STAYING with Glen until their season is over “is the right thing to do,” says new Tyrone boss Malachy O’Rourke.
He and his assistant Ryan Porter, who joins him in the Red Hands’ setup, will be double-jobbing for at least another ten days as they prepare for a fourth straight Derry football final with the reigning All-Ireland champions.
The long goodbye began in early September when it was confirmed that he would succeed Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan following their decision to step down after four years in charge.
Glen will go into next weekend’s decider with Newbridge as, in O’Rourke’s own words, “overwhelming favourites”.
Whether his time in charge of the Watties, who had never won a county title before he took over and now have three, two Ulster titles and an All-Ireland, ends on Sunday week or it extends into November and beyond, O’Rourke says they will “give our best for as long as we’re here.”
“It certainly has been a busy month, but very exciting as well. It’s certainly keeping me occupied, there’s no doubt about that. I’m glad I’m not working in school at the minute,” said the retired PE teacher.
“There’s a lot of action going on in Tyrone at the minute as well, it’s just trying to get everything pieced together in the backroom and still working away with the boys here. We’ll be able to manage the two. It’s a great problem to have.
“I think everyone in Tyrone will appreciate that when you give a commitment to somebody, you see it through.
“The club have been so good to me, we’ve enjoyed the journey with them so much and I feel that it’s the right thing to do, to just keep on going. That might be two weeks and if it is, so be it, but we’ll give our best for as long as we’re here.”
Although he says he didn’t look much at the draw for next year’s Ulster Championship, he would have at least breathed a small sigh of relief at its make-up.
Tyrone would not be able to meet Derry or his former charges Monaghan, whom he managed for seven years, until the provincial final at the earliest.
That’s all way down the track for now.
His most pressing concern is what Newbridge will bring to their first senior final for 33 years.
A tiny parish of roughly four square miles, sandwiched in geographically by a legion of other heavyweights, they face a tall order to try and depose O’Rourke’s men from the throne.
Ciaran McFaul and Jack Doherty took almost no active part in Glen’s pre-match warm-up and are doubtful for the final, although McFaul warmed up several times in the second half.
“Ciaran’s got a niggly injury. If we needed him there we could have put him in but we felt if we could get through without using him, that would be better and it would save him. It gives us two weeks to try and get him fully recovered for the final, we’ll just have to wait and see.
“Jack’s been troubled with an injury this last number of weeks, he hasn’t been able to train fully or play any of the games. We were hopeful we could get something out of him today again if it was needed but that will give him two extra weeks to get himself ready for the final,” said O’Rourke.
He is also operating without Jack’s brother Alex, who has opted out in recent weeks.
Glen were extremely fortunate to get out of their quarter-final against Lavey thanks to two late points that turned the one-point margin in their favour, and at 0-5 to 0-2 down against Slaughtneil there were worries.
Their run through Derry last year was not dissimilar and O’Rourke conceded that while they had to be right, they saw little merit in trying to peak for the round-robin stage.
“We have one game left in this entire championship and that’s Newbridge, that’s the way we approach it.
“But it’s the knockout, you don’t need to be peaking until the knockout stages because as long as you get enough points you’ll be through anyway.
“It’s trying to time your run a wee bit that once the knockout starts, you’re getting continually better in each game. And we were, we were better today than we were against Lavey last week, when we could easily have been knocked out.
“That’s the challenge now is to improve again for two weeks’ time and that’s a hard thing to do when an awful lot of people outside the camp are gonna be saying ‘Glen will win it’, this and that.
“That can seep into players as well. It’s about focussing and trying to improve our performance in the final, that’s what we’re gonna need.”
