*Mike Moloney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
MIKE MOLONEY has stepped down as manager of Tulla Utd after five seasons in charge.
Moloney has spearheaded the East Clare club’s rise from the First Division to becoming one of the top four clubs in the county with a Clare Cup final and two semi-final appearances in this spell while also reaching the last sixteen of the FAI Junior Cup.
Barry Murphy will succeed him as Tulla Utd boss for a second stint as manager in a set-up which also includes James Carrig as head coach, Owen Kilker as goalkeeper coach, Jason McCarthy (S&C), Keith Hassett (medical) and Mike O’Connor (video analysis).
From avoiding a relegation play-off in 2022/23, Tulla have gone from strength to strength, finishing sixth in the Premier Division in 23/24, joint third in 24/25 and most recently fourth in the top tier for 25/26.
In his first interview since bowing out as manager, Moloney told The Clare Echo that the team needed a fresh voice in the dressing room. “I’ve been thinking about it since the start of the season, I’ve six years done and five seasons, one of those was during COVID, I felt that after that period of time there was some lads with me for six years and a group of six lads who have had me as their manager since U12s so it was time for them to have a new voice and a different approach. I announced to the club in the middle of May in order to give them a bit of a heads-up and an opportunity to look around for a replacement”.
With Tulla still involved in the FAI Junior Cup, their next outing is in August against Castlebar Celtic, Mike admitted it was tricky to step aside with national honours still up for grabs. “It was a little but if you take it, it will be a lovely situation for Barry Murphy who is coming in to take over the team, it is a great way to prepare, you’d be doing pre-season and wouldn’t normally have that incentive, it wasn’t a problem for me stepping away, I felt the end of the CDSL season was a natural end. It is the players who have got us to the last sixteen of the FAI, they will all be going forward, seeing it out and hopefully going further. I’m looking forward to the Castlebar game myself and seeing how the lads get on”.
Seeing Tulla emerge as a force in the county is a source of pride for Moloney. “I came in as manager in July 2020 in the middle of COVID, at the time the 2019/20 season was suspended, we were in the bottom half of the First Division, the clubs were being asked whether or not to continue with that season or whether we wanted it declared null and void, I was very much of the view that we should take our medicine whatever it was. As it turned out, Kildysart folded at the time which meant we avoided a play-off to be relegated to the Second Division, then there was no season the following season which was difficult as you were in there but couldn’t do anything with social distancing and all that stuff which is nearly a distant memory, the following season which would have been 2021/22 we got promoted in second place with Coole FC from the First Division, we had a big challenge for the first two seasons after we came up because the step-up is huge as everybody knows.
“It has been great to see the progress we have made with a very young group of players, my policy was very much that we would trust the players that have come up from our underage, the 23 players in our squad this season just past were all Tulla Utd players from schoolboy level except Ayoub Aguerram who has never played with any other team in Ireland bar Tulla. I took over in 2020 feeling we weren’t showing what was being produced from underage and maybe there was a bit of a disconnect with what was in our underage and our adult team, I really wanted to see the group of players that I had in particular go into a really solid adult set-up, I also wanted to see the club for the efforts we were putting into coaching players that we could perform better at adult level, I felt we were underperforming for all the work that was being put in, to see us know in the top four and the last sixteen of the FAI having got to a Cup final and lost narrowly, we’ve been in two Cup semi-finals, I think we are where we should be. I think the right person is taking over in Barry Murphy,” he added.
Clubs that get promoted to the Premier Division will take time to adapt to the top tier and the longer they can stay together and avoid dropping down, the stronger the force they will become, Mike maintained. “Players need the experience of playing at that level where every game every week is a difficult game, everyone knows it is difficult to play Newmarket Celtic, Avenue Utd, Bridge Utd and Shannon Town but nobody can tell me it is easy to go over to Kilrush in November or December and try get points over there or the teams that come up every season from the First Division who all come up on a bounce. Lads who were aged eighteen to twenty, the likes of Dara Ryan, Diarmuid Molloy, Fiachra Hale, Seán Withycombe who I had underage, they needed a few seasons to get to that level but I knew they had the ability to do it, you need to give them the time, the alternative is you go shopping for players, they come in and replace those lads, they never get the chance to realise the potential they have, if you give them the opportunity and some of that means tough defeats, we lost plenty of games in our first two seasons back in the Premier Division but it didn’t demoralise lads because we knew we were headed in a particular direction. With that experience under their belt and the ability they have and the next wave that came after them that had Adam Kilker, Glen McNamara, Callum Casey, Frankie O’Sullivan, Darragh Baker the ability that those lads have and are bringing coming behind the older fellas has meant we can now compete with Avenue Utd and Newmarket Celtic without having made the breakthrough and winning an elusive trophy, that is the next step and the challenge for Barry”.
Promoted following the 2021/22 alongside Coole FC, Tulla have held their own while the Gort club have gone not alone dropped out of the Premier Division while also suffering relegation from the First Division. Similarly, Inch Crusaders and Kilkishen Celtic both folded after stints in the top tier. “Coole came up six points ahead of us, they beat us in the two games in the First Division to get promoted ahead of us, when you do get up there it is a tough gig to stay up, those first couple of seasons were all about survival for us, you often see teams that come up and they don’t just go down a division, they go down two divisions because it can demoralise them so much that they might end up with only a handful of points, we’ve seen Kilkishen Celtic fall away, Inch Crusaders fall away for various different reasons, Lifford AFC one of the oldest clubs in the Clare District Soccer League not being able to see out this season, for me the only way that you can get that solidity and build that base is from your underage, that is what we have, that is what Newmarket, Avenue and Bridge have. Otherwise you are relying on being able to go out, pick up the phone and tempt fellas away from the clubs that they are at, I have no interest in doing that, if you win one trophy having come up from underage where you have been playing with your friends all the time then that trophy is worth more to you than all the medals you might win moving from one club to another, in my opinion”.
During his time in charge of Tulla, Moloney signed very few outside players with Jashar Aliu joining from Newmarket Celtic before leaving for Fair Green while Billy McNamara also signed for Tulla from Newmarket. “Billy Mc played underage with Tulla until he left to go play for Ballynanty and then Newmarket Celtic, I was always interested in getting him back, Jashar was the same age group as Seánie Withycombe, Jack McSweeney, Diarmuid Molloy so all the lads knew him really well, the other players I went after some of whom decided not to join the club were those who had left Tulla to go elsewhere and I was looking to bring back again. For me, loyalty to the club is really important, if you get lads that are loyal then you can rely on them when things aren’t going well to stay with you, players haven’t gone away because we’ve had a couple of tough seasons, they stayed with it on the basis that they have been with the club since they have been five or six years old. Barry could take a different approach, he might decide to go out and get players from outside to strengthen us to the point that we are able to get over the line, my point of view and my policy was to stick with the underage, trust the underage, we built the loyalty that they have and if we do win the trophy the satisfaction we’ll get from knowing a lad that has been with us since he was five or six and won a trophy with us as a nineteen or twenty year old I don’t think you can buy that”.
This season there was more rotation for Tulla’s first eleven, a tactic which aided development but may have led to dropping points in big games. “There is an element that if you keep playing the same players week after week then the gap that is going to develop between squad players and one to fourteen, I would have been giving everybody their chance, some more than others, the lads that came up from last year’s Youths were of such a good standard that they were able to go straight into the team, you always have the situation that for the first six or eight weeks you will be down lads that are hurling so it gives lads a great opportunity to step in for the League Cup and the early games of the season and get that experience under their belt so you needed twenty three players all capable of doing it and the rotation was only on the basis that they were good enough and where we got injuries”.
On how far Tulla are from claiming one of the big trophies in Clare soccer, Mike commented, “It is very hard to say, everybody starts at the bottom of the hill every season, you can’t afford to drop a handful of points if you are going to win the league. Newmarket Celtic went this season with fourteen wins and two draws, one of those was against us, you have to be incredibly consistent. Eoin Hayes said before ‘you have to beat all the teams that you should be beating and then it is those matches against the top clubs that will decide whether you win the league or not’ but if you don’t win the other games you never get the opportunity and the big games aren’t big games anymore. I think we’re close, it will demand the commitment from the players to get that extra little piece.
“I’ve moved on but Barry has the experience of managing at Premier Division level before, he had the really talented 2007 group that came through last season so they are really familiar with him, Barry is a really good man manager, James Carrig is staying on as coach, Owen Kilker is a brilliant goalkeeper coach and is staying on, Keith Hassett is staying on as physio, Michael O’Connor is staying on doing video analysis and he had a transformational affect on our preparation in taking clips from games and doing video analysis every week. Barry has brought in Jason McCarthy on the strength and conditioning side which can only for young players where S&C is such a huge thing when you’re coming up against the likes of Dylan Casey, Conor Mullen, fully formed big lads so the physical piece is really important.
“If you take how close we got, we were in the Cup final in 2025 and lost to an eighty second minute goal, it is what it is but this season we were going into additional time of the quarter-final of the Clare Cup 1-0 and the game finished how it did, I feel we are in that position where the lads have the experience of being up at the top and let nobody be in any doubt, there is way more pressure trying to win a game at the bottom of the table where you need points to stay up rather than trying to win games at the top when you’re in contention for something, the lads are used to the positive pressure from the last two seasons. Getting a chance to play Castlebar Celtic at the start of next season is huge, they are a team going into the third tier in the League of Ireland, the experience from that and the five wins in the FAI like playing Hibs below in Waterford, they are only second to Villa who won the Munster Junior Cup, playing teams like Black Forge with experienced lads around the block in Dublin, all that experience is building to the point where we should be able to compete on an equal footing with Avenue, Newmarket, Bridge and Shannon Town, that is the challenge for the club for the season ahead”.
Time commitments involved in junior soccer have increased, notably on the analysis side with Mike travelling to Dublin and Waterford to watch their opponents prior to meeting in the FAI Junior Cup. “Myself and my wife Maura have plans now for August and September that we normally couldn’t make. For me, that is part of the game, I went down to see Hibs in the previous round, myself and Maura went down for the weekend, we stayed down, I went to see the match and she went off and did something else. Any of that information is valuable, you may pick up even the smallest thing, it also gives the players great confidence feeling that they know information about the opposition, you’re able to bring back a few clips, it’s not like the Southampton guy there in the bushes but you are bringing back some clips from the game to say this is what they’re doing on corners, this is where they have a weakness, being able to show that to players on the week of a game gives them tremendous confidence that they know something the opposition don’t”.
Bringing in Newmarket-on-Fergus native James Carrig as coach in his final season was with one eye towards a succession plan, Mike admitted. “Ideally we would have James in at the start of the season but he had personal issues. He has a history with the club, he has a real grá for Tulla Utd, he is a good coach, he has great managerial experience from the hurling with Crusheen and Newmarket-on-Fergus, the players really get on well with him. Number one, he was coming in to support me and number two I felt he would give that continuity going into the following season if I did step away. I would have always seen Barry as the ideal replacement because of the experience and relationship he has with the players, the two of them working together I think the club have done really well to get two lads with their experience to head it up, I’d be very confident that they will keep making that progress and I’ll be watching with great satisfaction if they get the trophy they deserve. If I do have regrets stepping away it’s that Dara Ryan who has captained us for the last number of seasons and I hope will be continuing in the role, is that he didn’t get a chance to lift a trophy at the end of this season just gone or the previous one, what a great lad, a real leader, real solid fella, I’d love to see all the lads but as the guy that has led all the players and a young fella who was captaining us from the age of 19, it would give me massive satisfaction to see him pick up a trophy this season coming or the seasons ahead”.
Distinctive with his blue clipboard on the sideline, Mike’s exit will be welcomed by some Clare referees with whom he had run-ins down through the years. “I don’t know if there’s any manager whether it is Walla or David Russell, there’s very few of us who don’t give opinions, I’ve had a fractious relationship with some of the referees but some of them I get on great with, I might meet them away from games and we get on fine, you can meet someone at the sideline of a pitch whatever manager and their personality is different to the one you meet at work or in their spare time. The relationship with referees, I don’t think they take it too seriously and it runs off them like water off a duck”.
There is no quick fix to help clubs hold their own in the Premier Division, he said. “I don’t think there’s any easy fixes, for me it is creating that base so having an underage that means a few players leaving for one reason or another doesn’t undermine your whole season. The clubs that have a strong underage, Fern Celtic are coming up and have a good underage structure with good people with them for a long time, they will make a good fist of being able to stay in the Premier Division. Shannon Hibs have good underage and good facilities, Moher Celtic again have good underage and great lads in the two Hanrahans, you’d like to think those three teams can make a good fist of it. A gap has developed over the last two seasons but better a gap between four and the rest than a gap between two and the rest. I do think the league have to bite the bullet on summer soccer, we need to go to a summer season, the season is way too long, it is way too much to expect teams to go into pre-season in the middle of July and not finish till the first week of June, we need a situation where players get proper time off so like two to three months, a league starting at the end of February and ending in October or the start of November particularly when fixtures set for that period of November, December, January and February knowing in your heart and soul that half of them won’t be played. You’re asking young lads from 19 to 21 who have a social life not to be going out on a Saturday night for a game at 11am on Sunday morning that has a less than fifty percent chance of going ahead, playing games in June, July and August is what I’d favour with a mid-season break from the end of July to the end of August to give the hurlers an opportunity to go play their championship without feeling the pressure of trying to straddle the two sports, it gives them time off and the chance to go play, half of the teams after the group stages in football and hurling are out and those fellas can come back, the other lads can go on and finish out their championship. The current situation that we have where the season goes on for ten or eleven months, I don’t see how you can ask players, managers or administrators for that commitment”.
Bringing in such a move would leave clubs without any player that decides to do a J1. “I think that is something you have to accept, young lads will want to go and experience the world so they might go to Australia for a year or the US, no more than anything you have to have a squad deep enough to cope with that, you miss out on one season but you will be back again so I think it makes sense that you give players the scope to go off and do what they have to do, they will be back again. You can see the way the FAI have gone by aligning the FAI Junior Cup with the summer calendar, the clubs like Newmarket, Avenue, Bridge and ourselves want to get to the latter stages of the FAI then we have to realise we’re at a significant disadvantage by not playing summer soccer, in Tulla’s case Castlebar Celtic are playing summer soccer in Mayo, they will be playing competitive games right the way through July so it is a difficult one to compete with that when taking a six week break in that period”.
Moloney will stay involved with Tulla Utd but does not intend to have a coaching role this season. “There will be plenty of other things to do in the club, there’s always something to do there whether it is on administrative side or whether it is on the coaching side, just because you’re not there with the high-profile gig doesn’t mean there’s not other work to be done. I see myself taking a break for a while and then see what happens next, I’m looking forward to seeing how the lads go and progress, it will be nice to have the pressure off and watch from the sideline”.
He paid tribute to all involved with the East Clare for their backing over his time in charge. “I’ve got great support from the club particularly Mike Hoey, Denis Corry, Kevin Perrill, we’ve such a strong club with work put in behind the scenes. When you are A team manager then you’re the person out front and getting whatever bit of glory or profile might be there but people doing the real work are the administrators and officers. There is great work being done by the Clare league, it is hard enough to get volunteers to take positions in clubs that they have a real affinity with but to take a position where there is nothing for it or no kudos so the work that Donal Magee, the great work of David O’Grady this season, those lads deserve great credit, the league is in a good place when you see how we compete in the FAI and there is genuine three or four clubs in Clare that could go to the semi-finals of the Munster Junior or the last eight of the FAI, that reflects well on the league but obviously improvements have to be made on the facilities side and that is where we are behind a lot of other counties and other leagues, they’re fine in Tulla, Newmarket, the Bridge and Avenue but certainly in terms of astro pitches and being able to play all-year round we’re a long way behind the facilities in place. Those that have the funding, the Government, those people need to step up and realise soccer is just as important and there is probably more people playing the sport countrywide than playing any other sport, there’s more people playing soccer in Kilkenny than GAA and I would say it is similar for Clare, they need the facilities and I’d like to see that area improved”.
