O'Donovan Rossa can build on positives of last season

O’DONOVAN Rossa manager Gene O’Donovan enjoyed his debut season in charge of his native club last year and is keen to build on the many positives accrued during an encouraging campaign with the Skibbereen-based team.

O’Donovan Rossa’s Bons Secours Hospital Cork SAFC campaign came to a conclusion in the semi-final stages of last year’s championship after they were defeated by St Michael’s at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Despite not achieving their ultimate goal of county final glory, Gene said he ‘enjoyed’ managing his beloved local team. 

“I enjoyed last year. I was genuinely honoured to be appointed as the senior football manager. It was a gig I was watching for a long time. I was gone from the club for a few years and I was doing my apprenticeship elsewhere. I enjoyed it because I am working with a great bunch of lads,” he said.

“We made progress last year and we want to build on that this year,” said the Rossa football manager. 

“We had some encouraging displays. Our young players will have gained huge experience from playing five championship games last season. St Michael’s had a strong bench and that is the way the game has gone. We have to develop a strong squad. In most sports now it is the bench that is winning games. We will have to think like that going forward.” 

NEW CULTURE

O'Driscoll is anxious to create a new culture within the O’Donovan Rossa club and to continue to develop the players, both mentally and physically. 

“Our big aim is to keep developing players. We are very lucky with the strong numbers we have coming through the club at the moment. Strength and conditioning may be a buzz word but St Michael’s club personnel admitted to me after our game last October that it took them five years to get to where they wanted to in terms of strength and conditioning. It is vital we get that right. We are trying to create a culture with our young players so when they reach their mid-twenties it is second nature to them.

“We can take a lot of positivity from last year’s campaign. We played a nice brand of football."

"We are trying to introduce a small bit of a difference in our playing style. The football is there, but we may need to get a bit cuter when it comes to defensive play and ensuring we don’t leak goals,” he added.

The experienced manager is renowned for being a strong communicator and he enjoys a very good relationship with his players. Gene is full of praise for their enthusiasm and their willingness to take on board instructions from the management team. 

“We have a fantastic group of lads. They are so enthusiastic and they take on board all our plans. They want to succeed. There is great buy-in from the whole squad. If there is no buy-in you are wasting your time. These players lead with their football. I really crave for them to achieve success. We have a lot of lads who are now in their thirties such as Donal Og Hodnett, Ryan Price, Daniel Hazel, and David Shannon who deserve to win silverware. Our club supporters also crave silverware.” 

YOUNG GUNS

The O’Donovan Rossa senior footballers will begin their league campaign with a home game against Fermoy on Sunday, February 26. They are missing a few established players at the moment and he aims to blood new players in the league. 

“We are back a few weeks mainly doing light stuff. We are mostly doing strength and conditioning and a couple of field sessions. We have a lot of players playing other sports at the moment so we are not going too hard on them. They put in a big effort last year. Andy Carr is in charge of strength and conditioning this year. The players bought into Andy’s methods straight away.

“We will be missing a good few of the older and more experienced players for the league campaign for a number of reasons."

"We have seven or eight minor players coming up to us this year. We won’t throw them in at the deep end. We have to give them the time to develop first, but we can’t put restraints on them either. Giving them game time in the league campaign will be ideal. These players will be key players on the team in time to come, but we have to look after them,” he added.

Looking back at last year’s league campaign, the Rossa senior football manager expressed his regrets that they didn’t win more games. 

“If I was a small bit fussier I would have been disappointed with last year’s league campaign. I think we could have won more games which would have given us more belief and helped us to develop a winning habit earlier in the year. I felt it took a defeat against a good Douglas team to really wake us up. We played very well that day and I think the players subsequently started to realise that we were a better team than they thought.” 

He is expecting the schedule to be demanding. 

“We are anticipating a tough league campaign. We will be facing two of our league opponents Fermoy and Kanturk in this year’s championship campaign and we have a tough away visit to Clyda Rovers. Carrigaline are also in our group again this year.”