BOHAN HAPPY TO TAKE ON DUBS JOB

THEY say you should ‘never go back’ in team management but, after a 14-year absence, that’s what Mick Bohan has done with the Dublin senior women this season. Today’s rematch with their nemesis Cork in the Lidl Division 1 NFL semi-finals is the first big measure of his progress so far. Bohan (above) was involved when The Jackies won their first Leinster final in 2002 and managed them to their first All-Ireland final (where they lost to Mayo) a year later. In recent years he’s played a part in Jim Gavin’s All-Ireland winning Under 21 and senior men’s backrooms and coached the burgeoning Clare footballers last season. So why switch back now to the women’s game? ‘It was a little like 2016 with Clare, the fit was just right when I got the call,’ he says. ‘My dad, who hurled for Clare, passed away three years ago and then, within the same six months, my best friend Hughie Gillen, who was married to a Clarewoman, also died. I’d fully intended to get involved with Jim [Gavin] again after my dad passed but it was like a calling,’ he says of coaching Colm Collins’ Clare, a job, coincidentally, he took over from current Cork women’s boss Ephie Fitzgerald. But with two young daughters and the distance involved, the Clontarf PE teacher called it quits after one season and was ready for a new challenge when Dublin came looking for a replacement for Gregory McGonigle. Victory over Galway in the last round secured third place in the group despite losses to Cork, Armagh and Mayo. Donegal take on Galway in Sligo tomorrow while Dublin face the side who beat them in the last three All-Ireland finals and, by six points, back in February.