Emma Duffy Reports from Croke Park

LIFE AFTER MICK Bohan is underway for the Dublin ladies football team, with the transition a pretty seamless one so far.

From the outside looking in, though, it will take some getting used to.

After eight years and five All-Ireland titles, Bohan will no longer be on the sideline.

The Clontarf clubman took charge of his native county for the second time in 2017, and led the Jackies from three All-Ireland final defeats to four titles in-a-row.

Under his watch, Dublin lifted the Brendan Martin Cup in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2023, the Division 1 league crown in 2018 and 2021, and every Leinster title on offer.

Having “changed the face of Dublin Ladies,” as Carla Rowe says, the supremo stepped down in late November. Paul Casey and Derek Murray — both members of Bohan’s backroom team — took the reins just before Christmas.

Rowe speaks positively of the succession, but first, the captain is keen to pay a warm tribute to her long-time manager Bohan.

“Legacy is what I think should follow him around,” she says. “For me, he changed the face of Dublin Ladies.

“With Mick, when he came in, he came in from the men’s side, but there was no step in between the men and the women. What the men had, that was the expectation for the ladies – in my eyes I think it was one of the first set-ups to have that, there was no reason for us not to have what our counterparts had. That was a huge thing.

“Then obviously in terms of the game and personally, what he has done for me as a player and off the field and everything, you couldn’t ask for anything more.

“It is so fantastic then to have the two lads who worked with him and who picked up so much from him over the last couple of years, now to have them step in, bringing new energy and new players, it is the best of both worlds for us.

“We’ve got that continuation but we’ve also got that freshness — it really is the best of both worlds.”

While former Dublin footballers Casey and Murray fill the void left by Bohan, the former boss has been keeping a low profile. He previously held coaching roles with the Dublin and Clare men’s senior footballers, with a GAA return possible in the future. 

Rowe believes he could manage a men’s inter-county team. “I think his CV does more than enough to get him any job across the country. Whether that’s for Mick or not, I don’t know – I think he might want a bit of downtime at this point.”

For sharpshooter Rowe, it’s all ramping up again. Dublin are looking to bounce back from a disappointing 2024, in which their All-Ireland defence was ended by Galway at the quarter-final stage. It followed another painful early exit in 2022.

“Last year was probably the most hurt I have been and now makes me the most motivated,” Rowe says, “and a lot of girls in the dressing-room are the same.

“We just feel that we didn’t do ourselves justice. You can go out and hold your head high if you perform, but we feel like we didn’t perform against Galway and that is what hurts the most.

“(An early exit) is really painful and prolonging, it makes it hurt more. I always try to flip it for the positives, that is just who I am, trying to pull the positives from things. But those weeks are tough, I was blocking things on social media, so you are not looking at it every day, it is so painful but if it doesn’t hurt, how badly did you want it?

“We are really, really hungry to get going.”

The post-Bohan era officially begins with their Division 1 league opener at home to Mayo in 10 days’ time.

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