'It was something you saw in front of your eyes' - Malachy O'Rourke gets started with Tyrone

NEW TYRONE MANAGER Malachy O’Rourke has named Ryan Porter and Leo McBride as the start of his backroom team with the Red Hands.

Porter has been alongside O’Rourke since he took the Monaghan job at the end of 2012, and McBride’s involvement goes much further than that, back to a time when they struck up a relationship during their playing days with Errigal Ciaran.

In time, he intends to add to it, but his record wherever he has gone is to keep the backroom tight. O’Rourke doesn’t do an entourage.

Speaking at his unveiling at the Tyrone training complex at Garvaghy, O’Rourke told reporters, “I think the first thing about getting a management team together, it is really important getting that chemistry between people.

“One big thing I found was players need a consistency of message. Sometimes if you are trying to fit people together that isn’t always the case and the three of us know each other well. There is great trust between each other. We would challenge each other as well but we work well together.”

He continued, “We are in the process of working through a getting another couple of people in to that immediate management team.

“The beauty of it is it gives us that little bit more time to take that measured approach because there is no point rushing in just to get someone on paper.

“It will be a case of getting people we think will add real value.”

He added that when the approach came, he didn’t require a lot of thought. He has been living in the county now for 32 years and was a familiar face around the grounds.

“I suppose from living in the county and watching the team, seeing the potential coming through, it was something you saw in front of your eyes,” he said.

“When I was asked to let my name go forward, I thought, ‘Look, there is a massive challenge there’ and it was something that I let my name go forward.”

Having retired in the summer of 2023 from his job as head of PE in St Joseph’s College, Enniskillen, he now finds his time will be at a premium as he rides two horses of trying to retain the Derry, Ulster and All Ireland titles with Glen in Derry, as well as laying the foundations of the work to be carried out in Tyrone.

Apart from his one season in charge of Errigal Ciaran, when they won a Tyrone championship, his managerial roles have tended to be away from home, allowing him a little distance from the role.

That changes now. He lives in a house a mere six mile from the training base and the wider Tyrone public have never been in danger of being reticent when it comes to offering their opinion.

James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

And Gaelic football is the number one, two, three, four and five topics of conversation. It is, as he will acknowledge himself, one of the biggest jobs going.

“Well, you have different challenges everywhere you go. There’s a certain level of expectation in different counties,” he said.

“But no doubt, the size of the county, the resources, the playing population in the county and the success there has been at senior and underage level, there is a lot of expectation.

“But that’s great as well and one of the things would attract you to the job as it’s one of the things that there is a great chance of success.

“It brings challenges but there’s a certain amount of pressure in all these jobs and you wouldn’t be doing them if you were afraid of that.

“And I suppose the most pressure I find, I would put it on myself anyway. We know that there is a serious job to do.”

The work starts with forming a panel for 2025. Over the past number of years, a number of talented and experienced figures retired, some well before their natural wastage stage.

That also has to be balanced against the fact that Tyrone have won two of the last three All Ireland U20 titles, as well as the Hogan Cup success and retention by Omagh CBS.

“It will be very open ended,” said O’Rourke.

“We are not going in with any closed opinions or anything that was there. The panel that was there last year was a good panel, full of good players, committed players and so on.

“There is a lot of young talent coming through as well. There are a number of fellas who have stepped away for whatever reason. So it is a case of looking at exactly what players are in the county. And as well as that, players have to make that decision to commit. The one thing about county level is you need a high level of commitment and fellas who are going to invest completely in the area of preparation and every aspect of it.

“It will be a case of looking around the county, watching the championship games and seeing what the panel was last year and compiling a panel for this year.”

One early test for O’Rourke, as well as other managers, is that without a Dr McKenna Cup, there are limited opportunities to see the incoming new rules in action.

Rules that O’Rourke has been partly responsible for in his role as part of Jim Gavin’s Football Review Committee.

“It remains to be seen whether the rules will get through. That is the hope and a lot of work has gone into it,” O’Rourke said.

“The remit the group was given, was to make it the most exciting amateur field game in the world to watch or play. And that is what our focus has been all this time.

“We hope the enhanced rules will go some way to getting that. But I think the first opportunity for everyone to see them will be in the Interpros and people will get a chance to see them then.

“But with the pre season competitions gone, the first time they would be seen would be in the National league, so it makes it interesting.”