Casey joins Dublin ladies’ bid to retain Championship
FORMER Dublin star Paul Casey has been drafted into Mick Bohan’s backroom team for the ladies footballers as a defence coach, the AllIreland winning manager revealed yesterday. Bohan believes that the 2011 All-Ireland winner will be a great addition to the defending champions and that it is another shot in the arm for the female game that someone of Casey’s stature and coaching credentials (he works with Dublin development squads alongside Jason Sherlock) wants to get involved. ‘We are delighted we have brought Paul Casey into our management team,’ Bohan said yesterday at a launch of Gourmet Food Parlour as sponsors for the thirdlevel competition in Ladies Football. ‘Paul would have been one of our heroes on that quest for Sam that finally ended in 2011. I have worked with Paul in DCU and Lucan. When you see guys at that level wanting to get involved with the women’s game, it shows that the game is moving in the right direction.’ Dublin’s season begins with a trip to Donegal for their first league game and the Tír Chonaill side changed management over the winter with Maxi Curran, formerly a selector with both Jim McGuinness and Rory Gallagher, taking charge. ‘Maxi has worked with Jim McGuinness and anyone coming in from the men’s game to women’s football, they are going to bring a certain amount of nuance and savvy.’ Bohan insists that the Dublin team, who finally captured the All-Ireland last September, are now turning over a new leaf and focused on building on 2017’s achievement. ‘September is gone. This is a new season and there are many teams that will be waiting for us,’ Bohan said. In an effort to build on the 46,000 that attended last year’s final — the largest-crowd at a women’s sporting event in the world in 2017 — the women share the bill with the men at Croke Park twice during the League. ‘Everyone wants to play in Croke Park. They are fantastic family occasions. The profile of the game is building all the time but the onus is on the girls to keep performing. Nobody will come in through the gates just because they are women, they have to perform.’