‘Dubs job is easier to take on now’
McConville ‘would love a crack’ at role if he was from capital
FORGET the obvious lure of the vacant Dublin manager’s job and consider for a second the way in which the successful applicant’s work will be appraised.
Emulate Jim Gavin and win all before you and the stint will be dismissed by some as new proof of the beneficial effects of Dublin’s population and resources on their senior football team. Anything less and your time in charge could plausibly be considered a drop in standards or worse, a failure.
“I’d look at the reverse of that,” says former Armagh forward, Oisín McConnville, opting for the damnedif-you-don’t scenario.
“I just think that for the next person, it’s a lot easier job now than when Jim Gavin took it. And definitely a lot easier job than when Pat Gilroy took it.
“So the next person coming in could realistically kick it on again which is quite a scary thought.”
On the plus side, whoever comes in won’t need to deliberate long with their selectors about seasonal targets for 2020.
As McConville points out: “If they don’t win the All-Ireland you’re basically a failure.
“But certainly if I was given the opportunity it’s something I’d love the crack at if I was a Dub,” he goes on, “to go in there and try and keep that run going because it’s very possible that they will.”
Last week, McConville visited Gaza with Trócaire to witness several projects supporting Palestinians, who are suffering from the devastating Israeli blockade and the ongoing occupation of the West Bank.
The trip chimed with him on a number of levels.
“I would feel that growing up in the era I grew up in, it was just the norm,” he says of his childhood in Crossmaglen at a time of high political tensions. “I suppose the norm was bombs and shootings and killings, the windows being blown in, all that sort of stuff.
“I didn’t realise that wasn’t the norm until I was 11. I definitely think it had a profound effect on me at some stages.”