Beleaf must sky high for Now be Derry..

WATERFORD football boss Paul Shankey has revealed he went for the job following encouragement from his wife.

The vacancy was the last senior inter-county football position to be filled ahead of the 2024 season, with the former Meath footballer (above) succeeding Ephie Fitzgerald.

Shankey’s wife hails from Waterford and he has been living there for 20 years now.

“It probably wasn’t on my radar,” he says of the manager’s job. “I’m involved with the Portlaw club, every club in Waterford is a dual – hurling is obviously the number one but they will always produce football teams which is great for all the kids, boys and girls.

“It was actually my wife who said late last year that they had nobody, ‘Why don’t you apply for that job?’

“I think she was trying to get rid of me!

“So I reached out to the county board, had a couple of meetings with them so it really was a last-minute decision, it wasn’t something I had looked into for years.”

Waterford failed to win a game in Division Four this year and it’s been pretty grim for the Deise in the last decade or so.

But Shankey points to a strong club scene amid suggestions Waterford football could go the way of Kilkenny.

“No, I wouldn’t fear that at all. I don’t know where that came from, at club level it is quite healthy. If Rathgormack or The Nire were playing Castlehaven or Nemo there’d be very little in it.

“Club football in the county is very healthy, so I wouldn’t see that as a major issue at all.”

THE psychological impact of a first knockout victory over a top side at Croke Park in 28 years is another building block for a Derry side intent on a serious All-ireland assault.

Derry hadn’t won a top grade national final – or an All-ireland semi – there since 1996, when they defeated Donegal in the Division One decider. Since then Croke Park has been a house of pain for the Oak Leaf men with mental scars left on a generation of players.

They badly needed to take out a big traditional power at headquarters and they don’t come much bigger than Dublin, who were on fire going into the decider.

Maybe that explains the nerves and why Derry didn’t manage to close out the game in normal time or extra time.

There’s been much said about how they didn’t retain the short kick out at the end of normal time.

It was the exact opposite of the way Shane Ryan and Brian O Beaglaoich did it twice for Kerry in the closing stages of their huge 2022 All-ireland semi-final win over Dublin.

Last year, when Kerry squeezed Odhran Lynch late on in the All-ireland semi-final, he went long twice.

Derry lost both kickouts. Kerry scored twice and were out the gap and into a final.

Learnings were taken on board, even in recognising they had to be brave last Sunday, go short and try to control the ball in that moment rather than raffle up a long kickout.

It didn’t work out but it was the right decision.

The stamina Derry showed and the depth of their squad to go toe to toe with Dublin for 100 minutes at Croke Park is something they’ll take a lot from.

Niall Loughlin and Conor Doherty are unheralded compared to others.

Niall Toner is a serious team player off the bench and Lachlan Murray (left) a majestic point kicker off both feet.

All big cogs in a more powerful looking machine than last year.

What exposure too for Steelstown duo Diarmuid Baker – a Queen’s freshers third team player not that long ago – and Donncha Gilmore, as Derry finally harvest a couple of players from what has previously been

a Derry City wasteland.

It’s no coincidence either that the duo come from a club that landed an All-ireland intermediate title at Croke Park two years ago with an awesome display against Meath side Trim.

It’s a similar tale with Conor Glass, Ciaran Mcfaul, Ethan Doherty and the Glen players.

They are now senior Allireland winners at Croke Park, with the previous year’s Allireland semi-final victory over Moycullen at GAA HQ an underrated experience they had to draw on.

Shedding that fear of failure and expecting to perform and win every time you hit Jones’ Road is a big thing.

The stuff Dublin and Kerry players have a bank of.

Had Derry lost on penalties after failing to close it out, it could have done untold psychological damage to a group potentially on the cusp of something bigger than back-to-back Ulster titles.

Many in Derry feel the walloping they took from Dublin in the 2014 League final, when the game was over after 20 minutes, was the beginning of their slide into obscurity.

It prompted their ultra defensive set-up for the infamous 0-8 to 0-4 Croke Park defeat by Dublin the following year.

GAA president Jarlath Burns, who heaped praise on Derry’s rise to prominence in a widely acclaimed speech, took to social media after the 8-4 game to declare the death of Gaelic football.

Jim Gavin was the Dublin manager that day and is in charge of the Football Review Committee that Burns set up to have a look at the game.

There didn’t appear to be much wrong with it on Sunday. It’s funny how the wheel turns though.