When asked how the dynamic of jointly managing Derrygonnelly Harps with Sean Flanagan works, Brendan Rasdale quips: “He takes all the bullets!”
He then slides his tongue out of his cheek.
“The dynamic is that Sean is the guy who definitely looks after a lot of player-management, speaking to fellas specifically and maybe individually about what he expects from them and I think he takes the lead.
“But I would do most of the training and the direction of the play and things like that so, look, we complement each other pretty well.”
The club has won eight Fermanagh county titles, all since 1995, and the pair have been involved in five of them in some capacity, this being Rasdale’s third stab at managing the senior team.
The pair are now in their second year and have claimed a pair of county titles to complete five-in-a-row as the club has warmed to competing in the Ulster Championship, with a semi-final against Kilcoo next up tomorrow.
“If you were to compare the way we went about things from 2015 to ‘17, when we got our first win against Armagh Harps, through ‘18 and ‘19, I would say that the last three years in particular, even last year, when we lost to Scotstown, that we were close enough to the level.
“In fairness, there’s no doubt that the more experience you get in the Ulster club, the better equipped you become to deal with the challenges that provincial club championships present.”
It’s well documented that Fermanagh have never won an Ulster title at inter-county level and, along with Cavan, their county champions haven’t won one either.
Win tomorrow and it’ll just be the fourth time a Fermanagh club has reached an Ulster final after Roslea (1982) and Enniskillen Gaels (1999 and 2002).
“You cannot afford to start considering it, sadly,” says Rasdale. “Our focus is almost entirely on Kilcoo but, look, yeah, I’m young enough to remember when Roslea got to a final in ‘82 and I was at it.
“I remember that campaign vividly, I was about 10 at the time.
“I suppose I remember the Gaels’ two campaigns as well. Probably in those campaigns, one of those teams could have won, there’s probably one that has escaped but we’re not even close to following in their footsteps until we get to a final so we’ll cross that bridge if we were to get the length of it.”
With recent champions Gaoth Dobhair and Slaughtneil failing to emerge from Donegal and Derry respectively and traditional kingpins Crossmaglen Rangers falling to Clontibret, that Kilcoo, with two final appearances since 2012 and seven out of the last eight Down county titles, have the greatest pedigree of the four clubs left isn’t lost on Rasdale.
He adds: “If the thing was to be seeded, I think there’s no question the number one seeds in the pot would be Kilcoo on the back of, not just their experience, but the level of performance that they have tended to put together in the Ulster club.
“They have won their fair share of games, they’ve been in finals and they’re clearly a very formidable well-equipped opponent now, in fairness.”
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