IF DUNDALK RUN away with the league again this year…well, at least the philosophers will be interested.
The 1840s saw a clash of ideas between Thomas Carlyle’s romantic theory of the ‘Great Man’, in which men (it was always men with Carlyle) affected great and positive change in the world solely by executing their own, inherent genius. Everything followed as a result.
20 years later, Herbert Spencer finalised his backlash, rubbishing Carlyle’s theory by saying that said Great Men only succeed because of innumerable complex factors around them that work in their favour.
“Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.”, wrote Spencer.
From the outside, Dundalk have lost their Great Man.
Stephen Kenny wrote a thesis in 2011 entitled “building a club from nothing”, took over Dundalk in 2013 and left them with four league titles, two FAI Cups, the treasure of a memorable run in the Europa League and the more tangible benefit of new owners.
Stephen Kenny in his new role with the Irish U21s. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
Now Kenny has a green tracksuit and a desk at Abbottstown, and Dundalk are about to stage the argument. How will they cope without Kenny? To what extent was all this down to Kenny’s singularity?
“We probably feel it’s an opportunity for us to say, ‘It takes a lot more than one person to make us great’ Dundalk’s new head coach Vinny Perth tells The42.
Perth is eager to point out that Kenny “never, ever had the mantra” that success was about him, and that the connection between management and players has been exceptionally strong over the last six years.
Nonetheless, steering past Kenny’s departure has been an effort in collaboration, and the tone for this was set when it was announced that Kenny was leaving for the international set-up.
“We were all at Stephen O’Donnell’s wedding when the news broke. That was brilliant. If it wasn’t for his wedding, you’d have a few lads in England, Scotland, America or somewhere else on holidays.
“But we were able to communicate among ourselves and we were able to share that moment. It was perfect.
“There was generally joy for Stephen and a desire that if I was going to stay, that it would be at the centre of where the club is going. That was great to hear, it filled me with real confidence.”
So Dundalk restructured their management team. The FAI demand that the manager of a top-flight club have a Pro Licence, so Perth – who has an A Licence and is currently doing his Pro Licence course with the FAI – was appointed as head coach rather than as manager, with John Gill – who has the Pro Licence – returning to the club as first-team coach. Ruaidhri Higgins and recently-retired Stephen O’Donnell also joined the coaching ticket.
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Vinny Perth at the announcement of eir Sport's Airtricity League coverage for 2019. They will show 15 live games this year, more than previous years. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
The champions have faced charges of circumventing the rules, which doesn’t sit well with Perth.
“We have faced a lot of questions about it: some respectful and some disrespectful. People have questioned whether we are doing things the way they should be done, but we are quite comfortable that we have respected the licencing element from the FAI.
“As a club we completely respect the licencing pathway and we have changed our club structure to suit that and to be compliant.
“People have problems with our set-up and that’s fine, but it is a common set-up outside of Ireland. We don’t have a manager; we have a management team.”
Perth has been irked, however, by a couple of comments of late, one in particular.
“There have been disrespectful and uneducated comments.
“Things like, ‘Are you going to do your badges anytime soon?’
“I’ve been doing my badges for the last 10 years. I’ve been two years and 10 months waiting for the next Pro Licence course to start. I’ve applied to England, Scotland, and Wales.
“I’m in the same position as Steven Gerrard, who has coached with Rangers in the Europa League.
“I’m not someone who has been hiding away, or been lazy.
If people go on certain platforms, they need to be clear about what the facts are. People have to use the right rhetoric when discussing this stuff. It’s an easy go, there is a laziness to it. I’ve been asked when I’m going to do my badges, and I’m thinking, ‘Give me a break’.
“If people want to come out with [criticism], I actually embrace that and I take it as a compliment.
“You don’t make smart comments unless someone is under your skin.”
John Caulfield’s programme notes ahead of the President’s Cup, in which he welcomed “John Gill, the players, staff and supporters from of Dundalk to Turner’s Cross” has been interpreted by some as a dig in the direction of Perth, although Perth says he doesn’t know if it was as it hasn’t been discussed.
Perth is currently on a Pro Licence course with the likes of Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and Jim McGuinness, and is enjoying it, citing a presentation by the Dutch assistant coach and first-team coach one of the “best learning curves I’ve had.”
Perth has been learning elsewhere. He has taken note of drills he has seen at amateur and underage levels, and spent time in the Irish rugby camp in the week leading up to the Six Nations game against Scotland.
“I listened to Joe Schmidt talk, and while I couldn’t give the same talk as we are different people, there are certain mannerisms which he uses to address a group of thirty senior players – with the world player of the year sitting there too – that I can learn from.
“I can’t copy it, but I can’t learn from it. It was fascinating.
“These are world leaders. To have access to see these people work…and [were I] not to learn from them, I should have just turned up with a camera phone and taken pictures of them.
“From where I came from as a player, I’ve had to really focus in the last eighteen months on self-development and self-improvement.
“The [Pro Licence] Course enhances that, as do the things I do outside the game, like going to GAA clubs and going to the rugby set-up. That’s the journey I am on.”
Perth's first game in charge ended with a victory in the President's Cup. Ciaran Culligan / INPHO
Ciaran Culligan / INPHO / INPHO
Perth isn’t the only one who will be improved by his ducking beneath the ropes of the Irish rugby set-up.
He has been influenced by the Irish rugby’s use of technology and video analysis, the latter of which is one of the rocks upon which Joe Schmidt’s career has been built.
“Although it is a different sport, rugby is so far ahead of us with their use of technology. Football is letting other people develop it, and then following with it. Their use of video analysis and Stats Sports is massive.
I would have felt we are ahead of the game a little bit as we have focused on it over the last three of four years, but to see them at the next level – and the player buy-in to what they do – can only enhance our game.
Dundalk have enhanced plenty besides off the field. Their kit-man has gone full time this year, and they have introduced a new strength and conditioning coach. The players returned for pre-season to upgrades in the gym, the changing rooms, the video analysis room and the physio room.
They spent eight days of pre-season abroad in Spain again, consistent with tradition over the last four years.
Ahead of the new season, they are relatively injury-free: Jamie McGrath is struggling with the lingering effects of an overload of work toward the end of last season, but otherwise they have a clean bill of health.
“As a club, we’ve gone up a level off the pitch, and we’re asking the players to come up a level”, says Perth.
They have kept last year’s squad together – the team that started last weekend’s President Cup was identical to the one which started the FAI Cup final – and have added more talent, including former Watford midfielder Sean Murray and Bohs’ winger Daniel Kelly.
“He is a perfect fit for the culture of our club”, says Perth of Murray.
I’ve never seen someone fit into our club so quickly. His energy levels have caught people out. We have high hopes for him, and his biggest challenge at the moment is getting into our team. The rest will take care of itself.
Kelly, meanwhile, is viewed as an option at centre-forward, currently rated just behind Pat Hoban and Georgie Kelly in the pecking order.
“Bray and Bohs did a great job to bring him to the stage he is at, and we just believe that we can bring him to the next stage in terms of bringing him to the level of a full-time athlete.”
The new era kicks off against Sligo Rovers tonight, a side whose level of change makes them a somewhat unknown prospect on the opening night of the season.
“It is a difficult game for us, and it is difficult to know what Sligo will bring to the table, but they are a good side and we have a proper challenge on Friday night.”
And what of his own emotions ahead of kick-off?
“There’s a sort of mixture of nervousness and butterflies. I’m excited for what I think the group could achieve this year.”
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'It's an opportunity for us to say, 'It takes a lot more than one person to make us great''
IF DUNDALK RUN away with the league again this year…well, at least the philosophers will be interested.
The 1840s saw a clash of ideas between Thomas Carlyle’s romantic theory of the ‘Great Man’, in which men (it was always men with Carlyle) affected great and positive change in the world solely by executing their own, inherent genius. Everything followed as a result.
20 years later, Herbert Spencer finalised his backlash, rubbishing Carlyle’s theory by saying that said Great Men only succeed because of innumerable complex factors around them that work in their favour.
“Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.”, wrote Spencer.
From the outside, Dundalk have lost their Great Man.
Stephen Kenny wrote a thesis in 2011 entitled “building a club from nothing”, took over Dundalk in 2013 and left them with four league titles, two FAI Cups, the treasure of a memorable run in the Europa League and the more tangible benefit of new owners.
Now Kenny has a green tracksuit and a desk at Abbottstown, and Dundalk are about to stage the argument. How will they cope without Kenny? To what extent was all this down to Kenny’s singularity?
“We probably feel it’s an opportunity for us to say, ‘It takes a lot more than one person to make us great’ Dundalk’s new head coach Vinny Perth tells The42.
Perth is eager to point out that Kenny “never, ever had the mantra” that success was about him, and that the connection between management and players has been exceptionally strong over the last six years.
Nonetheless, steering past Kenny’s departure has been an effort in collaboration, and the tone for this was set when it was announced that Kenny was leaving for the international set-up.
“We were all at Stephen O’Donnell’s wedding when the news broke. That was brilliant. If it wasn’t for his wedding, you’d have a few lads in England, Scotland, America or somewhere else on holidays.
“But we were able to communicate among ourselves and we were able to share that moment. It was perfect.
“There was generally joy for Stephen and a desire that if I was going to stay, that it would be at the centre of where the club is going. That was great to hear, it filled me with real confidence.”
So Dundalk restructured their management team. The FAI demand that the manager of a top-flight club have a Pro Licence, so Perth – who has an A Licence and is currently doing his Pro Licence course with the FAI – was appointed as head coach rather than as manager, with John Gill – who has the Pro Licence – returning to the club as first-team coach. Ruaidhri Higgins and recently-retired Stephen O’Donnell also joined the coaching ticket.
The champions have faced charges of circumventing the rules, which doesn’t sit well with Perth.
“We have faced a lot of questions about it: some respectful and some disrespectful. People have questioned whether we are doing things the way they should be done, but we are quite comfortable that we have respected the licencing element from the FAI.
“As a club we completely respect the licencing pathway and we have changed our club structure to suit that and to be compliant.
“People have problems with our set-up and that’s fine, but it is a common set-up outside of Ireland. We don’t have a manager; we have a management team.”
Perth has been irked, however, by a couple of comments of late, one in particular.
“There have been disrespectful and uneducated comments.
“Things like, ‘Are you going to do your badges anytime soon?’
“I’ve been doing my badges for the last 10 years. I’ve been two years and 10 months waiting for the next Pro Licence course to start. I’ve applied to England, Scotland, and Wales.
“I’m in the same position as Steven Gerrard, who has coached with Rangers in the Europa League.
“I’m not someone who has been hiding away, or been lazy.
“If people want to come out with [criticism], I actually embrace that and I take it as a compliment.
“You don’t make smart comments unless someone is under your skin.”
John Caulfield’s programme notes ahead of the President’s Cup, in which he welcomed “John Gill, the players, staff and supporters from of Dundalk to Turner’s Cross” has been interpreted by some as a dig in the direction of Perth, although Perth says he doesn’t know if it was as it hasn’t been discussed.
Perth is currently on a Pro Licence course with the likes of Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and Jim McGuinness, and is enjoying it, citing a presentation by the Dutch assistant coach and first-team coach one of the “best learning curves I’ve had.”
Perth has been learning elsewhere. He has taken note of drills he has seen at amateur and underage levels, and spent time in the Irish rugby camp in the week leading up to the Six Nations game against Scotland.
“I listened to Joe Schmidt talk, and while I couldn’t give the same talk as we are different people, there are certain mannerisms which he uses to address a group of thirty senior players – with the world player of the year sitting there too – that I can learn from.
“I can’t copy it, but I can’t learn from it. It was fascinating.
“These are world leaders. To have access to see these people work…and [were I] not to learn from them, I should have just turned up with a camera phone and taken pictures of them.
“From where I came from as a player, I’ve had to really focus in the last eighteen months on self-development and self-improvement.
“The [Pro Licence] Course enhances that, as do the things I do outside the game, like going to GAA clubs and going to the rugby set-up. That’s the journey I am on.”
Perth isn’t the only one who will be improved by his ducking beneath the ropes of the Irish rugby set-up.
He has been influenced by the Irish rugby’s use of technology and video analysis, the latter of which is one of the rocks upon which Joe Schmidt’s career has been built.
“Although it is a different sport, rugby is so far ahead of us with their use of technology. Football is letting other people develop it, and then following with it. Their use of video analysis and Stats Sports is massive.
Dundalk have enhanced plenty besides off the field. Their kit-man has gone full time this year, and they have introduced a new strength and conditioning coach. The players returned for pre-season to upgrades in the gym, the changing rooms, the video analysis room and the physio room.
They spent eight days of pre-season abroad in Spain again, consistent with tradition over the last four years.
Ahead of the new season, they are relatively injury-free: Jamie McGrath is struggling with the lingering effects of an overload of work toward the end of last season, but otherwise they have a clean bill of health.
“As a club, we’ve gone up a level off the pitch, and we’re asking the players to come up a level”, says Perth.
They have kept last year’s squad together – the team that started last weekend’s President Cup was identical to the one which started the FAI Cup final – and have added more talent, including former Watford midfielder Sean Murray and Bohs’ winger Daniel Kelly.
“He is a perfect fit for the culture of our club”, says Perth of Murray.
Kelly, meanwhile, is viewed as an option at centre-forward, currently rated just behind Pat Hoban and Georgie Kelly in the pecking order.
“Bray and Bohs did a great job to bring him to the stage he is at, and we just believe that we can bring him to the next stage in terms of bringing him to the level of a full-time athlete.”
The new era kicks off against Sligo Rovers tonight, a side whose level of change makes them a somewhat unknown prospect on the opening night of the season.
“It is a difficult game for us, and it is difficult to know what Sligo will bring to the table, but they are a good side and we have a proper challenge on Friday night.”
And what of his own emotions ahead of kick-off?
“There’s a sort of mixture of nervousness and butterflies. I’m excited for what I think the group could achieve this year.”
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