McGRATH STILL LOOKING OVER THE RAINBOW
Fermanagh have endured a challenging season but the qualifiers offer respite from talk of the end game for boss
PETE McGRATH chuckles when asked if this evening’s assignment at the Athletic Grounds potentially represents his end game. He absorbs the question with good humour because, having started out in inter-county management 28 years ago and having celebrated his 64th birthday earlier this month, he can reflect that he has done quite well to stretch his ‘end game’ this far.
No, his chuckle has to do with the mindset that frames the question in the first instance. It is something he struggles to comprehend, mainly because he has no particular desire to do so.
‘There is a fascination in the GAA with managers that is a bit exaggerated,’ sighs the Fermanagh boss.
‘It is obviously a spill over from what we get fed from the English Premiership, where managers and their tenures, in particular, are always under scrutiny.
‘When a manager reaches a certain number of years with a team people tend to assume that if things don’t go well on a particular season he will call it a day. That is the nature of sport and of speculation; there is nothing wrong with it.
‘It is good for the game in one sense in that it generates debate but it is something I don’t give a great deal of thought to,’ he explains. The thing is, though, others will. It is not just his birth certificate that is at play here or that he has already surpassed the average for remaining in an inter-county management role by a year.
The reality for McGrath is that there has been slippage this term. Relegation from Division 2 was a hammer blow, not least because an opening round trimming of his native Down raised the prospect of promotion before they lost five of their remaining six games.
Monaghan were never going to offer much respite in Ulster and while Fermanagh were stout, brave and organised, they still came up nine points shy last month.
There is context, of course. It can be forcibly argued that McGrath helped the Erne men punch above their weight by reaching the 2015 All-Ireland quarter-final and securing Division 2 status. And we are now witnessing a natural realignment rather than a team dropping like a stone. Above all, a county with just 20 clubs can’t really afford the loss of talent – 18 from the panel that faced Dublin in that 2015 quarter-final are no longer involved – which they have endured over the past two seasons.
He was down half a dozen of the players who put the frighteners on Mayo in last year’s qualifiers for the Monaghan tie and while the return of Declan McCusker and Ruairi Corrigan to fitness for tonight’s clash with Armagh is a boost, this, by his own admission, has been a ‘difficult’ season. ‘I know the progress that has been made and this year I am aware of the players that have been lost,’ admits McGrath. ‘That has made things more difficult than we anticipated.’ And they were not easy to begin with. Fermanagh have struggled offensively – they were the second lowest scorers in the spring when Mayo were even less prolific – and they still lean far too heavily on Tomás Corrigan and Seán Quigley who have struggled under the weight of expectation. Quigley has not functioned as a strike forward in open play this season – outside of frees, he managed just two points in open play – while Corrigan is usually a double-marked forward whose returns are diminished as a result. It is at the other end, though, that Fermanagh have suffered. Their defensive structure has crumbled – the 12 goals they conceded in the League being a 100 per cent increase on what they had leaked 12 months earlier. That’s not a surprise either, the retirements of Damian Kelly, Marty O’Brien and Niall Cassidy have left holes that have been too big to plug. But even though they could be in a better place, this is the stage of the season where we tend to see the best of them. Despite their lack of size and, for the most part, bottom-16 Allianz League ranking status, they tend to thrive in the qualifiers where they boast a 16-13 winning record.
That is quite the number and McGrath has helped both sustain and enhance it.
From the onepoint defeat to Laois in his first season, the dramatic ambush of Roscommon in his second and that nerve-shredder against Mayo last year, their best performances have been left for the back door route.
That’s not by accident either. Despite the disappointment of the Monaghan defeat last month, they were back on the treadmill within a week and have pushed hard on it ever since.
‘Before I came here they were one of those counties who were capable of getting a decent run through the qualifiers,’ suggests McGrath
‘There is a bit of a legacy there of being a good qualifier team but every year is different and if you ask any manager about the qualifiers they will tell you the same thing, and that is that the first game is the big one.
‘If you can get over that first game, get a win, get momentum and a good dynamic in the group again, you will never know how far you will go.’
Of course, the draw drum could have been kinder, they face an Armagh team whose manager Kieran McGeeney is under the kind of pressure that three winless Ulster campaigns bring.
‘The draw is the draw, needless to say you look to see who you can potentially get and you are hoping for a handy draw if there is such a thing and you are certainly looking for a home draw and it comes out Armagh in the Athletic Grounds. Yeah, tricky, dangerous and challenging but that’s the way it is.’
He will the play the cards he has been dealt one more time, but no matter what happens tonight he won’t be folding.
Should this be the end with Fermanagh, there may be another table to play at, with a return to Down or even a trip across the border to Louth viewed as possibilities.
The last four years with Fermanagh have stoked the fire again.
‘I have enjoyed it and it certainly has not diminished my appetite, if anything it has whetted it even more.
‘So, yeah, hopefully I have something to contribute in the future but as regards to this week and hopefully beyond this week my focus is with Fermanagh.’
No end game yet. Not by a long shot.