Joanne Cantwell asked Colm O’Rourke if he was going to be the next Meath manager and, in response, she got one-liner after one-liner…and she eventually got an answer.
If he was to go and take it, O’Rourke wonders who’d keep Sean Cavanagh in check on The Sunday Game. He says that the wishes of his wife Patricia also have to be taken into account and he says that, above all else, if they didn’t want him before, why do they suddenly want him now?
O’Rourke has mentioned it in his Sunday Independent columns before that, on three occasions in the past, he has applied for the Meath manager’s job only to be turned down. He had no hesitations in talking about those rejections again here.
That ship has sailed, it seems, and if he’s the man that they want, then the Meath county board only have themselves to blame for burning that bridge.
“Well who’d put manners on Sean Cavanagh?” O’Rourke began in that dry-humoured style of his.
“If you had him on on his own, Ulster football would be the pinnacle of everything.”
O’Rourke is the Simonstown senior football manager as things stand and the two-time All-Ireland winner and secondary school principal in Navan is happy where he is.
“The job is there, but I’m involved in club management,” he added.
“I’m very happy in club management and I have been for quite a while. This sort of speculation isn’t something new, like I did actually go for the Meath job on three occasions in the past and even somebody as stupid as I am would get the hint that when you’re told no on three occasions, then that should put it to bed.
“And my pitiful wife Patricia has a very negative view on managing the county team, and with good reason, when you see the social media abuse that has taken place since Andy McEntee has left.
“Is this the sort of trend that we want to go with on Gaelic football where people put in enormous amounts of time – and not getting 15 million a year like Pep Guardiola – only to be subjected to that sort of thing from un-named sort of people.”
Colm O'Rourke rules himself out of the running to take over at Meath and explains his reasons why.
Cork v Limerick coming up live now on #sundaygame on @Rte2 and @rteplayer. pic.twitter.com/h0k6M0hUCQ
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) June 12, 2022
And O’Rourke, it certainly seems, doesn’t want that kind of stress in his life.
