DAMIEN DUFF has been rightly getting acclaim this season for taking an unfancied Irish side to heady heights.
However, another domestic coach has gone under the radar for similarly impressive work with a team not many were tipping to prevail.
When Ciarán Kilduff took over as Athlone Town manager last season, they were seventh in the Women’s Premier Division.
The team formed as recently as 2020, and their surprise second-place finish in the 2022 campaign was looking like an aberration for much of last year.
Moreover, Kilduff’s experience in management was limited.
The former striker finished playing in 2020, bringing to an end a stellar career that included 111 League of Ireland goals in 294 appearances. His most memorable spell was with Dundalk in their pomp under Stephen Kenny, for whom he became an important player. During this period, the striker won two of the three Premier Division titles he claimed in his career.
The Kildare footballer previously had a brief stint as assistant manager of the Maynooth University Town men’s team and also took charge of their women’s team.
Yet almost immediately at his current club, Kilduff made an impact. Taking over with eight games remaining, the title was always going to be out of reach, but he guided Athlone to a solid fifth-place finish.
In addition, their mid-table status meant the club were able focus much of their energy of the FAI Cup. They went on to seal an unlikely triumph, beating a Shelbourne side who finished 11 points above them in the league on penalties.
With the team buoyed by last year’s unexpected success, this season has been ever better. On 20 October, they will face Shelbourne again in the FAI Cup final, as they bid to retain their trophy.
Athlone could also win the league title with a game to spare today. They only sit three points ahead of Shels with two games remaining, but the fact that they have a superior head-to-head record than their Dublin rivals means a victory at home to Bohemians this evening (kick-off: 7.35pm, live on TG4) will guarantee them the title.
Whatever happens, it has been a memorable season for Athlone and Kilduff lists off some of the key protagonists. Katie Keane, a goalkeeper not sitting her Leaving Cert until next summer, and who Kilduff took a gamble in bringing in as a 16-year-old. Already, the teenager is looking like one of the best players in the country in her position.
Two other youngsters, Ciara O’Neil and Isabel Ryan, have only just sat their Leaving Cert.
Furthermore, with a youthful squad, the presence of experienced players like captain Laurie Ryan — who has been at the club since its inception — is especially vital.
American duo Madie Gibson and Jesi Rossman have also been influential, with the former this week winning the Player of the Month award.
The club were dealt a blow last month, when Northern Ireland winger Casey Howe left to join Nottingham Forest, but the summer arrival of Brenda Ebika Tabe has compensated for this loss, with the Cameroon international not taking long to adapt and scoring freely.
One of the other unsung heroes has been Kellie Brennan, once regarded as centre forward or number 10, who Kilduff now calls “the best right-back in the country”.
The manager adds that he “couldn’t be prouder” of his players, pointing out how difficult it can be for a club in the Midlands to attract the top Irish footballers, with so many preferring to work or attend college in the capital.
“It is only an amateur league,” he tells The 42. “And that probably means you have as much chance to get a top international player as you do a player from Dublin.”
Kilduff is far the only ex-League of Ireland men’s player now managing in the women’s top flight — Danny Murphy at Cork City, Shelbourne’s Eoin Wearen and ex-Ireland international Dominic Foley of Treaty United are among the other notable names.
And even compared to the scant support for the Men’s Premier Division, resources in women’s football are meagre.
However, this issue did not put off Kilduff, who says he previously turned down management roles in the men’s league because the timing and “the feeling” wasn’t right.
Having got to know the women’s football landscape at Maynooth, the 35-year-old was confident he could give the top flight a fair crack.
“It’s not a soundbite, or it’s not a headline thing, but I never really minded if it was men’s or women’s football. I just wanted an opportunity or a group that could challenge at the top of their league.
“I wanted to be challenging for things, and I felt that would be the case with this group, and it turned out to be right.”
Kilduff’s appointment coincided with the 2023 Women’s World Cup, with the league simultaneously on hiatus for six weeks. This down period afforded him some much needed time to get his ideas across to players in training.
He adds that working in women’s football is “arguably harder” given that resources are so limited.
“Don’t get me wrong, these next couple of weeks will be great because the circus is coming to town. We’re on the telly [today]. Then we’re on the telly for the FAI Cup final on RTÉ.
“These weeks, it feels real, but there are a lot of weeks where you’re in the wilderness. There’s not a huge spotlight on it.
“A lot of these players, at most, are getting expenses. It’s probably costing some of them money to play all around the league at all the different clubs.
“And then, as a manager, you’ve got to continuously motivate and create a scenario where you’re trying to get these players to come back. Some of them might not even be playing week to week, but you’re trying to create an environment where these players want to play football at the level you’re giving them, and it not being financially rewarded, or it not being a job.”
Kilduff adds: “As a player, I was lucky enough that soccer in this country was always my job.
“If I wasn’t playing, or if I was injured, I was still picking up my wages. So that made my respective managers’ lives somewhat easier.
“I don’t have that in the women’s league. In this league, the girls are giving you everything for very little in return.
“I think there’s a purity to it as well that’s really infectious.”
Likewise, to manage Athlone, Kilduff has had to sacrifice a great deal. “A year or two ago,” he took a step back from his day job teaching in Kildare-based Scoil Dara.
The Kilcock native has a roughly 200km round trip up to Athlone for training and home match-days.
“This is as close to my full time role as I can make it. It’s not easy,” he says.
“The car can be the office on the way down and on the way back, and you can get video work done and listen, you do it because you like doing it as well.
“But, don’t get me wrong, every player, manager and coach in this league is sacrificing [a lot] to do it.”
And having spent 15 years in men’s dressing rooms as a player in the League of Ireland, does Kilduff notice any big differences when it comes to women?
“You’re aware that it’s a women’s dressing room at all times. But I am managing and coaching the same way on a football level as I would a men or a women’s dressing room. I put the same demands. I expect professionalism.
“Women’s football is trying to catch up. There’s a real willingness to learn from players that’s coming from a lower base. And you really see the appreciation and their gratitude towards coaching standards, and just looking after simple things that even as a player in the men’s game, I took for granted.
“In the women’s league, there’s a lot of respect in it for all of the effort that’s been made. And I think that’s what keeps me going, and other coaches going and wanting to work within it, because it’s the players’ league at the end of the day.”
He continues: “And it’s not just my group I’m fighting for, I know this is equally shared among all the managers and coaches that we’re trying so hard, I’m giving as much, and I know every manager in this league is giving as much as any manager in the men’s league. You couldn’t possibly do it otherwise.
“If you were to give me one word to sum up what I’m fighting for, for my players and for the league, it’s just recognition.
“The recognition to be seen and to [get] the appreciation of the effort, the work, the demands, the sacrifices that are going into this. And that’s all I’ll ever fight for.”
