Dooher’s taking busy schedule in his stride

IF you want something done, ask a busy man. Brian Dooher probably doesn’t have much time on his plate between managing the Tyrone Senior Intercounty footballers and serving as the North’s Chief Veterinary Officer, not that he’s complaining.

Dooher was revered for his work-rate during his long and illustrious playing career with Tyrone, captaining the team to two All-Ireland titles, winning three All-Stars and so on and so forth.

You don’t need me to tell you that there’s a similar thread running through his life in general: he has an extremely busy working life (increasingly a rarity among top intercounty managers) and is now in his fourth season at the helm of Tyrone alongside Feargal Logan – a long-standing solicitor by profession – who has returned to the fold after taking time out to recuperate from illness.

Brian isn’t, it’s fair to say, a man that does things by halves. The Clann na nGael man was recently promoted from the position of Deputy Chief Vet to the main gig, not that he’s likely to crow about it. Instead, he prefers to accentuate the fact that he is surrounded by good people, both at work and with the Tyrone set-up, who commence their Ulster Championship campaign away to Cavan this Sunday.

Commenting on his and Feargal’s busy working lives, Dooher says: “That’s our choice, we know it’s tough but we enjoy having the opportunity to work with a good group of players.

“Everyone’s doing a lot of things to make it work and that’s the real key here, it’s not just Feargal or myself, it’s the people around us. They’re often forgotten about but I couldn’t speak highly enough of those helping us out in the management team. That goes for the players as well, they come to the training, they step up no matter what, and they’re willing to learn and push on, and that gives you energy as well.

>body2text<“It’s the same with work, it’s about building up a good team around me.

“I’m lucky from that perspective, it’s not what I do, it’s what the people around me contribute and that’s where the positive differences are made.”

Tyrone haven’t been particularly fortunate on the injury front in the early part of the season. Conor Meyler, Michael O’Neill and Frank Burns are yet to see action this year while Conn Kilpatrick, Peter Harte and Michael McKernan missed the final two matches of the league.

On the plus side, Mattie Donnelly has recovered from a serious long-term injury and a swathe of younger players have done their chances no harm with some promising displays in Division One.

Dooher isn’t giving too much away when it comes to the question about whether those aforementioned players will return to the field of play this Sunday, but whatever way it transpires, he’ll have total faith in his charges.

“The way I look it is that we’ve had injuries all year and we’ll deal with whatever hand we’re dealt. We’re hopefully picking from as wide a deck as possible and we’ll get on with it. There’s no value complaining about it, it’s given an opportunity for younger lads to step up and by and large they’ve acquitted themselves very well.”

Criticism is part and parcel of intercounty football and we all remember Colm O’Rourke’s ill-advised quip about ‘eating his hat’ if Tyrone won an All-Ireland with Dooher on the team (a few months later, they did exactly that). It’s only intensified these days with the advent of social media, but Dooher says it’s mostly white noise.

“It’s probably worse these days but I suppose you have social media which you didn’t have to the same extent when I was play.

“There was always pressure to do well, and maybe more so now as more people have a forum to voice their opinions. So be it, I don’t pay it much attention.

“You’ll not see me on social media much, my priority is going to training.

“I regard a lot of it as noise but at the same time people are allowed to have opinions.”

Tyrone got their hands on a fourth All-Ireland title in Dooher’s inaugural year in charge in 2021. Asked if that created an unrealistic sense of expectation that he could do without, he said: “It wouldn’t matter, there would always be that expectation in Tyrone, about when the next one is. Everyone has that desire to be the best they can and everyone holds that aspiration of winning All-Irelands.

“It’s far away in that sense though, it’s a vision of where you want to get to.

“There’s a lot of steps to be taken and we need to get on those steps before we start to think about it. But it is that dream and everyone has that dream from a young age. We’re just trying to put Tyrone football in a good place and trying to impact it now in a positive sense, that’s what we’re focused on and that’s the challenge.”