“That’s Rory’s personality, that’s in his DNA.”
Derry’s dismantling of Tyrone yesterday is peppered with different talking points, from the Oakleaf county’s relentless intensity, Tyrone’s poor showing, the sending offs, and what it means for the rest of the year for both of these teams.
However, one talking point that can’t be ignored is the passionate Rory Gallagher, and his energy running up and down the sideline during the game.
It’s no surprise that he wears shorts on the touchline, and spits in his hands every 30 seconds, because he is basically playing the game, catching every ball, bursting into every tackle, and feeling everything that his players do on the field.
Such a visibly passionate manager is a rare sight at the very top of level of GAA and Darran O’Sullivan shared his thoughts on it during the latest episode of the GAA Hour.
“Going back to Derry, and you would have had history with Rory Gallagher, he’s a passionate man, and we were talking off air – I actually don’t know how I would react with a passionate manager on the sideline, I think most of my managers were fairly calm, I think it would nearly put me off, especially if I was on their side of the pitch, but you would know him a lot better than me.”
Joining Darran on the show, was Dublin All-Ireland winner and former club mate of Gallagher, Barry Cahill, and he was able to give the listeners an inside scoop to how the Derry manager ticks.
“Yeah, I mean that’s Rory’s personality, you know? That’s in his DNA, we played a number of years together in St Brigids, my own club, himself and Ray joined us back in 2002, and they played for six or seven years with us and helped us win Dublin championships and club titles.
“Rory was a club coach in our club at that particular time, and you always knew that coaching was something that he was really going to get into full time and try and make a sort of career out of it.
“But in terms of that passion on the sideline, he’s had it for a number of years, going back I remember that infamous Dublin/Donegal All-Ireland semi final that I played in.
“Rory was on the sideline there, alongside Jim McGuinness, and Jim was obviously very cool and calculated on the sideline, Rory was the opposite.
“At any opportunity, he was trying to get onto the pitch, annoy Dublin players, frustrate them, a few verbals or whatever, and I suppose try and distract the players in that sense.
“I thought yesterday, I thought his passion and the energy that he had on the sideline, was something that was very welcome in my view, I think it’s a good thing to see amongst a manager.
“A lot of the top managers in recent years don’t really let their emotions out like that, you would have seen that with Jim Gavin, very passive on the sideline, you would have seen that with Mickey Harte.
“Any time the camera would cut to Mickey Harte, he looks like he’s very calculated and figuring out the game and his next moves etc, but I did like rory’s passion yesterday on the sideline, and I think the players probably liked it as well, and they feed off that.
“I think there was a clip of one of the Tyrone corner backs giving him a bit of a dunt, at one point in the first half.
“Again, a few minutes ago we were chatting about the Tyrone discipline, there’s no doubt that in the Derry dressing room in the weeks before the game that that would have came up in conversation.
“That we’re going to get under their skin, we’re going to annoy them from the first minute, they have these discipline issues, and look, whoever Tyrone play in the next round of the championship, in the qualifiers, the opposition are going to do the exact same thing.”
