THE past few weeks will have been just about as uncomfortable as it gets for Malachy O’Rourke.
Pitch him against the sharpest managerial minds in the country, on Gaelic football’s biggest stages, and he is at ease. Bringing harmony to changing rooms packed full with huge personalities? No problem.
But being at the centre of the story has never been O’Rourke’s thing.
When inevitably asked about the decision to re-enter the inter-county arena after next Tuesday’s expected unveiling as Tyrone manager, the Derrylin man will likely let out a nervous chuckle and shrug his shoulders, the response as short and sweet as possible.
Please, his eyes will beg, ask me no more about that side of things.
Because where some thrive on the limelight, and setting the agenda in pre or post-match word play, he has always been happiest to do his talking away from the media huddle.
Glen’s next championship game is the following Sunday – September 15 – against Dungiven at Watty Graham Park. If, as is understood, O’Rourke sees out the remainder of the club campaign with the Derry champions - which could roll into January should their All-Ireland defence go all the way - he will want to keep any sideshows to an absolute minimum.
In Swatragh on Sunday past, he wasn’t about to add any fuel to the fire. Days earlier my colleague, Cahair O’Kane, revealed that O’Rourke had allowed adopted club Errigal Ciaran to put his name forward for the post vacated by Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan.
Either in victory or defeat, and there have been a few gut-wrenching ones, I have never known Malachy O’Rourke not to talk after a game. This time, though, Johnny Bradley was spokesperson designate.
Sometimes saying nothing says it all, and it no surprise when it later emerged that his was the only name going forward to Tuesday’s county committee meeting.
So what are Tyrone getting? Why is Malachy O’Rourke so highly regarded? What is it that had Niall Morgan grinning like a cheshire cat on Newstalk a few days back, the Allstar goalkeeper forgoing the traditional, softly softly ‘ach sure ye know’ approach adopted before any deal has been officially sealed.
No way, not this time Mean Gene, as Morgan instead opted for a full-on WWE call-out.
“The name on everybody’s lips is Malachy O’Rourke, there’s no point in veering away from that.
“I’m absolutely keen on Malachy O’Rourke managing us. I’ve been a strong admirer of him for a long time.”
Those words were actually shocking in their explicitness.
But the anecdote used to back them up provided a timely snapshot, at least in part, of O’Rourke’s allure, as Morgan referred to a 2019 charity game in memory of late Donegal coach Pat Shovelin.
“I nudged Petey [Harte] in the dressing room at that stage and I was like ‘we need this man’… he had me on the edge of my seat.”
This is a recurring theme when talking to those who have worked with O’Rourke, a reputation wrapped up in three little words – attention to detail.
Monaghan players were left gobsmacked after their first meeting with their new manager at the Hillgrove Hotel in 2012. Not just by what he knew about them, but what he knew about the entire county, at all levels, and what it was going to take for the Farney to make a breakthrough.
Bear in mind this was a time when Gaelic football was undergoing one of its major generational shifts. Jim McGuinness had just led Donegal to the All-Ireland title with a combination of defensive doggedness and clinical counter-attacking.
Suddenly, there were copycats everywhere. Yet the following summer the Tir Chonaill were toppled by O’Rourke’s Farneymen as Monaghan ended a 25-year wait for the Anglo-Celt.
A calm, considerate presence, O’Rourke seldom gets too up or too down. Across seven years in Monaghan, the riot act was read only a handful of times.
On other occasions, the 2016 qualifier exit to Longford and 2018 Ulster semi-final defeat to Fermanagh in particular, he would not be able to speak at all, such was the level of devastation.
The players’ changing room in Cloghan was just that; their domain. O’Rourke would not infringe because, despite his genial personality, distance is important. Not in a cold way, because empathy is key, but in a way that allowed clear-minded decisions to be made.
Never too close, never too far away.
If there were any areas in which O’Rourke may have lacked, right hand men Ryan Porter and Leo McBride had all other bases covered. Humility is at the heart of it all.
That’s why, for all the tactical nous O’Rourke and the men he surrounds himself with possess, it is the finer details that continually crop up.
Such as the ability to say the right thing to say at the right time. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Those words could come in the form of a joke, a story or even the odd obscure reference point derived from his love of history.
“More often than not,” said one former player, “it hit the nail bang on the head.
“He had things in his locker that would just really hit to the core of people.”
Indeed, long before that meeting in the Hillgrove Hotel, O’Rourke already had a bit of work done on the Monaghan players.
Then in charge of his native Fermanagh, they faced Seamus McEnaney’s men in the 2008 Ulster quarter-final. The Farney had been to the previous year’s provincial decider, and should have beaten Kerry in the 2007 All-Ireland quarter-final.
Fermanagh, meanwhile, were in Division Three.. But, before they ran out at Brewster Park, O’Rourke told them the story of the Zulu warriors, and the chant the South African nation adopted in the lead up to the 1995 rugby World Cup final.
In the story, one warrior asks: “Niya besaba na?”, meaning ‘are you afraid of them?’
“Hayi!” they roar, “asiba sabi!”
No! We are not afraid!
“Siya bafuna!”
We want them!
Issuing his final words, O’Rourke looked around the changing room.
“Lads,” he said, “we want these boys.”
Fermanagh upset the odds, backing that up three weeks later with victory over National League champions Derry – the latest step on an impressive managerial trajectory that brings him to where he stands now.
There must be some, plenty, within that Glen dressing room kicking themselves that while the Oak Leaf’s search for a new manager rumbles on, O’Rourke is poised to pitch up at their neighbours.
It looks a match made in heaven too. Two out of the last three All-Ireland U20 titles, schools that have produced the last two Hogan Cup winners, and a host of seasoned stars still with plenty to offer, Tyrone have everything in place.
All they need now is the final piece.
