariably coming home from training,
“I fell asleep at the wheel,” says the 46 year old teacher. “I said if I could get back home, I’d close my eyes and take a sleep in the car.
“Down at the bottom of the motorway. At Finlay’s, the Terex plant there. The airbag didn’t come out, whatever I hit. It was over that rabbit burrow in towards Carrickmore. I hit the ditch and came back out again.
“When something like that happens, I’m really good at dusting myself down, shrugging my shoulders and getting on with it.
“I drove another five minutes, pulled in, slept for 20 minutes and then drove home. I usually don’t tell the wife any of these sorts of things but I had to tell her that one because the side was pulled out of the car.
“That’s what goes with the territory of the job. After that I would have pulled in at Dungannon.
“I had the exact same place where I slept for 20 minutes every night. Whatever way the rhythm of my body clock worked, that’s what worked for me.
“Like anything, you look and reflect at what works and that certainly wasn’t working.
“Them’s all challenges but that comes with the territory of the job. I’d say everyone that’s involved with a county senior team could share many stories that are similar.”
Former Tyrone minor and under-21 All-Ireland winner Meenagh - a father of four - says he can’t continue the way he is forever.
The list of teams he coaches, or has coached, is almost exhausting in itself.
“It’s wile hard,” he continues. “It’s hard to rear a family and all the rest. I’m 46 years of age and if I keep going the way I’m going, I’ll be burnt out in a few years.
“It is all-consuming. But what do you do? I’m addicted to football. I’ve served an apprenticeship over quite a bit of time now. If I wasn’t with Derry now I’d be back with Down.
“When I was with Down, I was driving 1,000 miles a week. That was on top of working full-time.
“My da’s driving the last car I had and there’s about 250,000 miles on it. That was a tight couple of years.
“I’ve been with my club seniors for six years. I took the club under-16s last year. That comes at a cost and you have to be prepared to pay that price.
“One night I was that exhausted I slept in the back seat. I couldn’t even get into the house.
“It’s (Derry) closer for training and all the rest. What you get from not having that travel, you multiply that many times over for the pressure of the role I’m in now (Down coach versus Derry manager).
“It’s a privilege to be in that position but I see it very much as a position of serving players I’m very close to.
“To give them the best opportunity to regain some successful bygone times they’ve had.
“If I can do that, I’ll happily retreat into the sunset after a number of years and enjoy a bit of downtime.”
Down manager Conor Laverty, right, and coach Ciaran Meenagh watch on during the Ulster GAA Football Senior Championship quarter-final match between Monaghan and Donegal at St Tiernach's Park in Clones, Monaghan. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile.
Derry face Antrim at Celtic Park in their Ulster Championship quarter-final opener this weekend and Meenagh can’t believe they're favourites to make the Anglo-Celt decider.
It’s largely based on Donegal, Armagh and Tyrone being in the other half of the draw, but Meenagh can’t understand it.
“I think that’s madness,” he remarked. “Based on what? Based on Derry’s last two years?
“Monaghan have operated at a higher level than Derry for a long, long time - consistently so. Cavan were more than a match for Derry in the last league game, a game that we just about won.
“Ultimately, you look at Antrim last year against Armagh and they led by a point at half-time and after 45 minutes.
“The work may be psychological, but that work will come from what’s done on the training field.
“It will be preparing to win one game and if you are lucky enough to win that game, it is about winning another game.
“What will help us is getting all our players on the pitch. We have a full hand now apart from Odhran Lynch (goalkeeper). That doesn’t mean they will all still be available for the first game.
“We will take confidence and if you look at the Derry team over the last two years, the reasons why it didn’t go well - ultimately the management didn’t have the full quota of players.
“If I was to pick one thing now, it’s to get all the players available and as fit as possible. I think we will take confidence from that.”
Meenagh is drawing on Derry’s 2022 experience when they ambushed Sam Maguire holders Tyrone in the Championship and went on to land a first Ulster title in 24 years.
He gave the players the guts of a week off at the end of their Division 2 campaign, before going at it again.
“I kept the players a fair length in the changing room after the Cavan game and I spoke about 2022,” he said.
“Derry were beat on March 20, 2022 by Galway in Owenbeg. Galway played Roscommon in the last game and that meant Derry couldn’t get promoted, and they just about scraped over Meath in an horrific performance on the last day.
“We had five weeks until the Tyrone game on the last day of May and they were All-Ireland champions. That was a watershed moment.
“We looked at that as an opportunity to train really hard.
“It has been a tough spell from autumn and the players are jaded. I feel a bit jaded myself. When you’re preparing week-on-week for must-win games, it is claustrophobic and really challenging.”
