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You are > Home > Déise eyes on a route out of division four
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Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Déise eyes on a route out of division four
Next Sunday, Waterford’s footballers begin their National Football League Division Four campaign with a difficult long trip to Leitrim. This week, Ger Lawton, caught up with new Déise boss, John Owens, to look ahead to the year that awaits Waterford football.
FOR those of you who do a lot of travelling, you’ll know just how handy the route planner on the AA Roadwatch website is. A great thing altogether. Take you to places that you’d never have been before and many places you’ll never go to again.
Ahead of next Waterford’s opening Allianz National Football League Division Four encounter on Sunday next against Leitrim in Ballinamore, I logged onto the AA website and keyed in for directions from Dungarvan to Ballinamore, and this is what came back.
DISTANCE: 173 miles
ESTIMATED TIME OF JOURNEY: 4 hours 55 minutes (that’s each way).
Taking a quick perusal of the directions (with my dodgy geographical knowledge), I think it advises you that you’ll take in a total of six counties (don’t quote me on that) during your journey.
That by anyone’s standard is some hell of a trek. For many of the Waterford county senior football panel and I dare say for most or if not all of the brave travelling Decies support, this will be a journey into the unknown. The same can most certainly not be said for the new Waterford football manager, for whom next Sunday will be his first league game in charge of Waterford, John Owens.
FAMILIAR TERRITORY
The reason of course is that John Owens played football with distinction for Leitrim before moving to Tipperary for whom he later played and managed before his recent move to become manager of Waterford.
“Yeah of course it’s my old county and it’s a journey I’m very much looking forward to. It is a long journey ok but we’ll go up on Saturday and my old club, Allen Gaels in Drumshambo, have kindly offered us their grounds to use to prepare and to loosen out, so we’re very grateful for that. It might be one of the smallest counties in Ireland but they love their football up there and we know exactly what to expect in Ballinamore,” says John Owens.
But more about Sunday’s game and the rest of the league campaign later.
Having lived, played and managed in Tipperary over the past number of decades, how has he now ended up as manager of the Déise county’s footballers.
“Well I’ve worked in Ballymacarbery for many years and during that time I’ve done a bit of coaching with teams around that area, like Rathgormack and the Nire, so when the call came to offer me the job I didn’t have to think about it at all.
“I knew how well the team had done over recent years and how close they’ve been to promotion and also how well the county champions have done when they go on to represent the county in the Munster championship over the last decade or even longer and knowing a lot of the players and their capabilities, it was a very easy choice really, especially when the men I wanted to get involved agreed to come on board.
Those men are selectors Jim McGrath of Brickeys and Liam Dalton of Shamrocks, two fine Waterford footballers in their day and two men who know Waterford football inside out, and also involved with me both on the senior and U-21 teams will be Kenny Hassett and Joe Hagan. Once these men said yes then there was no going back.”
Since being appointed to the position back in September it’s been all go but John has enjoyed every bit of it.
“It’s been great and the reaction and attitude of the players has been first class. Because we’re doing the senior and the U-21 its been very hectic and we’re out training or playing matches most nights but its been very enjoyable.
“Last week we had to cut down the senior panel to the maximum allowed for the league and now we’re trying to do the same with the U-21 panel, which because it is currently at 47, will take a lot of work.”
This involves one of the aspects of the job which John least likes.
“Only last week I had to contact the players who didn’t make it onto our panel for the national league and that’s not a nice job. These lads are very committed and have put in a great effort over the last number of months but unfortunately we’re restricted by rules and some players have to miss out. Then on the other side it’s great to contact the players who have made it and hear their reaction and that gives you a real buzz.”
RATTLED THE KINGDOM
John’s first competitive game in charge of Waterford was a rather daunting looking trip to Kilarney to face reigning All-Ireland champions Kerry in the McGrath Cup and after a great display, Waterford went down, rather unluckily, by four points.
“Naturally we were very happy with the Kerry performance. The lads played really well and in the end the difference between winning and losing was Kieran Donaghy’s two goals. He’s a very hard man to handle and more teams than us will find that out. But we took an awful lot of positives out of game but we came away too knowing that there are lots of things we need to work on, especially the mark, but we’ve done that and learned from our mistakes and that’s all you can do,” said John Owens.
Looking ahead to the league campaign which starts on Sunday, John Owens, his selectors and the Waterford players are very clear on their goal.
“Promotion is the goal. Simple as that. We’ve spoken about it in training and the players know themselves that they’ve come very close over recent seasons so now this year if we can squeeze an extra 5% out of somewhere and get a bit of luck that we can achieve that goal.
“We know there will be no easy game in this division, there never are, everyone in this division thinks they can get out of it and also a lot of the teams in this division did very well in the qualifiers at the end of last year so they’ll be hoping to bring that form into this year’s league but we’re preparing very well and being looked after very well by the county board and one thing that we’ll guarantee is that we’ll work as hard if not harder than any other team and if you do that you always have a chance.”
BIG OPENER
On Sunday’s game against his old county, “you never get anything easy off Leitrim but we’re ready for the challenge. Let me put it this way, if we lose up there we can say that it was a very tough game to start our campaign but if we win up there then it’ll be the best possible start to the campaign so we’ll see Sunday night which it is.”
May 23 in Fraher Field will see Waterford take on Clare in the opening round of the Munster Championship, with the winners going on to meet Limerick in the semifinals. But Waterford aren’t even thinking about that at this stage.
“To be honest, our league form will determine how we go into the championship so that’s what we are focussing on. We play Clare in the last game of the league so it will give both sides the chance to check each other out close to the championship. But at that stage we hope that we’ll still be in with a chance of promotion or maybe even making a league final so I guarantee there’ll be no shadow boxing in that game.
“In terms of the championship, it’s the kind of game where they’ll fancy their chances of beating us and we’ll fancy our chances of beating them so we’ll see what happens on the day but that’s a long way off just yet.”
In terms of the new rules which will be tried out in this league campaign, John has one major disagreement.
“I don’t agree with the new handpass rule. An awful lot of the calls are going to be very marginal and when they are happening so fast so I think it will put a lot of pressure on referees. In our game against Kerry, one handpass decision went against us and Kerry got a point from it so in tight games these calls will turn games which adds still further to the pressure on refs but at least it should make for a very interesting and entertaining league.”
So with only days to go to the start of the league, John is really looking forward to the year ahead.
“Why I’m looking forward to it is because the players have responded brilliantly. They’ve prepared excellently and we all see promotion as an achievable goal.
“Now all we as selectors have to do is pick the right team and give them the right tactics and I’m sure they (the players) will do Waterford proud this year.” I’ve no doubt they will. Best of luck to all involved.
National Football League Division Four Fixtures 2010
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7
Round 1
All games at 2.30pm.
Leitrim v Waterford @ Ballinamore; London v Limerick; Carlow v Longford; Clare v Wicklow.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13
Round 2
Limerick v Carlow.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14
Round 2
Waterford v London @ Fraher Field, 1pm; Wicklow v Leitrim, Kilkenny v Clare.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20
Round 3
All games at 2.30pm.
Carlow v Waterford @ Dr. Cullen Park; London v Wicklow; Longford v Limerick; Leitrim v Kilkenny.
SUNDAY, MARCH 7
Round 4
All games at 2.30pm unless stated.
Waterford v Longford @ Fraher Field; Kilkenny v London, 1pm; Wicklow v Carlow; Clare v Leitrim.
SATURDAY, MARCH 13
Round 5
Limerick v Waterford @ Gaelic Grounds, Limerick, 7.30pm.
SUNDAY, MARCH 14
Round 5
Carlow v Kilkenny; Longford v Wicklow; London v Clare.
SUNDAY, MARCH 21
Round 6
Leitrim v London; Kilkenny v Longford; Wicklow v Limerick; Clare v Carlow.
SATURDAY, MARCH 27
Round 7
Carlow v Leitrim; Limerick v Kilkenny.
SUNDAY, MARCH 28
Round 7
Waterford v Wicklow @ Fraher Field, 2.30pm; Longford v Clare.
SATURDAY, APRIL 3
Round 8
All games at 2.30pm.
Kilkenny v Waterford @ Freshford; Leitrim v Longford; Clare v Limerick; London v Carlow.
SUNDAY, APRIL 11
Round 9
All games at 2.30pm
Waterford v Clare @ Fraher Field; Limerick v Leitrim; Wicklow v Kilkenny; Longford v London.
SATURDAY, APRIL 24 Final
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