*Kilmurry Ibrickane manager, David Egan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
DAVID EGAN has married into a staunch Éire Óg family and on Sunday he tows the line as the Kilmurry Ibrickane manager looking to stop the Ennis club from winning a third Jack Daly in four seasons.
There’s been no way of keeping a safe distance from Éire Óg supporters as on Sunday just gone, he and his wife Louise were joined by the entire Skelly family. “We’re christening our child on Sunday and the house is going to be full of Éire Óg people! Michael Skelly would be a big Éire Óg man, he ran the clubhouse for years, his daughter Louise is my partner, Louise is very supportive of everything I do but she will be wearing the red and white,” he said in advance of the christening.
No ban on talking about the county final was implemented. “It is a nice little sidetrack to it, it will be light hearted banter, I’ll have twenty or thirty down from Offaly who will surely back me up”.
A future role with Éire Óg is likely for Egan given that they are living in Ennis. “Maybe with the U10s when the two boys come along is as far as I’ll look, I’m not looking anywhere else other than Sunday week, I might not even be here after that,” he laughed.
Having relocated with Louise and their family, David was quickly snapped up by Kilmurry Ibrickane to come on board as their manager for 2024 after John Talty came across him while working on a windfarm in Quilty.
From speaking with John and then Chairman Michael Considine, Egan could feel the club were frustrated to have not reached a county final since 2021. “You could get a sense that they had unfilled their potential over the last couple of years, they felt they had let themselves down and let the club down, they wanted to make all those things right, if you’re coming in as an outsider maybe you can bring a fresh pair of eyes to that and marry into that, I think that is what I’ve done, we’ve brought in a few younger guys which has helped that process, we’re in a county final so things haven’t been all bad and we still feel that there is more in us, coming from a semi-final win against last year’s county champions and you’re back training with a lot of honest talking to be done that there is more in us”.
Gaelic football’s importance in Kilmurry Ibrickane is infectious, he said. “You walk in around here and you get a vibe, now obviously we’re preparing for a county final so the vibe is going to be good, you walk here in January and it is a similar type of vibe, it is a community mad about football, if we weren’t where we were at the moment it would be deemed a failure around here and you get the vibe when you walk in around here early days that success is not mandatory because mandatory is too harsh a word but it is almost expected that you are ensuring you are doing things right to get lads this far, that comes from the players never mind the supporters and the community, they are really driven and they want to be successful”.
This drive has not brought a sense of pressure for David. “You can let it pressurise you or you can marry into it, I’ve tried to marry into it, I’ve came in here with three intermediate medals in Offaly, fair enough I’ve played inter-county but some of the guys in the dressing room here have nine senior championship medals, one thing about them is they don’t go around wearing them around their necks, they want number ten so they marry into you and you marry into them, we’re a good partnership, I expect high standards and we expect them as well so we work well together”.
Big day experience is a massive weapon in their armoury. “They are not big headed about it which is what I like about them, it’s not like ‘listen to me I’ve nine county medals’ and it is more ‘can we do it this way, can we do it that way’, the game has changed since a lot of them boys won their medals anyway, what they were doing back then won’t necessarily win you something now anyway, there’s a big focus on restarts now which is part of the modern era of the football, they are marrying into what we are doing”.
He told The Clare Echo, “My strength is that I bring energy to the table, if I’m bringing the energy then hopefully that is rubbing off on them, they have the football, they have loads of football around here, we’ve a panel and have used thirty eight players between Cusack Cup and championship, twenty two in the championship, there’s guys going to be in the stand next Sunday that played Cusack Cup games that can’t make our thirty. There is a serious thirst for football around here and a serious depth of talent. The year has gone in stages for us, we got the Clare U20s back who brought a new level of energy to it, then the Clare seniors came back and brought another level of energy to it, we’d guys travelling and coinciding with Aidan (McCarthy) coming back from the All-Ireland hurling victory which brought another level of energy to it, it has all propelled us to where we are now, since the knockout stages came I’ve seen the real Kilmurry Ibrickane to be honest. The four weeks leading into that Miltown Malbay match was a different level of preparation, different level of training and focus, I’m hoping to see another level before the county final”.
What does the real Kilmurry Ibrickane look like, he is asked. “The real Kilmurry Ibrickane from my eyes from where I’m sitting is a very hungry bunch of lads that are looking and striving for improvements, looking to get better, we work well together in that it is not me telling them this is what you need to do, it is them coming to me and me coming to them, they feel we can do this and I feel we can do this, we gel together and get it done. It’s been working really well, we’ve a great level of experience in the dressing room, there’s lads with nine championship medals in our dressing room, there’s not too many teams in Clare who can say that, success leaves clues, I drill into them as much as they are drilling into me and it is a two-way partnership.
“We’ve a very good management team here, Gary Sexton is an outstanding strength and conditioning guy, we haven’t had a whole lot of injuries this year, Evan Talty who was with the Dublin ladies and Roscommon U20s comes in and helps out with the coaching, a very experienced guy, everyone feeds off each other. We’ve a minor team in a county final and a ladies team in a county final, we all train on Tuesday nights, the girls are buzzing coming off the field and are really enjoying their football, our lads are rubbing off that going out on the grass, the community vibe has a big buy-in which I like about the place, hopefully we all keep rubbing off each other and get some silverware back here”.
Clare’s club scene has been “very competitive,” maintained David. “It is a very competitive county for football, it would be wrong of me to say I’m surprised with the thirst for football in the county because Clare has been a Division 2 for so long that there had to be football down here, the quality definitely didn’t shock me because I’ve been watching club games but going to games, seeing the crowds at games and the energy that surrounds it has probably surprised me a bit, I remember we played Miltown Malbay in a league match, I know we’re very close rivals but the stands here in Quilty and the far side there was maybe 1000 people at a league game which was unheard of in Cork where I coached and very much unheard of in Offaly where I played so there is a great thirst for football here. The championship structure is not bad, I actually like it, everyone has a reasonable chance of getting to a quarter-final and if you slip up you are still under pressure to stay in the championship so it keeps football alive, most teams then are probably playing football until the end of September which is good. In terms of quality, you only have to look at what will be out on the field for Sunday’s county final, if you picked a county team of what is going to be in Cusack Park on Sunday, you’re looking at definitely a high end Division 3 team without all the other clubs attached to it so there’s plenty football in Clare”.
Two points separated Kilmurry Ibrickane when they fell to their only loss of this year’s championship against Éire Óg at the start of August. Egan responded “not being arrogant but yes” when asked if he expected to be facing Paul Madden’s side again. “I felt even before we played that game that if we were to win a championship then we’d have to cross that path twice, I think I was right in my thinking in that the two best panels in Clare have arrived at the stage. I certainly don’t think it will be along the same lines as that game we played in the first round, it was pure shadow boxing in my eyes and that both teams stood off each other, I’m expecting both teams to go hammer and tongs at each other, I can’t separate them football wise, it is energy, workrate, determination, want and all the clichés, the conditions will all play a factor, the big one thing I think is going to be who is the most disciplined team on the day, both teams have very good freetakers”.
Since then, the Bricks are in a much healthier place with Keelan Sexton getting a lot of game time under his belt plus the returns of Aidan McCarthy and Ciaran Morrissey from injury and Darren Hickey regaining his place in the first fifteen. The big caveat to all of that is the fractured foot sustained by captain Dermot Coughlan. “Dermot is a bit of an upset for us, I’m not medical and I’m not trying to play games so if Dermot is fit Dermot plays, if Dermot is not fit then Dermot won’t play, we still have a big question mark over that, he is the only one out of a panel of thirty four that we can’t call upon today which is a good sign. If you look at our panel, we’ve Clare U20s coming on as subs, Ciaran Morrissey who was a county panellist last year only came on as a sub against Cratloe, them boys don’t want to be coming on as subs in the county final, the next two weeks will be helter skelter”.
Egan along with Kevin Sexton and Vincent Talty will make the call on Coughlan this Thursday. “If Dermot is fit the Thursday night before then he starts, that is my opinion, if Dermot is not fit then I can’t start him. I’d love for the chap to be fit because he lives and breathes football, he lives and breathes Kilmurry Ibrickane too, I’d love if he gets there and he won’t let anyone down if he does”.
Prior to Kilmurry Ibrickane, Egan was in charge St Michael’s based in Blackrock for three years where he led them to the top flight in Cork for the first time since 2006. The quality he has witnessed weekly in Páirc Naomh Mhuire in Quilty on a weekly basis is as good as what’s in the province, he maintained. “I coached St Michael’s down in Cork, we were a Senior B team, I was with them for one season at senior and they stayed up and they stayed up again this year which is great for the young lads coming on, if you look at what is at the top tier with Nemo Rangers and Castlehaven in the final this year if Nemo or Castlehaven walked in here I wouldn’t be afraid of them”.
