Colm O'Rourke Meath

Since his appointment as Meath manager, Colm O'Rourke has shunned the usual managerial rhetoric.

“If we are to progress in Meath we need to unearth a bunch of players from this (competition). “I have contacted last year’s squad just to say that as far as we’re concerned it’s a new panel and thanks very much. And it does happen on the pitch. Putting ourselves in a position to win a Leinster championship and putting ourselves in line for promotion from Division 2. Changing that, regardless of what has gone before, is the first order of business. “Maybe we haven’t the individual stars of some others, but we have incredible talent in the county, great clubs, wonderful people running clubs. The usual new manager talent trawl takes on a new, unfamiliar look in Meath. “But I’m not interested in saying this is going to be a long-term project. In the bowels of Páirc Tailteann, he talked of an ambitious push for promotion from a Division 2 that includes Dublin, Ulster champions Derry and All-Ireland finalists Galway. “Yeah it’s a longer project, I might be the stop-gap manager,” he smiled. And in Navan on Wednesday night, O’Rourke was of a similar mind. In every way, O’Rourke has burned the boats.

COLM O'ROURKE is banking on a 'wonderful burst of enthusiasm' to shoot his Meath team back into the country's top tier.The new Meath manager r.

“I’ve just been completely overwhelmed since the thing was announced, but particularly the first few weeks. The amount of people that just came up to me on the street, or wrote to me or text me or rang me. “Maybe we haven’t the individual stars of some others but we have incredible talent in the county. Since then, they have been largely irrelevant at the elite end of the game. It was the popular appointment craved by supporters that never materialised. “Progress is competing with Dublin, putting ourselves in a position to win a Leinster championship, putting ourselves in line for promotion from Division 2.

Meath's Colm O'Rourke became the latest manager to say that running county teams and working are just not compatible.

Needless to say, that didn’t change things very much even if these days, after the recent establishment of ‘audit and risk subcommittees’ on every county board, there is likely to be a growing focus on the practice of under-the-counter payments. That flexibility had been a previous phenomenon in the prevalence of schoolteachers among managers. “It’s like a business with about 70 employees if you include players and the development group most counties have [O’Rourke mentioned putting one together at his media conference]. I have always felt when you are in for something you are in fully or not at all.” “I’m in the lucky position that I’m retired and I have the time and the energy to put into it. Colm O’Rourke’s disclosure on Thursday that he was taking early retirement came as part of a growing trend.