By Gerard Mulreaney (@gerardmulreaney)
Limerick FC will be represented in the Continental Tyres Women’s National League for the first time, when the season kicks-off this Sunday, as they host Kilkenny United in the Markets Field at 2pm.
I caught up with their new manager Dave Rooney ahead of the campaign to talk about his own background in the game, their preparations, players and ambitions for the new entrants to the league.
The one thing Limerick won’t lack is coaching experience, as Dave as over 20 years experience at all levels, including all levels of the women’s game. Dave told me, “I’m coaching nearly 20 years. Based in Nenagh, North Tipperary. I’ve worked with the local team Nenagh FC, and the North Tipperary squads in Kennedy cups. My own girls, as they were coming up through the soccer ranks, that’s when I got really stuck in with the girls. I got involved with the Irish U-15 squad about 5 years ago, and since then I’ve been coaching the Irish U-15’s and helping with the 16’s. That led on to different things, now I’m working with Ireland head-coach Colin Bell with the home-based squad up in Dublin, and also I was away in Taipei with the Irish Women’s University team.”
The FAI announced that Limerick would be the eighth team in the league at the end of January, so there’s been lots of work to catch up on ahead of the new campaign, and pre-season preparations took time to organise. Rooney said, “Look we were kind of up against it from the start, we started very late. They only announced the team the day before the fixtures came out. Everybody else would’ve been back 2 or 3 weeks before that. I know the likes of Galway stayed going through the winter.”
“We found it very hard to pick up players. I knew of a lot of players in around the league that would have been playing with the likes of Galway and Cork and local teams and they’d already gone and signed, so we found it very hard to pick it up and get going. They probably left it too late to announce, but look we’ve settled down now, we’ve a squad in place and we’re working away. Apart from the destruction last week with the snow preparations have gone well.”
Limerick played a friendly with Galway a couple of weeks ago, and while Galway won the game the new Limerick manager was pleased with how his side coped throughout the game, “The Galway game went well, much better than expected. Galway would’ve been a couple of months fitness-wise ahead of us, so I was worried in that respect, but we did ok. I had to look at a few players in the game who we still weren’t sure about.”
“We went into the game weak enough, with the starting eleven, but once we got everyone on the pitch we were close enough. It was 2-1 going into the last couple of minutes and we decided to try and chase the game and get a draw. It finished 3-1 in the end but we were well in the game. Galway probably had much better technical players but we matched them for work rate and surprisingly we matched them for physical fitness so I’m happy about that.”
Limerick FC also confirmed during the week that the club were working in tandem with LEDP (Limerick Enterprise Development Partnership) and Sporting Limerick to provide the best possible facilities for ladies football in the mid west, and that all their games would take place at the Markets Field.
When Dave (pictured above) accepted the Limerick position he had already committed to a goalkeeping role in the League of Ireland with Galway United for the 2018 season, and as he told me, it’s a commitment he’s going to stick to, “At the start of the year I took up a role with Galway United with their men’s team. I made a commitment to Galway, I’m goalkeeping coach there. The Limerick job came up a couple of weeks after that, but I’d already made a commitment Galway. At the moment I’m doing both, it’s a commitment I won’t break until they get someone in. I’m working with the Women’s team on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and with Galway Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”
It’s difficult trying to manage both of these roles, especially now with the commitment needed at the top level of the women’s game, but Dave’s got to be commended for sticking to his commitment.
Regarding players for their inaugural season, Dave has brought in plenty of experience, including International experience. Dave runs through the squad, “Therese Hartley will captain the squad, she played with Galway last year. Megan Carroll also played with Galway. Megan Kelleher would have been with Cork last year. Sylvia Gee, has probably 20 years experience, she’s a huge part of the squad. Marie Curtin would be a local Limerick girl, she played International football back in the day. She basically dropped off the scene due to work commitments.”
“We have a lot of girls like that, who couldn’t commit to either Cork or Galway and dropped into junior football. Marie is well up to the level. Samantha McCarthy would have played back in Sue Ronan’s day, and has International experience as well. We also have a lot of young players, Tara Mannix would be one of the best central defenders in the country for her age before she got injured, a bad cruciate injury, she’s coming back from that. I think she’ll make into an International player in years to come. She’ll be a big player for us. Some others coming up from junior football that probably haven’t got the chance as yet, but we feel they could be good enough to play at this level. They’ll get the chance at Limerick.”
As for season ambitions, Dave knows how difficult this year will be, and he doesn’t want to set targets. He said, “What we said to the girls is that we’ll try and finish as high as we can. Look, we’re not going to set unrealistic targets. There’s teams who are going to have better players technically, without a doubt, but what I said to them is we’ll be the hardest working team in the league, we want to be the fittest team in the league.”
As mentioned before Limerick won’t lack coaching experience, “Coaching-wise I’ve an excellent back-room team with me. I’ve Mike McCarthy who has a background in junior football and has worked with Limerick Ladies GAA, and I’ve also brought in former Lifford Ladies manager Irene Hehir as Assistant manager. There won’t be a better coached team in the league, and that’s not me blowing my own trumpet but I’m very very confident with the staff we have. We’ll be tough to break down, tough to score against. Obviously there’ll be games where teams are better than us and we might lose the run of ourselves but we know that.”
Dave is also hoping of a good run cup, “You look at last season’s cup final, two teams who were 5th and 6th in the league, so that’s probably an ambition to get a run in the cup. We’ll be taking that competition very seriously while others might be using it to develop players. If we can get a good cup run and finish as high as we can in the league then I’ll be happy. The first year is always going to be hard, bringing in new players, but I think we’ll be ok going forward.”
With standards rising all the time in the women’s game how does he feel about the state of the game in Ireland, “The standard of the Women’s game here is absolutely flying at he moment. In fairness to Colin Bell, since he came in he’s given everyone a chance. He’s brought 15 and 16 year olds into the first-team, he’s also looking after the U-17’s so he can keep a close eye on the youngsters coming through. There’s fantastic talent coming through at a young age. We’re now competing at U-17 and U-19 level. They’ve got regional centres all around the country, so they’ll all help. The pathway is there now.”
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