It wasn’t John my to-do-list SUGRUE: I ONLY BECAME A MANAGER AFTER FALLING SHORT AS A PLAYER
JOHN SUGRUE became the fourth Kerryman in little over a decade to manage Laois when he was appointed in September 2017.
However, he came into the job via a rather different route to Mick O’dwyer, Liam Kearns and Tomas O Flatharta, each of whom had extensive intercounty managerial experience before arriving in the midlands.
Under Pat O’shea, Sugrue coached Kerry in 2007 and ‘08. Then, having relocated to Portlaoise, he was physio for the Laois footballers in 2012 and ‘13.
He also had a successful spell as manager of South Kerry, so a county job seemed the logical progression, though it wasn’t always a burning ambition.
“Certainly not at a young age anyway,” says Sugrue. “My ambition was to play intercounty and I never achieved it.
“I had my own faults and they were fairly glaring when I look back at it now. At the time I was a little less open to suggestion and it’s one of those things that irks me a little now.
“When you finish up playing it’s great to get into coaching, you are involved with guys who have lots of energy. The chance just came to do the county team in Laois and I’m really appreciative of getting that chance and it’s good to do it but only if we are productive.”
He’s already earned successive League promotions and guided Laois to a rare Leinster final appearance last year. There is a pathway there for them again this year with Westmeath first up in Tullamore on Sunday.
“Have we been productive to date? Yes. Have we been as productive as we’d want to be? No. It depends on what you are happy with.
“If you are happy with a mediocre season, where we have got ourselves out of Division Three into Division Two, if that fulfils your appetite then we won’t beat
Westmeath.”
Having thumped the Lake men by 10 points at the same stage last year, they lost to Jack Cooney’s side twice in this year’s League, including the Division Three final at Croke Park last month. “Discipline and an inability to stick to structure,” Sugrue offers as to why. “Maybe a little lack of balance between defensive play and forward play.
“They are fairly simplistic things but if they weren’t addressed we weren’t going anywhere.
“We are still not complete in terms of what we need to improve upon even in those areas. That’s what undid us a little in the League final.”
The goal that ultimately lost them that game came from an error by goalkeeper Graham Brody (inset), when one of the forays from goal for which he’s famed went awry.
Sugrue won’t be reining Brody in just yet, however.
“Graham wears a white jersey, the rest of the boys wear a blue jersey. Graham comes out the field, he kicks a ball away, it gets magnified completely.
“Loads of fellas kicked the ball away and no one got lambasted like Graham did.
“To my mind, it’s slightly skewed and the reaction was magnified by the colour of the jersey he had on.”