AFTER nine years on the go with Sleacht Neill, three of those doubling up as manager of Tyrone upon the introduction of the split season, Michael McShane was ready for a break – but that doesn’t mean walking away was easy.
The Ballycastle man admits his heart broke for the Emmett’s players as they slipped to All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Sarsfield’s on Sunday.
After the journey that group of players and management had gone on, winning nine county titles and four Ulster championships during a period of unprecedented success for the Derry club, connections are formed that could never be broken.
That’s why, when the decision was made to call time, it was as much for them as it was for him.
“It was only when I stepped back I went ‘how did I even do that?’
“Because you were coming out of Ulster campaigns, All-Ireland campaigns with Sleacht Neill and straight into National League with Tyrone - it’s full on, nearly week on week - then into the Nicky Rackard. When that finished, it was time for the club championship again.
“When you’re living it you don’t think about it that way, you keep driving on, but it isn’t sustainable – you need to take a break at some stage, and I just knew after the Ulster final [when Sleacht Neill lost to Cushendall].
“I took three weeks to really think about it… it was the hardest decision of my sporting life to step away from that group of lads because when you work with boys for nine years, they become part of your life and you become part of their life.
“The easy thing would’ve been to stay on, but it wasn’t the right thing for them and it wasn’t the right thing for me. I felt the team needed something fresh to try and reinvigorate them, and thankfully that worked with Paul [McCormack] coming in.”
And so McShane went back to normal life. Opportunities to take on other teams, and embrace new challenges, were given a pass for the time being. He got to help out with his sons’ teams in Ballycastle, got over to see his beloved Celtic more than the previous years had permitted.
“I just felt I needed to recharge the batteries,” he says, “take time away from it, enjoy a bit of family time, watch a few games of hurling without being invested in it… just enjoy the summer. I did that, and it was great.”
Yet once the evenings started to darken, that competitive edge started to niggle once more. When the Antrim U20s post was offered – the opportunity to work with the top emerging talent in the county, crank up a conveyor belt towards Davy Fitzgerald’s senior team – he wasn’t going to say no.
Still, McShane is under no illusions about the size of the job at hand, as Antrim bid to put in place the structures right the way down the age grades that can allow them to continue mixing it with the big boys at senior level.
“It’s a very important part of the building process for Antrim because you’re taking players who are effectively adults, then preparing them and building them for senior inter-county hurling.
“Which, when you’re talking about Antrim, you’re talking about Division One of the National Hurling League and Leinster Championship – it’s the highest level.
“I have players from 18 to 20, and my job is to bring them in and make them better in every facet of the game so I can hand them over to the senior inter-county management, so they’re more ready to go to that next level.
“But there’s lots of work that needs to be done below U20 level, preparing lads to come in, so we’re not starting from the beginning with them. They have to be at a certain level of maturity in terms of physicality, mentality and technical skills, so we can take them on.
“My young lad’s involved with the Antrim U14 squad and I’ve seen the work that’s going on there – the trials, the number of players who were brought in, the number of coaches involved and it’s all very impressive.
“I do think Antrim are now going in the right direction, but it’s not a one-year fix - it’s not even a five-year fix. This is a process that needs to be ongoing, we might not see the benefits for five or 10 years, but if it’s done right from the bottom up, Antrim can not only sustain the level they’re at but maybe kick on to the next stage we want to be at.
“The amount of talent we have in our county is really positive, but we’ve got to get the players to buy in to what we’re looking to do - and I think we will.”
