Thursday night in the Glendalough Hotel and a big event is just about to take place. Wicklow GAA are going to unveil a new €300,000 annual sponsorship.
It is a big deal and Jack Chambers, Minister of State at the Department of Sport is here as well as GAA president Larry McCarthy and Niall Molloy, CEO of Echelon Data Centres and executive chair of construction firm Beakonshaw, the sponsors.
Also in attendance is Oisín McConville, Wicklow’s new football manager, all the way from the archdiocese of Armagh to this site of ancient monasticism.
“It’s not exactly on my doorstep,” he cheerfully acknowledges.
The approach to the Armagh and Crossmaglen All-Ireland winner, from the county wasn’t out of the blue. Wicklow had previously asked him but he felt his family was too young. This time around, he was interested.
He raises the walloping county champions St Patrick’s were on the receiving end of last weekend against Palatine but dismisses it as “a blip”. In general, he believes the standard of football in Wicklow is good.
“There are six or seven senior teams that could hold their own in most counties so the quality is there but in a county like Wicklow you have to look beyond the senior to intermediate and junior players. You’re looking out for physicality, body shape and composition, how they perform in games under pressure.”
He’s aware that time is not on his side in terms of taking all these factors into account and points out that he won’t get a chance to run the rule over players until the O’Byrne Cup starts in January.
The league is seven matches in nine weeks and the championship has never been as compressed. He doubts that a panel of 27 will be sufficient to cope with even a routine run of injuries and knocks.
For many teams in the lower divisions the league has been the main competition. He largely shares that view of the world.
“There’s no doubt. I did a few interviews with different managers over lockdown, including a lot of Division Three and Four managers. For most of them, as soon as the league was over, the season was over — particularly in the context of the knock-out championship format.
“Promotion is a priority but the landscape has changed a bit with the Tailteann Cup giving something tangible to aim at in championship. You’re not just looking at a game or two in the Leinster championship and a backdoor where you don’t know who you’d come up against.
“You’re playing teams more or less at your own level. But promotion first, followed by as good a run in Leinster as we can and then trying to win the Tailteann Cup. Whether that’s do-able right now, I’m not sure but it has to be a tangible aim.”
Bearing mute witness to this is a picture on the hotel reception wall, which shows Mick O’Dwyer’s 2007 team, winners of the Tommy Murphy Cup, one of the Tailteann’s predecessors.
The evening’s main event is he believes of vital significance.
“Resources and access to sponsorship is vital these days. For companies to come in and show an interest like this in your county makes everyone sit up and take notice. That includes players because they want something that’s sustainable, not just managers coming and going — getting promoted one year and relegated the next.”
Alan Smullen, the county board treasurer, outlines the commercial deal.
“As part of a five-year deal, the county ground in Aughrim will be named Echelon Park, Aughrim. Beakonshaw’s name and logo will appear on the sleeves of the jerseys at senior level and on the front of jerseys for the development teams.
“The Garden County Academy will be renamed the Echelon Centre of Excellence.
“We’ve had mixed success the past couple of years: a couple of good minor teams in football and a couple of good Celtic Challenge teams in hurling. We have the structure but this is going to enable us to take it to the next level.”
Wicklow had been talking with the two companies as far back as 2019 but the eruption of Covid halted that. Eventually the conversations resumed and the county had by then consulted widely to see what worked in other counties — and what didn’t.
“We put the plan to them and we got it over the line very quickly.”
McConville recognises the imperatives involved. His club, Crossmaglen Rangers organise their under-age structures primarily to produce senior players.
“Winning isn’t the job of under-age,” he says. “It’s to develop players that will some day play for Wicklow. Playing the same way up the grades might sound ambitious but even if it’s just three simple things that we want everyone to be able to execute as a senior — that’s something that can be built on.”
