Managing the dream of success in women’s GAA

When Michael Ryan conducted his first training session as the manager of the Ballymacarbry women's football club in Waterford, his plan was to plague the girls with hard runs so that they would never want him to see him again.

His wife and sister had asked him before if he would take a session, and in 1982, he finally surrendered to their pleas. But he had no intention of committing to the job.

Fourteen girls attended the first night and when the flogging was done, it was decided that they would reconvene for another session the following night. Ryan was impressed by their application but the reluctance still lingered.

Two more players appeared the second night and so, a link with the team was forged that would go on to produce 14 Munster club titles in 16 years, and 10 All-Ireland titles under his tutelage. Ryan was later appointed the manager of the Waterford women’s football team – and he he guided them to five senior All-Ireland titles between 1991 and 1998.

After trying so hard to jeopardise any forthcoming relationship with a women’s football team, where did it all go right?

“I said we’d keep going,” he begins “and we won the county championship with a very young team. And I remember being down in Stradbally drinking with one of the girls after we won it and one of the girls bought me a drink and I thought, ‘this is fine, this’ll be the end of it’. They had a young and talented team and I thought they would win more county championships without me.”

“But then someone asked me: ‘when does the Munster club championship start?’ and I nearly died.”

Ryan was somewhat unique in that he started his managerial career in women’s football before he managed the Waterford hurlers for two years. Former Cork women’s manager Eamonn Ryan is now treading a similar path with the Cork men’s football team.

But for John O'Leary and Joe Higgins, their movements were more traditional – veering into women's GAA management after their own playing careers had ended.

Following a slew of debilitating injuries which included arthritis in his two hips and some broken bones, Higgins retired from inter-county football in 2009. The following year he had a new focus as the manager of the Laois women's football team, but having been robbed of the right to finish his career on his own terms, there was an emptiness in him.

Closest thing

Managing a team morphed into something of a crutch for Higgins and became a substitute for emotional closure.

“I wasn’t prepared to leave what I had been doing for so many years. I still get that buzz from being on the sideline. Obviously it’s not exactly the same as being on the field but it’s the closest thing that you’re going to get to it.”

“From U-14 I’ve been playing with Laois and I boxed for eight years so my days consisted of training and preparing and everything in between. You go from that to the total opposite. Probably work took a back seat as well. Everything takes a back seat when you are playing county football.

“If I didn’t have the injuries, I probably would be still playing for the club [St Joseph’s] at some level, and might not have got into management. But I’m a big believer in everything happens for a reason.”

Dublin women's football team have experienced many All-Ireland final heartaches, the pick of which was that freakish ten-point turnaround in 2014 against Cork. Since 2002, Dublin have appeared in six All-Ireland finals and have lost of them. And one of those defeats came in 2004 when former All-Ireland winning goalkeeper John O'Leary was in charge.

O'Leary came in to the position the year after Dublin had suffered their first All-Ireland defeat at the hands of Mayo. They were leading with just moments remaining, when a last-minute goal loosened their grip of the Brendan Martin Cup.

“The attraction for me was first of all that it was Dublin, so that was the big draw and ladies football, I thought okay, well it’ll be interesting and I’m sure I can bring some of my own experience to bear.”

“Ladies football at the time was growing very quickly so a lot of it was trying to drum up support for them and lean on my own Dublin following, to come out and support the girls.”

Joe Higgins was also uneducated about the game when he took the Laois women’s job but he was happy to immerse himself in the learning process.

“I had to do a good bit of research heading into the job. Probably, that’s everyone’s experience with ladies football. Unless you get involved at some level, you don’t realise the commitment levels of the players and everything else that goes into it,” says the former Leinster title winner.

“I started off by going to club matches and I knew a lot of the more senior girls by reputation. I got my hands on a good few DVDs so I wasn’t going in without some knowledge.”

In the 2004 All-Ireland, O’Leary’s Dublin faced a Galway team who were still in their early years at senior level, having only won the Junior All-Ireland in 2002.

Misfortune struck again however, as the Tribeswomen claimed the victory that day and John O’Leary laments that the half-time break is something he wished he handled differently.

“Looking back, I’d love to have that half-time back again because we had played really well in the first half but Galway had got a run on us and got a goal. We probably just didn’t get ourselves set right for the second half and Galway were on the up.”

“I think the girls were a bit more deflated than I was ready for. I could have managed that emotion a bit better.”

Michael Ryan’s Waterford women also had to suffer a few hardships before they developed a habit of winning All-Ireland finals. And a Munster final win over Kerry in 1991 was the starting point of their breakthrough.

“We were beaten in four Munster finals by Kerry and in the same four years, we lost three league finals and a league semi-final, which was eight major games to Kerry in four years. But we said we’d give it one more go.”

“A girl called Marie Crotty summed it up after [we won the Munster final] when she did an interview with Radio Kerry. She said, ‘For the last four years, we came to play Kerry. Today we came to win’. That set the tone and we got to the All-Ireland and beat Laois.”

“We won five senior All-Ireland finals and I was just following along with their commitment. We were pursuing a dream really.”

Intensive fundraising

During his three-year reign at Laois, Higgins was shocked by some things in women’s GAA. After winning a Leinster title in 2011, the team had to engage in some intensive fundraising in order to afford bags and tops for the squad. Joe recalls how the players brought buckets to roundabouts to take in some donations.

“If someone had asked me when I was playing,” he says, “to stand around at a roundabout looking for money, I would have told them to forget about it. The girls did it because they were use to doing it.”

All three men have since stepped down from their respective managerial positions with those teams, but they reflect on their experiences with fondness .

O’Leary watched Dublin finally win the All-Ireland in 2010 and was thrilled to see some of the players he managed, go on to win the silverware that long eluded them.

Higgins would like to see some former Laois campaigners like Angela Casey and Tracey Lawlor get involved in coaching at some point. And Ryan has three daughters (Louise, Michelle and Sinéad) on the current Waterford squad.

Ryan came into contact with Ladies Football less than a decade after the association was formed, and when the game was struggling for public approval. He admits now, that he also fell foul of misconceptions about the sport before being liberated by the women of Waterford.

“Deep down I would have felt before I got really involved, that maybe women weren’t capable of training as hard as they trained. . . I soon learned that these girls were every bit as committed and talented and maybe even mentally tougher than men.”