Cobh Ramblers' boss Shane Keegan on his role with Laois GAA

COBH Ramblers’ manager Shane Keegan is more than just that; he also works as Head of Games Development with Laois GAA, and it’s a role that Keegan has enjoyed so far.

“Initially I went in as a Games Promotion Officer for Portlaoise GAA Club,” he begins. “They would have some very prominent figures within Laois GAA. Seamus ‘Cheddar’ Plunkett, who has managed the Laois senior hurlers on a couple of occasions, Tommy Fitzgerald would have been assistant manager to Eddie Brennan when we won the Joe McDonagh Cup in 2019. Pat Critchley would have been a massively renowned coach outside of Leinster.

“They’re all Portlaoise guys, and this new GPO scheme was coming in, which allowed all clubs to potentially employ somebody, and they approached me basically and asked me would it be something I’m interested in. I went there, I was with them for about 15 months.

“I absolutely loved the role, it was a brilliant club to work with,” Keegan explains. “But then the opportunity came up to apply for head of underage development in Laois. I wasn’t 100% sure whether I’d go for it initially, but I was talked into it by a few people, and I'm delighted now because I'm loving it.” 

Speaking on the role itself and what the work involves, Keegan remarks; “You’re more so looking at the structures. Why is an 8-year-old who's as good as his counterpart in Kilkenny at 8 years of age, when they get to 18, is the Kilkenny player fantastic and having fulfilled their potential, while the Laois player hasn’t?

“It’s just trying to be clear what parts of that were falling down in and how we can try and correct those things.

“There’s a long, long way to go, we’re well back in both football and hurling, and it's going to be a slow building process, but you have to start somewhere, and we’ll get there I believe.” 

A big topic of discussion in 2023 has been the participation of the Joe McDonagh winners and runners-up in the All-Ireland series, especially after Tipperary demolished Offaly 7-38 to 3-18.

“I suppose the success we had in 2019 is probably the only exception, I think in every other year the Joe McDonagh winners were pretty much hammered in the next round.

“There’s one side of me saying, I’d hate to have lost what we achieved in 2019. In GAA circles it’s the biggest memory for me in the last 20 years of Laois GAA it was unbelievable for us in hurling circles to experience something like that.

The opportunity to do that would be essentially taken away.

“But at the same time, the fact that the whole season is crammed in so early just to allow Joe McDonagh teams to enter in at that level, it makes far more sense to try and pull the season out over a longer period.” 

Should Joe McDonagh teams keep their entry path to the All-Ireland?

“I'm not 100% sure on that,” says Shane. “I would have a massive admiration for Cheddar Plunkett here in Laois, and I would normally agree with everything he says.

DEVELOPMENT

“Cheddar always argues that we have to be playing against the best to progress. I'm not so sure on that, I'm not 100% sure how beneficial it is for us to be annihilated by 30 or 40 points, as I've seen happen at times.

“10 minutes before I left work there, I spoke to Willie Maher, our hurling manager. If I was in Willie's shoes, I would look to 2024 as potentially an incredibly exciting year for the Laois hurlers.

“For the first time in my living memory, we're in two competitions that were capable of winning both. We've been relegated to Division 2A, so we should be capable of winning Division 2 in the hurling, and we should be absolutely capable of winning the Joe McDonagh.

“They're not your top tier competitions and we're not going to be playing the Limericks and the Kilkennys and the Corks of this world, but I think it's very, very appealing to be heading into a year where you have potential to try and win 2 tournaments."

The structure of the hurling league puts the Division 2A sides into a difficult situation. In Division one, there are three "weaker" teams, with one of them placed in group A, which guarantees them a relegation playoff by default.

“I'm not sure there's a whole lot the GAA can do about that. The reason it works so well in football is because there are so many football teams at so many different levels," Shane explains.

“It allows for everything to level out and teams to have games against similar opposition, whereas like reality is, unfortunately there are only eight or nine teams realistically at the top table in hurling and there's the rest then,” Keegan says. “You’re always going to have a scenario where you know those eight, nine teams are going to be a million miles ahead of the one or two remaining teams that build the division.”