Why Devenney & Co are happy to roll out the welcome mat
SUCH is football management’s intricate and intimate web, that Stephen Rochford’s old team may have done his new one an unintended favour last spring.
Kevin McLoughlin’s late and questionable equaliser – he generously breached the fourstep over-carrying rule – in Ballybofey kept Mayo in the top tier and condemned Donegal to Division 2 of the Allianz League.
Then again ‘condemned’ is a strong word, given that Donegal finished their campaign with a provincial title and a sudden-death quarterfinal play-off, while Mayo’s summer idleness sowed the seeds for such discontent at county board level that Rochford’s position as manager became untenable.
And the favour? Well that has still to be cashed in, but his successor, James Horan will attempt to infuse his Mayo team with fresh talent while operating in the League’s top tier an, at times, unforgiving arena for those in experimentation mode. Rochford, meanwhile, picks up the threads of his inter-county coaching career in Division 2 where Declan Bonner can continue his Donegal rebuild without worrying unduly about the consequences.
Rochford has a point to prove to Mayo and Donegal may offer him the potential to do so. In terms of evolution, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Both owe their emergence as forces this decade to two powerful patriarchal figures in Horan and Jim McGuinness, but while one team has remained static, the other has transitioned almost beyond recognition.
Just two – the Durcan brothers, Paddy and James – of Mayo’s starting team in this year’s qualifier defeat to Kildare did not belong to the previous Horan era. In contrast, half a dozen starters in Donegal’s final Super 8s game against Tyrone were not residents of the house that Jim built.
If Donegal offers Rochford the opportunity of some kind of redemption, though, the question must be asked as to what has he got to offer in return. Other than the suggestion that his will be a ‘coaching’ position, his role has yet to be defined. He is hardly a like-for-like replacement for Karl Lacey, who has stepped down after one season because of family commitments. Lacey’s on-pitch coaching duties may have engaged his areas of expertise, his sports science background and his defensive skills, but he was also one upon whom Bonner leaned come match day.
It is likely that the latter will be a key part of Rochford’s remit, but his coaching duties are likely to be painted with broad brush strokes, according to former Donegal star Brendan Devenney.
‘In terms of coaching players on the pitch, he does not really do that, but coaching is a broad spectrum and his involvement may well be more tactical in nature or, perhaps, as overall performance coach,’ he said.
‘I don’t think Bonner wanted to bring someone into his management team that he needed to train-up as such, and now he has a man who has taken a team to two All-Ireland finals. I would say it is that experience more than anything which has attracted him to Rochford. When you have someone of that experience, then he becomes the perfect person to bounce things off.’
Oddly enough, while it could be argued that Rochford paid the price for his team’s early exit this summer, outside the county his stock rose as the Championship petered out to an inevitable conclusion in Mayo’s absence.
‘I think this year’s Championship has made people appreciate how good Mayo were under Rochford,’ added Devenney. ‘They put it up to and outplayed Dublin at times and this year no one got near them.
‘It is funny how, all of a sudden, our attitude to Rochford and Mayo changed, because he got that team right at the end of a cycle where their main players were still at their peak but close to going over the other side. It was potentially very difficult for him coming in at that stage and he could very easily have been the fall guy, but instead it is Horan – in going back to Mayo – who may have the toughest job of all.
‘You can look now and say that Rochford came the closest of all with that group because he squeezed everything out of them.’
Perhaps, but then that raises the question as to how he can adjust to taking an advisory role, when making the big calls has always been his forte.
There is no answer to that, but right now Donegal are just happy that he is here.
‘It is strange if you are a guy who came that close to winning the ultimate prize, that he would commit to a five-hour round trip for a positon where he is not the number one,’ Devenney remarked.
‘You would have to say, in the event of a vacancy that he would have enough about him to come in as manager rather than as coach.
‘It is a strange one from that perspective but, as a Donegal person, I am delighted because you are talking about someone who has the inside track on what it takes for a team to contend.
‘I am delighted he is on board,’ concluded Devenney.