WEXFORD BOSS HAS YOUTH ON HIS SIDE
JUST like the rest of his managerial colleagues around the SSE Airtricity League, Shane Keegan is a busy man this week. The Wexford Youths boss is not just preparing his side for their first ever Premier Division game at home to Longford Town tomorrow night, though. After signing his first professional contract with the previously amateur-only outfit during the summer, Keegan must balance his role in charge of the team with that of commercial manager at the club, while the Laois native is also studying for a Master’s Degree in Coaching and Performance Science at UCD. ‘Last season reached the stage where I was almost working full-time anyway,’ Keegan, who gave up his job with the Leinster Leader, said. ‘Now I’m officially full-time I am able to give the club 100 per cent of my attention without feeling guilty that I’m neglecting other areas.’ At 34, Keegan will be the youngest manager in the division and his route to this point has been self-navigated — there was no professional playing career on his CV when Mick Wallace handed him the reins five years ago. ‘It shows what can be done with hard work and a bit of brains,’ he explained. ‘I have encountered a lot of really good coaches around the country who have had little to no playing background. I can see a few more managers like that coming through.’ Keegan got the job when he was just 29 and admits that the success of Dundalk manager Stephen Kenny, who took over at Longford Town aged 27, has always encouraged him. ‘He is the one I always looked at and thought “yeah, it can be done”.’ ‘I haven’t had the grounding in football that others have had and Stephen was more experienced than me when he took the Longford job, but of course he is someone that you should look up to and admire.’ A proud Laois man with a grá for Gaelic Games, Keegan turned to two GAA managers for guidance recently. Former Kildare and Wexford senior football manager Jason Ryan was persuaded to join his backroom team and took the majority of preseason training sessions in his role as strength and conditioning coach. ‘But he more than just that,’ Keegan added. ‘He was a great source of knowledge for me and the players really responded well to the work he was doing with them.’ Keegan also headed to his home county for a meeting with respected Laois hurling manager Séamus ‘Cheddar’ Plunkett. ‘Man-management is man-management no matter what sport you are in so to be able to sit down and discuss different situations with someone like that was definitely a benefit.’ So, too, was keeping last season’s top scorer Danny Furlong, who scored 30 times in the First Division last term. ‘We believe we can stay up but we also know that bar an absolute miracle we are probably going to lose more games than we win. That creates a different mindset and a culture to what we’ve become used to. The focus will have to change from where we are in the table at the end of every week to the final table at the end of the season.’