Diarmuid Sheehan
Mitchelstown man Shane Ronayne is a man with a plan in Mournabbey and Tipperary
019 was another historic year for the Mourneabbey senior ladies football side as they bagged their second All Ireland crown on the bounce – cementing their names in the history books forever more.
After years of close calls and heartbreak, the squad famously powered to their first All-Ireland in 2018, backing that up last time round with a hard-fought campaign that went all the way down to the final few seconds in the Gaelic Grounds, Limerick.
While the stars of the show in a setup like Mourneabbey should always be the players, this side are also fortunate to have a manager of national repute supporting them from the line, directing proceedings from his own highly experienced vantage point.
Shane Ronayne may still be considered by many to be a young manager, but the Mitchelstown man has built up a CV that few in the game can match – leading his first side Foxrock / Cabinteely way back in 2005 and currently involved with sides from his school in Cahir, UCC, All Ireland Champions Mourneabbey and, of course, Tipperary’s senior football squad.
Ronayne was instrumental in securing the Dolores Tyrrell Memorial Cup for the Cork club in 2018, but found the challenge even greater last season his charges went in search of maintaining their grip on the Holy Grail.
“Once it had all settled down after we had finally won thoughts went to the new campaign and I suppose the big question was whether the hunger would be there for the 2019 campaign and at times throughout last year players did find it a bit hard,” said Ronayne during an in-depth interview with The Corkman.
“The motivation mightn’t have been what it needed to be at times, but I suppose that will-towin that this squad have shown over the years got them over the line in certain games where we knew we weren’t going great.
“The was a determination there at the start of the year to go back-to-back and not to be seen as one hit wonders, but I think the fact that we were on the road for so long [five long years] covered over the fact that at times last year we probably weren’t where we should have been and certainly I can now see that certain things weren’t perfect, but with the calibre of players we had we were able to negate that.”
Ronayne made the decision to shake things up the start of the 2019 campaign and the head tactician wasn’t too sure if that worked for or against his side’s season.
“We decided not to come back in 2019 until after a team holiday to Spain as we had been on the road for so long and we were planning on being still on the go come October – we did get it together at the end but overall you would have to say that the 2019 campaign was a hard one for us with the emotion of winning the All Ireland the previous year – that certainly took a lot out of us and the players needed a lot of time to recover from that.
“We did we play some good football last year, but I still think looking back we could have been better We still ultimately went on to win so I can’t be too critical of them now can I?
“Talking to a couple of the senior players they were finding it hard to motivate themselves. You would never see it at training sessions or anywhere like that as their application was always 100%.
“I think it was just a mental thing with players – I think in a lot of games we didn’t play up to our potential and I think it was experience and knowhow that got us over the line in some games – the likes of the Munster Final against Ballymacarbry and even in the County Final we played great football for about 20 minutes and then we kind of sat back, relaxed and went into our shell a bit. Something we had be doing two years previous when we didn’t win the All Ireland: we got a bit negative.
“In the All Ireland semi-final, it was more of the same, we didn’t play at all in the first half and then came out and played a brilliant second half – it was frustrating at times as that consistency wasn’t there. I do know that last summer we had a raft of injuries and we didn’t get a lot of challenge games in and I think that lack of games was a major factor.”
After proving to be something of a challenge to get all parties back on track last season one would forgive the Mourneabbey manager for thinking that 2020 would be even more of a chore, but the Avondhu man is confident that the hunt for a third title on the bounce is central to all involved, even though plans have been thrown out the window with the COVID-19 shutdown.
“We hadn’t started really before the shut-down. We had met up in the UCC gym at the Mardyke a couple of weeks ago and I got the sense that there was a great interest there again from the players.
“Obviously winning it this time was really special as was the way we won it. If we had won by four or five cruising down to the finish it would have been great but definitely not the same as winning it with that last second point certainly made it very, very special.
“The manner of the victory, just getting over the line certainly has steeled the girls again – they