Managing to play lead role after leap of faith

Leinster Club FC final/Focus on Skryne: Ian O'Riordan talks to player-manager Mick O'Dowd who hopes to guide the Meath club to their first Leinster title on Sunday in Portlaoise.

Sunday's Leinster club football final is one of those novel occasions on which the outcome will prove unique no matter which side actually wins. Skryne against Portlaoise, where victory for one team will start a record, and for the other, reclaim one.

It has Meath champions Skryne looking to win their first provincial crown. With 12 county titles already to their name the club is keen to improve its record outside the county, and can perhaps feel their time has come. Yet player-manager Mick O'Dowd seems all too aware history has little sympathy for those most in need.

"Having come this far it would be nice to finish it off," says O'Dowd, "and we're certainly not going down to Newbridge to make up the numbers. But we know Portlaoise will start as marginal favourites. They've got the better record, and a very strong team. I know they've got a couple of All-Ireland winning minors on their bench."

For the Laois champions the game is partly about reclaiming the record number of Leinster titles. They currently share that honour with Eire Óg of Carlow with five each, and now the All-Ireland winners of 1983 want to go out on their on. They have, however, already endured one major setback in their attempt on an outright record, with the loss of their outstanding forward Ian Fitzgerald. Married last Friday, Fitzgerald has set off on a two-month honeymoon, which despite much consideration he just couldn't defer.

"It was one of those packages where it was very difficult to change flights," explains club secretary Vinnie Dowling. "There were just too many connecting flights. So we are resigned now to being without him. And that's a big loss, because he was on fire for the last 10 minutes against Kilmacud. All we're hoping for now is that he might miss his flight."

One man's loss is another man's gain, and O'Dowd knows Fitzgerald's absence will take some of the sting from Portlaoise. Not that Skryne were solely relying on that to keep their hopes alive.

"I definitely believe we were the best team in Meath this year," he says. "I know when we started out we weren't that fancied, but we certainly proved ourselves in the knockout stages. Once you come out of your own county you can only take each game as it comes, but we have had two good wins now over Allenwood and Starlights."

How O'Dowd became player-manager at Skryne is a story in itself. Part of the Meath panel in 2001, when he won a Leinster championship medal as a substitute, he was first approached about managing Skryne before the season when the previous manager of two years stepped down.

"It wasn't something I'd planned," he explains, "but then they didn't exactly have a long list. But I felt I was ready to jump in for a few reasons. I really believed in the players on this team, and that the club could be a little more consistent."

O'Dowd's move was greatly aided by his close friendship with the two main stars of the Skryne team - midfielders Trevor Giles and John McDermott. He'd also played with Giles for several years at UCD, and with McDermott at the club for 13 years.

"Of course they're both playing some great football, and John has been fully committed to us even though he retired from Meath three years ago. But I think the biggest factor for us this season is the way we're getting so much more from the younger players. We have a lot of 21- and 22-year-olds and they're all playing equally big roles."

Having scored 1-4 in the county final against Simonstown, O'Dowd has been playing a big role himself, both on and off the field: "I don't find it too bad being able to handle both roles. I try to get all the managerial stuff out of the way by the Thursday night before a game, and then just concentrate on the playing end of things after that. But I get great help from the two selectors, Ray Mooney and Martin Kennedy."

At 31, O'Dowd admits he has little hope of playing for Meath again, especially with a second child on the way, but right now he wouldn't swap playing with his club in a Leinster final for anything.