Online Club Football Championship coverage brought to you by the Shannon Springs Hotel—home of The Old Lodge Gastropub.
*Kilmurry Ibrickane senior football manager, Enda Coughlan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
WITH NINE Clare SFC medals to his name as a player, Enda Coughlan bids to win his first as a manager in his debut season in charge of Kilmurry Ibrickane.
Unbeaten in all championship outings under Coughlan’s watch, to keep such a record intact by Sunday evening would be a dream scenario for the football fanatics involved with Kilmurry Ibrickane.
Ensuring their twenty five point semi-final win over Kildysart doesn’t become their ‘county final performance’ is the focus as they look to take down the champions in Cusack Park. “There’s slight pressure and worry every day you go out, the first round, second and third round was the same, quarter-final and semi-final the same, you hope you didn’t use all your luck the last day or the day before and you hope they can recreate the performance the last day. We worked on things, they came off, some days you work on things that don’t come off, these two weeks we’ve a good bit to work on and if they come off you never know and if they don’t we won’t win the game”.
Doonbeg kicking six points in succession to draw level saw Kilmurry Ibrickane pushed to the brink in the quarter-finals before Daryn Callinan sealed their progression with a late two pointer. The scare may not have been the best thing to happen the Bricks, Coughlan felt, “I’ve kept saying it, we created chances in every game, we took them against St Breckans, we didn’t take them in other games, we took them in the semi-final and that is the difference, if you take your chances then you have a chance, if you keep missing like we were for a few games then you’d always be under pressure, luckily we got over the line”.
Among the most pleasing aspects of their campaign has been the seamless transition to senior for the young guns of Conor Burke and Ajay Daly. “We have a couple of minors and Clare U20s so it is not like they were bad players, they have a lot of work done underage with the club and the county so you have to give them their chance, we all had to get their chance at some stage of getting thrown in, some days it works for you and others it doesn’t, I’d be happy with how they have progressed”.
Ambitions are always high in the parish of Kilmurry Ibrickane who are bidding to win their seventeenth senior title and first since 2020. “Every club when they set out their stall they dream of a county final every year, we’re no different, we did take it game by game but we’re delighted to be back in a final,” Enda outlined.
Based in Shannon Garda Station, the opposing camp has Seánie Buckley as coach, the duo were colleagues in Roxboro Road a decade ago. Enda praised the support from his boss, John McCabe and his fellow officers who are reliable to “slag or support” depending on the results.
A Clare senior footballer from 2004 to 2016, Enda’s last game for the county was also his first championship game in Croke Park when Kerry knocked Colm Collins’ side out in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
Retirement from the inter-county scene was short-lived, he returned in a different guise when joining Colm Collins’ management as a selector in 2018 and remaining involved until Collins stepped down in 2023. This provided “massive” learnings for his own foray into management. “Initially I went it as a runner to pass on the messages during matches but I was in there for years then, it was hard to get away from Colm (Collins) but I learned a massive amount from him, from all the coaches, the backroom team on how big it is and how hard it is to manage it, try to take bits from that and all the old Kilmurry Ibrickane and Clare managers I worked under, you try pick up the best bits and all you can do is try your best. I’ve been very lucky with the backroom team I’ve had, very lucky at home with Maeve and the two girls, all my family are very good, they’ll bring the young ladies to training when we’re training and at work with John McCabe my boss and all the lads I work with. I’ve been very lucky, I haven’t had much to do, the players have been excellent, the backroom team have done most of the work”.
How Collins operated offered plenty of nuggets for Coughlan. “The management I learned from Colm, he worked through it all and I saw how he managed, it is not just the players, it is the coaching side of it, the sports psychology, the analysis and all that, I learn a lot of management techniques through him and on the coaching on the field side I learned from all the coaches because you’re not in a county gig unless you’re very good. Evan (Talty) and Kieran (Ryan) look after the coaching side, they are very good at what they do so I don’t cut across them”.
Similarly every manager that he played under during a career which saw him captain Kilmurry Ibrickane to Munster club glory in their own ways have paved the way for his move into management. “I’ve taken bits off everyone, every manager has good parts and bad parts I’m sure I’m no different so you try take what you thought was good and try bring it to view, hopefully the players can see that, you would have to ask them whether it is good or bad, I can only do my best”.
Lining out with Kilmurry Ibrickane until last year, Enda admitted that he does miss playing.. “There is nothing like playing, you only worry about yourself and that is a good thing, nothing beats playing”. It will take time to gauge whether management or coaching is a close second. “I don’t really know, I haven’t done much coaching, it might be something I do in the future, management has happened, your own club is very tough because you know everyone involved and in fairness to the players they have all rowed in behind it, we’re only trying to do our best and the best for the club”.
As it stands, he has no future managerial or coaching positions pinpointed, “Not at the moment that I can think of to be honest, the way our job is going even managing Kilmurry Ibrickane in the future will be a struggle, we’ll see what Sunday throws up for us and I’ll decide after that, we’ll speak to a few people and see what happens”.
Moving from playing to managing can change the dynamic amongst now former teammates. His first-cousin Dermot Jnr is captain of the side bidding to lift the Jack Daly. Enda admitted that the friendship is altered due to being manager, “I had to take a bit of a step back but we chat away about different things, he is understanding that I have a job to do, he is no different to other players and if something has to be said then he will say it, that is not an issue, the same as anyone else, he understands and we’re very lucky in the club that there is no real age cliques, if you go for a drink afterwards you can end up drinking with the younger lads, Darren or Shane Hickey can end up with the younger lads, it’s not the older lads or younger lads going off on their own, we’re a very tight club, we only have a few pubs in the parish so you’re meeting all these people and their parents, you know every one of them anyway, everyone wants the best for the club and they all know that is what we’re trying to achieve”.
Telling any player that they are not in the first fifteen is a challenge, he said. One player to receive such news is Shane Hickey who won his first Clare SFC medal twenty two years ago. “He makes a lot of them decisions himself, he has been a great player for the club down through the years, he understands too and I spoke to him at the start of the year about this, we talk as well on a lot of the days so he is invaluable to the club and to this team. Around the group, he is very good so it is no harder than telling anyone else they are not playing but I would have a chat with him a good bit”.
His uncle Dermot Snr who is manager of the Clare U20s has been “very good” to bounce various ideas off. “All my family are very good, they will tell you the truth, that is the thing. Danny my father at home doesn’t lie, he tells it straight out, my mother helps with the food so she’s involved too, I’d be talking to Dermot a good bit, Kevin my other uncle on the Coughlan side, John is out in England, I’ve loads on the Moloney side too like Horse and plenty of people that will always help and I bounce a lot of ideas with them. Dermot is over the Clare U20s and is doing a good job, he has good ideas to work off”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Enda noted that the commitment of club managers is more than what would have been required of him during his six years as a Clare selector with regular tactic meetings over coffee with coach Evan Talty in Quilty. “It is more now, Colm done a lot of the work, I only had to go training three nights a week and we may have had video or a meeting. I’m very lucky that myself and Evan would be good friends, we do an awful lot over coffee on the days I’m off, Noel Dunning is with us and he has great experience in management, he helps me a lot, Kieran Ryan with Evan, Ian McInerney is very good, Lawrence Murray is over the S&C, we have a great backroom team, Marion Geary and all the lads helping with stats, they take a lot of the work off me”.
Noel Dunning who was manager to Roscommon’s U20s when Talty coached them to win the U20 Connacht championship in 2024 and a former London senior football manager is part of Coughlan’s backroom team. “He was manager of the U20s when Evan was coaching, they spoke a good bit, he was interested and you can’t pass up that expertise, he runs a couple of pubs in London so his management is good, I learned a lot off him too”.
Clare’s championship is always competitive despite the different dominant forces that emerge over the decades, Coughlan insisted. “In 2004 we got to an All-Ireland semi-final and that was new for us, we got beaten in the 2005 county final and didn’t get out of the group in 2006, even though Kilkee were better than us on the day in 2005 you don’t know could we have won two Munster clubs in a row but we didn’t, that is the way it goes. Every championship has been competitive, Éire Óg have won the last number and appear to be dominating but we’re there and we will give it our best. I wouldn’t put us ahead of anyone really, we were in the chasing pack when we started, Éire Óg were everyone’s favourites and rightly so, they are the champions and any other team would fancy their chances, we’re lucky enough that we are there”.
