MICKEY NOUS
Wizard Moran the man behind curtain
GAA ALL-IRELAND CLUB FINALS
IT’S just over three years since Mickey Moran broke Kilcoo’s hearts – now he’s on the verge of guiding them to their greatest success.
Veteran forward Conor Laverty admits it was a good day’s work luring the Derry man out of retirement to take charge of what could be his last team.
Feeling that they’d grown complacent as a team, a delegation of Kilcoo players travelled to meet no nonsense Moran to beg him to take over the Down side last winter.
It worked a treat and the man who guided Slaughtneil to an AIB Ulster final win at Kilcoo’s expense in 2016 has brought them to an All-ireland final.
Laverty said: “I think that bit of history with us actually added to his appeal probably. We knew exactly how well they were set up that day.
“We had a lot of admiration for Slaughtneil and the way they played and how they conducted themselves, we knew his fingerprints were on that. Not everybody would fit in to managing Kilcoo either but he has fitted in better than probably anyone has.”
The turnaround has been immediate with Kilcoo regaining the Down title months after Moran took over and then adding a breaking Ulster crown.
The former Mayo, Donegal, Derry, Sligo and Leitrim manager wasn’t overly interested at first and it looked as if he may have managed his last team but soon came around.
Laverty said: “At that meeting that night with him, there was a real edge to it and whenever Mickey spoke you could have heard a pin drop. From then on, I have never seen our boys train or go as hard at it in all my life.”
That change of attitude has helped Kilcoo to reach new heights having, in Laverty’s own words, gone ‘a wee bit soft’ in previous seasons.
Laverty said: “We maybe just thought we were going to win all the time because we had won six Down championships in a row at one stage and we maybe become complacent. We tried not to but maybe subconsciously it had drifted in a wee bit.
But after that first training session, you knew. You could see the glint in boys’ eyes that they were back and ready to go.”
Asked if he felt Moran was ready to retire before Kilcoo called, Laverty nodded.
He said: “Yeah, I think that was the case. We set up a small committee to talk to him. I remember that day, myself and Aidan Branagan were on it and two other players and when we met him,
“I got a sense that he knew what this team was capable of. And he got a sense from us as players what we wanted and what our dream was. It just fitted well and I think we were very lucky to get him, to have the opportunity to work along with him has been fascinating.”