McEntee says that longer pre-season is needed for AFL
TONY McENTEE, Sligo’s Senior Gaelic football team manager, would like at least six weeks to prepare his team for this year’s Allianz Football League.
The former Armagh star said that a shorter pre-season, most likely just four weeks, could see a greater number of injuries for inter-county squads throughout the country.
The current Level 5 restrictions aren’t due to end until March 5. If the GAA sanctions collective intercounty (outdoor) training at this stage then it is expected that the Allianz Football League will have to be pushed back until early April.
This would give Sligo around a month to get ready for their Division Four North games against Antrim, Leitrim and Louth. The top two in this three-team section qualify for the Division Four semi-finals. Antrim and Louth also have new managers, both from Tyrone. Ex-Tyrone player Enda McGinley is now in charge of Antrim and McGinley’s former boss at Tyrone, the legendary Mickey Harte, is at the helm of Louth.
Leitrim’s manager is Terry Hyland, a Cavan native who has been with Sligo’s neighbours in 2019 and 2020. Accepting that four weeks would be “just enough” to prepare for his managerial debut as Paul Taylor’s successor, McEntee said that he and the management team are using technology to keep in touch with the
SLIGO BOSS: Tony McEntee.
squad via remote sessions.
“Zoom is fine. It allows us to engage, to communicate with the team and it is face-to-face in some aspects.”
“It is something, but it’s not ideal,” said McEntee, who was speaking to RTÉ Radio 1’s Saturday Sport. “Realistically, you would like six weeks. Players are doing weights and various training programmes at home, so it is not a fitness thing.” McEntee, an All-Ireland winner with both Armagh and Crossmaglen Rangers, continued: “It is the high intensity part to it. That is the twisting and turning, the ball work under pressure and the contact they are going to take.”
“While I think players will be ready in four weeks, we are more likely then to have more injuries in the early part of the Allianz Football League. That will put teams under pressure.”
“Six weeks would be ideal, but four weeks will just see us blow a lot of cobwebs off.”
McEntee, who was part of the Mayo backroom teams under manager Stephen Rochford that experienced getting to All-Ireland finals in 2016 and 2017, maintained that in a ‘normal’ year he would expect a highly competitive Division Four.
“But in the year that’s in it, it [Division Four] is completely up in the air.”
“The only team that has a consistency and structure is Leitrim and they’ll be able to develop something based on what they’ve done last year and the year before under Terry [Hyland].”
“For myself, Enda [McGinley] and Mickey [Harte], we will have to adopt to what the players are familiar with rather than putting our own stamp on things because of the short window we’ll have with them,” he added. McEntee, who maintained that Sligo are in the “difficult” side of the AFL’s fourth tier, said that getting out of Division Four is a priority.