Wicklow manager John Evans pictured at the launch of the Leinster Senior Football Championship.
By Cian O'Connell
John Evans' passion for football and trying to improve teams endures.
Now in his second year in charge of Wicklow, Evans continues to focus on the positives, on possibilities, thinking about what can be achieved.
The commute from Kerry is difficult so a heavy driving schedule is taxing, but nuggets of encouragement are being taken from Wicklow's displays.
"It's getting a lot tougher, actually, but I've found that I do a lot of exercise, bike work and walking to try and counteract it," Evans says about the long journeys from down south.
"I'm finding it's getting tougher. In any case where I find it rewarding is that there's an improvement in the team, from last year to this year, in more than one area, just not necessarily skill and team work and stuff like that.
"The County Board are more professional about it. The county itself, the way it's structured, having Kevin O'Brien firstly looking after the Garden County academy, is doing brilliant work.
"This is where I'm saying that not all your funds should be pumped into the senior team. And we're going to make huge progress.
"The Garden County academy is doing great work, Kevin O'Brien is taking the under-17s, last year and again this year, and they were beaten the last time out there by Kildare."
That a Wicklow Colleges outfit also contested a Post Primary Leinster decider merely adds to the sense of optimism.
John Evans believes significant potential exists in Wicklow.
"I combined them with the under-20s in training and they went to a replay with Naas," Evans states.
"There's a whole lot of stuff going on aside from that and then I'm involved with the under-20s, I train and coach them, so there's a big, sweeping change in Wicklow and everything's being looked after because from my experience of dealing with Tipperary, if you've got one minor team and you think you're going to improve with that, you're wasting your time.
"Kevin O'Brien is gone back in there this year and if we've got two teams coming up, with one team from the under-20s, you'll start the conveyor belt of guys who know how it's done professionally, know the dietary and physical requirements, the lifestyle that's required and they can see that they're being well looked after."
The future glimmers with promise, but the present is about Saturday's Leinster Championship encounter against Kildare at Netwatch Cullen Park.
"Sure look they are in Division 2, they should be in Division 1," is Evans' assessment of the Lilywhites.
“Last year they were a complete, you wouldn’t know what to make of them. They had a terrible league and yet they came along and got into the Super 8s.
“So, what do you make out of Kildare? Sometimes I’d say the Kildare people don’t know, but they have the huge potential, they are two levels above us in the gulag.
“We'll be going to give it a game. They are our neighbours. We’ll be hoping to account for ourselves pretty well, as best we can.
“At the end of the day, if things go really, really well then I think it could be close, but Kildare are certainly a fine team and I think Cian O’Neill will take a lot from last year in that he now knows that the League doesn’t dictate anything. It’s how you handle yourself in the Championship."
