Fortune would be tempted by Wexford gig
Wexford offer would be tempting for Enniscorthy man
THERE WILL come a time, and it might not be too far into the future, when Davy Fitzgerald will do his usual winter dance - the will I, won’t I shuffle - and come down on the side of ‘actually, I’ve had enough now’.
In the immediate panic following that decision, a shortlist will be drawn up and there is absolutely no doubt about it, if he’s not already committed to an inter-county Senior side, Enniscorthy’s Joe Fortune has to be on that list.
The St. Aidan’s Villas native has been brewing up a storm in the capital. With Leinster Minor and Under-21 titles under his belt, the 41-year-old took Ballyboden St. Enda’s all the way to a provincial Senior decider in 2018.
It’s a growing C.V. with the exact kind of trajectory that Wexford will need post-Fitzgerald. When replacing someone of his stature, a fresh eye is imperative.
Looking for a second Davy won’t work, and history shows that so-called safe choices fail miserably, so Fortune ticks all the boxes.
‘That’s a conversation that would have to be happening at the time,’ said Joe, when being asked about potentially being Wexford manager.
‘No matter how long I’m in Malahide, jaysus it’s a lot more expensive to live in it than it is in Wexford, but nobody will ever take away where I’m from.
‘I suppose I’ve had to have teams over the last ten years against Wexford, pit them against Wexford, but there was never a word said with regard to anything that would take away the grá and the love that I have for there as well.
‘Now, obviously because where I am for the last number of years I have a strong affiliation with the Dublin lads too, which won’t go away too easily.
‘Look, if that phone call ever came, it’s a decision that would have to be made, at the right time with the right people involved excetra. That’s probably a couple of years away yet with how well Davy is doing.’
The journey started for Joe in his home town. He moved across the Slaney to play with the Shamrocks as a young teenager and still has great memories of those days.
‘I look back with massive fondness and kindness towards what I would have got from Shamrocks as a club. People like Paddy Dobbs, the O’Neill family, John Hendrick, were very, very kind to me when I moved to Shamrocks and gave me opportunities,’ he recalled.
‘I was never at the level where I’m probably at now from a coaching perspective but really enjoyed my time there and have massive affiliation to some of those guys still there.
‘They are an incredibly proud club, a small club but a club that’s massively proud, and I suppose maybe that gave me the basis to bring into my coaching what I have done in the last few years.’
The coaching side of things started to progress from a young age. Joe moved north to attend St. Pat’s in Drumcondra in ‘96 and came out ready to take on a role in primary teaching.
He started in Malahide in 1999 and was soon making waves in an area that was predominantly a football stronghold.
‘The first four years I was there, we won two Cumann na Bunscoil titles,’ Joe recalled. ‘We won a ‘B’ Division title in 2000, we won an ‘A’ Division title in 2001, [or] I think 2002. We’ve had relative success since as well, we have won four to five titles.
‘It’s a very strong footballing area, they are in football finals year on year on year and you are trying to turn footballers into hurlers. I would have had great support from a man up here - unfortunately he passed away a couple of years ago - called Hugh Curran.
‘He probably epitomises everything the G.A.A. is about, so well known up in Dublin as well. When I went to the school he was heavily involved, his son actually, maybe that’s why he was nice to me at the time, his son was involved with the hurling team!’
‘I got that little bit of relative success with a school team at primary school level and got an opportunity from Dublin County Board to come on board with a development squad, it’s just the way it happened at the time.’
That opportunity was firstly with the the Under-13 Development squad in 2004, which he took on with the help of Eimear Dignam and Dwain Moore, who would become long-time associates of Fortune during many of his managerial successes.
There was a natural progression at the time which saw Joe and Co. take charge of that side at Minor level in 2007. At just 28, Fortune had his first big role and he made it count in memorable fashion.
‘That Minor team was exceptional. I would have had the likes of Peter Kelly, Niall McMorrow, Johnny Cooper, David Treacy, Oisín Gough, Paul Schutte, they all ended up playing at a very high level... Finn McGarry...at a very high level from that Minor team.
‘The irony was that our first game was in Dr. Cullen Park. At that stage Minor was what it should be – knockout - and it was real hell for leather stuff, you prepare for the few months beforehand and we had Wexford in Dr. Cullen Park as a Leinster semi-final.
‘Looking down that line thinking at the time, you’ve lads built up [in your head], the management team that were there at the time with Wexford was...Liam (Dunne) was involved, George O’Connor, Tom Dempsey, they had a management team that I grew up loving as players.
‘Then all of a sudden you are pitted up against them in a war zone in Dr. Cullen Park. I remember walking out under the tunnel and my mam and dad are still alive, thank God, and they are great supporters of all I do, my dad was sitting up in the stand.
‘We got a goal quite early that day and we won the game by a couple of points to go on to a Leinster final, and you know yourself when you are successful all the people in the world want to tap you on the back,’ he said.
‘One of the first people I saw was a guy called Batty Brooks, who would have been an esteemed member of Shamrocks, and he was up in the stand with big thumbs up, and I got that from the time I left.
‘We beat Kilkenny in a Minor final in ‘07 and then went on to play Cork in a semi-final. That was taken out of Croke Park for the first time and only time since then because there was drawn games in Senior, and they took the Minor game down to a dirty night in Portlaoise.
‘We were beaten by Cork by three points, massive regret in that, for the type of player we had available to us at the time. We had really built a bond with those young lads and a lot of them went on to have a really successful - Liam Rushe was part of that group as well - a really successful Senior hurling career.’
What says a lot about Fortune - and is very important when looking for a manager that can bring out the best in players at Senior level - is the esteem in which he is held by those who have been under his stewardship.
Pretty much every move he has made since the 2007 season has been instigated by a connection from that era. Fortune took several years off after that as he and wife Annelise started a family.
He went back to playing for Naomh Mearnóg in Portmarnock for those seasons before a broken patella finished his time on the field. After a couple of earlier failed attempts, one of his previous charges from ‘07 got him to come on board with D.I.T. for a couple of seasons.
The Aungier Street crew, who had the likes of Liam Óg McGovern and Willie Devereux, outperformed their historical norms in the Fitzgibbon Cup and were challengers under Fortune, while they also took Liam Dunne’s Wexford side to extra-time in the Walsh Cup in 2013.
Still impressing, Fortune was back on the Dublin radar in 2014 and was appointed Under-21 manager. With the Dubs struggling to procure management for the campaign, it was his relationship with Anthony Daly that started another chapter in Joe’s coaching career.
‘They had had a couple of disappointing years with the 21s where they had been beaten the year previous by Carlow in Parnell Park in ‘13, [and] the previous year to that they hadn’t been successful,’ Joe remembered.
‘I got a call from John (Costello). John asked would myself, Eimear and Dwain be interested in taking the Under-21s on board, it was late in the year, it was February. Most teams are obviously back, whatever had happened in the managerial appointments, he asked would I be interested in taking it.
‘We got to a Leinster final in ‘14 and Wexford beat us in Parnell Park. Probably the best 21s at the time, where they were at, Jack Guiney was phenomenal, Conor Mac, Liam Ryan, they had a serious outfit.
‘Then ‘16 was the year of redemption for me in some ways because there was an opportunity to walk away from the 21s. John Costello, who has always been kind to me from a Dublin G.A.A. perspective, urged me to stay on and felt that what I had was going to bring success to that group.
‘The draw was made on a dirty wet October night and of course it was Wexford again, in Wexford Park this time. We spent five, six, seven months, or whatever, getting ready for the 1st of June, a summer night, windy as it always is in Wexford Park.
‘If you asked me, it’s probably in the top two or three proudest moments I had where I went down there against a fantastic Wexford team. Eoghan O’Donnell marshalled Conor Mac quite well that night.
‘We got the rub of the green at times, got two good goals in the second-half, which probably gave us a bit of a cushion, but jeez, what a feeling afterwards.
‘It was just, it made me think that the three years we put into it in developing a team, developing a standard of player, developing a standard of what you want in the backroom [was worth it].
‘It was like a pin sticking into a cushion, it was like a release in an awful lot of ways. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s never easy to stand on a line when you are playing against the place where you are from, and nobody will ever change that where I’m from.
‘We had a great victory that night, spoke to J.J. (Doyle) at length that night afterwards in the dressing-room, two of us on our own, everyone else gone, myself and J.J. just sat in the dressing-room down there and he was very kind in his words and said, “look, we took it in ‘14, now go win a Leinster final and and make sure you push on”.
‘We played Westmeath in a Leinster semi-final and beat them in Parnell and went on to play Offaly and beat them in a Leinster final. I think we were down four or five points at half-time, a cauldron up in Offaly, they were baying for blood at half-time.
‘[It] probably optimised where we had come with that group, there was very little said apart from one harsh word or two. I left the dressing-room quite early, kind of felt if this Dublin crew were going to push on and get silverware rather than being on the big days and not take anything home.
‘They did, they went out and beat Offaly, got a Leinster, then unfortunately fell after extra-time again in an All-Ireland semi-final then in ‘16 and that ended my tenure. It ended my tenure on the basis that maybe there was a possibility of staying on in some capacity going into ‘17. It’s just there was a lot of things up here that I didn’t feel were right at the time.
‘I got great support from John Costello, great support from the Dublin County Board, but just felt with the way things were at the time it was just the right time for me to step away from it and allow somebody else in.’
While Dublin Under-21s struggled without Fortune, he would go on to prosper again. After taking 2017 out, Joe was approached by several of the Ballyboden lads he had previously developed and asked to take on the position of club manager.
Having not won anything since 2013, ‘Boden went on a blitz, winning eleven of twelve league games and every single match in the Dublin championship to wrap up a 2018 double in the capital.
From there they marched all the way into the Leinster final but found Ballyhale a bridge too far. ‘That was probably the hardest one for me in an awful lot of ways, a lot of things just didn’t go right,’ Joe explained.
‘There was only two points in it at half-time under that stand, where it all started for me with Dublin in Dr. Cullen, and [when we came out] there was an almighty gale blowing and everything we hit seemed to travel backwards rather than forwards. Ballyhale were outstanding obviously, went on to win an All-Ireland, but yeah, very disappointing end to what it was.’
Joe said hunger didn’t seem to be quite the same in 2019 and they came up short, but he’s back for another crack this season. What exactly he will do after that, he’s not sure himself, but he is open to taking the next step on his managerial journey.
‘If you want to get to the top of the mountain you’ve got to take the steps and I realise that. I’ve had great teams with Dublin on a Minor level, an Under-21 level, I’ve had success in some capacity with ‘Boden in the last couple of years, but is it something I’d like to do in the long term, it is yeah, one hundred per cent.
‘I would only do it if it was right. It has come calling, a couple of times in the last few years, the opportunity that was there wasn’t the right one for me, I wouldn’t take something just to get my name on a programme, to maybe go another step.
‘Is it something I’d do next year or the year after when I’m finished with Ballyboden? Yeah, look, the phone has to ring as well, people have to ask you that question, you have to have a decision to make. I suppose aspiring to it, yeah one hundred per cent.
‘I love what I do, I love where I am at the moment but every time the car crosses, you leave that Wicklow border and you enter Wexford it has to hinge on the fact that you love where you are from originally.’