‘All we want to do is start winning Ulster Championship matches’

GC. You have always come across, even from your early playing days, as somebody who was a thinker about the game and somebody who was always destined to be involved in management. Would that be a fair observation?
RG. I would have always been very interested in coaching and management and I suppose it was just natural that I fell into it. When I moved to Dublin I took on a full time coaching job with St Brigid’s, so you just got straight into it. You were coaching various underage teams and managing underage teams. Even when I left that job I still stayed on with St Brigid’s managing U21 and minor teams while I still played. 
When the Donegal thing came up I was still playing with St Galls so it wasn’t something that was on my radar whatsoever but since that it is something that I have been involved with non-stop.

GC. Those who have played under you would say that you are very much a hands on manager who is heavily involved in coaching. Is coaching obviously something you feel is a big part of the job?
RG. There are various forms of management and there is no right or no wrong. I feel that it is much like teaching and the best way to do that is to be centrally involved in it. Throughout the years with Donegal I would have been taking a large volume of the training but then in the last year I took in another guy to freshen it up as you have been speaking to the same guys for five or six years. When getting involved with Fermanagh though you want to make an impact and the easiest way to do that is to be hands on for the players to get a real feel for you, it also helps them to get to know you. Ricey has also taken a good bit of the training as well, we would thrash out what we want to do and the two of us would be fairly hands on. That’s the chemistry and the dynamic that I wanted.

GC. When you stepped down as Donegal manager at the end of last season, I don’t suppose that stepping straight back into management with Fermanagh after Pete McGrath resigned was in your thinking?
RG. It definitely wasn’t. When I went into Donegal I was still playing with St. Gall’s and I had no kids and now I have three and in a lot of ways it is a very selfish way of living. Your whole life revolves around it and I suppose having got into management and coaching very young I was maybe thinking about taking a good break for four or five years and then going back into it. 
There was then a bit of communication with some of the Fermanagh players and the thing is that you know that some of them will be gone in three or four years time, maybe they have only got a couple of years and they have made a fairly big call in the decision they made. 
Having been from Fermanagh and not living too far away, I thought about it for a couple of weeks and I thought to myself if I’m going to do it, it’s now or never. 
The big attraction for me was that I thought the players had backed themselves into a corner, they now had to get their shoulder to the wheel and that was a good place for me and my management team.

GC. Was it difficult though coming from a team who were competing in Division One and regular challengers for Ulster to one who was just relegated to Division Three?
RG. You were coming from a team that was operating in Division One, a team that had been in five or six Ulster finals and a team that feel that they are in with a shout every year of being Ulster champions and competing for the All Ireland. 
You had to get your head around that it is Division Three, it’s a different level, but that was our first job to get the side out of Division Three and part of that would mean that you are preparing very well for the championship and I think we have done that. We have worked very hard, we’ve done a lot of good things and of course a lot of not so good things and there are areas to improve but that’s the challenge. Look, I wouldn’t have taken it if it wasn’t Fermanagh, it’s where I’m from and logistically it is not far away but I also feel that there is the potential to win games in the Ulster Championship and I wouldn’t have been interested in taking it if I didn’t feel that there was that potential.

GC. How do you feel the players have responded to what you have asked them to do?
That was a great unknown and you have to give everybody an opportunity to prove themselves. I made it quite clear to every person who was welcomed into the panel that they will get the opportunity at training. They are not guaranteed one minute’s action in McKenna Cup or league, they have to earn the right at training and the players that are here now I feel are the players who have done that. 
They have worked really hard and I would be pleased with the way they have responded. I think there was maybe a bit of a culture shock the way we were doing things and that’s not to say anything about the way it was done before, but I feel they have given themselves the best chance possible of being successful in the Ulster Championship because they have trained hard. However, we need to keep improving.

GC. Is there anything that you look at in particular in a player?
RG. The number one characteristic you need  is a player who is prepared to give himself to the team. If you look at Dublin, their greatest quality is their unity and their ability to attack and defend as one, their ability to do the right thing and that’s the whole squad. Look, players can make mistakes but the big thing is are they doing what is asked of them in the best interests of the team? To do that you have got to be fit, you have to be able to play at the highest level and you have to be smart on the ball. For every position on the team, 50 per cent is on the ball and 50 per cent is without and that’s the same for a corner back and a corner forward. 
A team can’t be built around three or four players, everybody has got to contribute with the ball and without the ball. It has been a challenge to try and get the players to understand and work on that.

GC. You did a lot of hard work in pre-season and managed to hit the ground running when the season started. Was that important?
RG. People might perceive that we did a lot of work pre-season, I would much prefer, and the players would much prefer not to do much pre-season as that would mean that as a management team you would feel that the players are coming back in the condition they need to be in. 
The reality is, would I have been happy with the condition the boys were in at the start? No, I wouldn’t. I think the boys understand that now. You can have your down time in the off season and that’s a big part of it and they have to have a life outside of it but they also have to  look after themselves. 

GC. The league was a success and finished with promotion to Division Two although it did look as if it was slipping away on the final day in Longford before the three late points won the game.
RG. I think we made very heavy work of the last three games. I think we were 0-07 to 0-02 up in Mullingar and in control of the game but lost Eoin Donnelly and then got a man sent off. We then got a goal at the right time but still didn’t finish the job. Then against Armagh, we were never behind but didn’t get over the line despite dominating the first half. It was then into the Longford game and I seen them against Armagh, I knew that even if we had beaten Westmeath and Armagh we would have to get a result in Longford.
We again had been in reasonable control of the game and I never felt that at any stage it was totally gone, it was last minute stuff though and you would like to win games more comfortably but we got there.

GC. It is now full steam ahead for this Saturday’s Ulster Championship game against Armagh. Can you sense that championship is coming up?
RG. When you are caught up in the league it is everything because it is seven games in nine weeks or whatever but it is all an extended pre-season but it is a very important pre-season because the higher level you play at the better chance you have. It’s been about getting ready for May 19.
At the end of the day, as much we would like to have won at Croke Park and won a Division Three title, these boys they know that they need to start winning Ulster Championship matches, that’s all we want to do. We are delighted to have a home draw but it is all about being ready to play on Saturday and produce a performance that is going to be good enough.

GC. How are the preparations going for the game?
RG. Preparations have been really good. We had a relatively good and healthy squad all year and that has continued which is what you want. 
We should have a very fit squad going into the game and we are looking forward to it.

 GC. It is going to be the third meeting of the sides this year. There is unlikely to be any secrets at Brewster Park on Saturday.
RG. No doubt there is a familiarity between the sides having played twice in a short period of time, in a league final and in a must win game in Brewster Park. It is our job to have our players well schooled on them, to have our homework done and be very well prepared for them. But as much as it’s the date and the opposition that you are working to, it’s about ourselves. 85 or 90 per cent of what we do is about what suits our team, what our strengths are and what we need to be better at. Of course, Armagh have danger men and a style of play that’s probably a wee bit different than ours but that’s what’s going to meet at the weekend.

GC. How important is it to stop Armagh getting a grip in that middle third of the pitch?
RG. In our first four league games we dominated midfield by and large and then in the first half against Westmeath we did likewise but we then lost Eoin and we struggled in the second half. In the Armagh Brewster Park game and the league final we did struggle, Armagh put four big men across the middle and they dominated. We have to compete better, we have to get hands in and break it.

GC. You would not expect this game to be as free scoring or as open as the game in Croke Park?
RG. You wouldn’t think so and I think that Croke Park adds 20 per cent to any side’ s scoring, but you can go out with plans of keeping things tight and every team wants to keep things tight and then the other team goes out and kicks wonder scores. We want to control as much as we can and the only way we can do that is by winning possession. 

GC. Is home advantage a factor?
RG. I think it is a good thing and I would much rather be playing in Brewster Park than going to the Athletic Grounds. The players are comfortable there, there is a familiarity and an atmosphere that the players enjoy and we have to capitalise on that.

GC. Are you looking forward to your first Championship match at Brewster Park as Fermanagh manager?
RG. I was thinking about it coming up the road one day. I think it was 2001 that I was last involved in an Ulster Championship match in Brewster Park and that it a long time. I remember playing Donegal there and Monaghan there and they were very exciting occasions. It is more so for the players though. It is a huge honour for them to go out and play in front of their home crowd with their families there but it is even a better honour and more pleasing if we can actually go and win.