MICHAEL McShane insists he won’t rush into any decision about his future following Slaughtneil’s Ulster final defeat to Cushendall on Sunday.
It was the second year in-a-row the Emmett’s have come out the wrong side on provincial decider day, having fallen to Dunloy 12 months previous.
However, Slaughtneil have amassed nine Derry titles – taking them to 11 in-a-row – and four Ulster crowns since McShane took over in 2015, an unprecedented period of success for the club.
And, despite the hurt of Sunday’s four point defeat in Newry, no snap decisions will be taken.
“I give thought to that every year, whether we win or we lose,” he said.
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“I never make knee-jerk decisions, and I won’t do this time either. I’ll have a long, hard think about things obviously, but that’s no different to any other year.
“In the moment here now, I just want to go away and never see a hurling pitch again – that’s the way you feel when you lose a championship final.
“Over the next couple or three weeks I’ll have a real good think about things and we’ll see where we’re at.”
As ever, though, a sense of perspective never strays too far from McShane, even in the darkest moments on the field.
And the Ballycastle man was quick to point to the tragic loss of Matty McGuigan, a young footballer from Tyrone who passed away after falling ill days after arriving in Australia.
From Cookstown, he was a former captain of Kildress Wolfe Tone’s, with the 24-year-old later managing the club minors.
McShane, who was manager of Tyrone when the talismanic Damian Casey died just weeks after leading his county to Nicky Rackard Cup success, is well aware of where sport sits in the grand scheme of things.
“The reality is the world hasn’t ended for us today,” he added.
“We’ve lost a hurling game, there’s things going on in this world that are a whole lot worse - you only have to look at county Tyrone and the news that came out last night to realise what’s important in life.
“We’ve lost a game here, and we’ll come back next year. That’s the way it is.”
