Danny aiming for unique Derry City - Newbridge cup double
Stop me if you've read this headline before.... 'Tyrone footballer aims for dream Derry Senior Championship / FAI Cup double'.
Not sound familiar? Would it help if I told you he already has two Derry senior club medals from the past two seasons?
No? Nothing?
Can't say I blame you. It does seem a bit far-fetched in the modern era and, okay, it takes a bit of wordplay to make our headline happen but that unique sporting double is very much within touching distance for Newbridge Strength & Conditioning coach, Danny Doherty.
Despite a surname synonymous with the Sean O'Leary's club, 27-year-old Doherty is a proud Tyrone man. Urney to be precise. A former S&C coach with the Longford senior county side, Doherty was brought to Páirc Sheáin Uí Laoghaire by current Newbridge managers Gary Hetherington and Kevin Brady when they took the reins at the tail end of 2023. Two John McLaughlin Cups later, Doherty is an integral part of a backroom team going for three-in-a-row against Magherafelt this Sunday at Find Insurance Celtic Park (3.30pm).
And a county medal or two wasn't the only thing Doherty's work with Newbridge brought. It also brought him to the attention of Derry City where he's hoping to end his second full season as The Candy Stripes' S&C coach by helping Mark Connolly's team lift the FAI Cup against Waterford in the Aviva Stadium on November 8th.
"Those boys are playing just a wee bit above my level," smiles Doherty when asked if he's tempted to join in training games with the Newbridge lads for a bit of friendly Derry - Tyrone rivalry
"I'd chance my arm at the odd shooting competition with a few of them. Big Shane McGrogan is always second to me, hasn't beaten me yet! Haven't managed to beat any of the Dohertys yet though! "But in all seriousness, you can relate easily to the players in any sport because you're training hard yourself. The way the GAA season falls I'm actually doing my own fitness tests and pre-season with Urney the same time we're doing it with Derry City. Now the tests are obviously different but you're still going through the same mental stuff as all players when you're involved in a sport and training hard yourself."
Training hard has never been an issue for Doherty who also boxes at middleweight for Raphoe Boxing Club. He's one of those individuals who seems to have 27 hours in his day and personal fitness was his labour of love even before graduating from Leeds' Trinity University and gaining his Masters Degree in S&C from Ulster University.
"The majority of my sporting time as a player was taken up with GAA and boxing, those would have been my two main sports growing up and I'm still trying to do both. I've been playing senior football with Urney since I was 17 and I play whenever I can but there it can clash.
"The Tyrone league is normally played on a Friday night, same as Derry City so I'm normally at the Brandywell or elsewhere in the League of Ireland but I still love playing. Unfortunately we lost in a league play-off there on Saturday. We lost by a point to Castlederg but we'll keep knocking on the door though it seems a long way now until next season."
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Doherty was one of the first people Hethrington and Brady sought out after deciding to take on Newbridge and Doherty reveals it was obvious fairly quickly that something special was brewing along the county's southern border.
"When I came home from university I got involved with inter-county football very quickly," added Doherty, "I went down to Longford and worked with their senior footballers for three seasons from 2022 to 2025. Alongside the last season in Longford, the opportunity came up to work with Newbridge. I was lucky enough to know Gary and Kevin. I'd worked with Kevin before and knew Gary from the things he was doing with Tyrone. He's a super lad. "The two boys brought me in at Newbridge. We arrived together and from the first time I went down there, the buy-in from not just the playing group but everyone around the place has been unbelievable and I'm lucky enough to have experienced two championship wins in two seasons. They're just a fantastic group of players. There's good management and good people around the club driving things on.
"Off the back of it - we'd won the championship that year with Newbridge and probably because of that win my name was popping around Derry. Through a mutual friend, my name was suggested to Tiernan (Lynch). There were other candidates in for it but I was lucky enough to come through the interview process and now I have almost two full seasons done with Derry City. It's good."
The S&C coach had become a cornerstone of every top tier sports club of the modern era and Doherty is uniquely positioned to compare and contrast how top level Gaelic football compares with professional soccer in terms of preparation.
"Coming in to Derry City last season and finishing second in the League of Ireland was a fantastic experience for me," he adds, "The big thing with S&C in any sport is you try to understand first what the game demands and then you prepare the players or athletes best for whatever the data is telling you. "The GPS is going to give me the data I need for a footballer and from there I know how I need to prepare them for the 90 minutes. Likewise the GPS data is completely different for a Gaelic footballer. The 70 minute inter-county game or the 60 minute club game as the county final will be. You're looking at the demands of the game, no matter what the sport is and preparing your athlete as best you can for it.
"There's so much cross over, especially in terms of the running, fitness and how much load people can tolerate. Once you get into the full-time set-up, you see that the players can tolerate so much more and you can use that information in GAA training. Sometimes you have to be cautious with the GAA lads because going three, maybe four days a week on the pitch alongside full-time jobs seems a lot. But when you see lads at Derry City doing six days on pitch and what the body can actually do, or what it can tolerate, you get more comfortable pushing the GAA lads. The information can be very useful. "Likewise, you see soccer players doing a little less gym and that isn't the worst thing in the world for some GAA lads. I think the game had gone that way anyway over the last year or two. A few years ago it was gym, gym, gym.... it was massive. Now it's being pulled back and players are so much more athletic so it's good.
"I've noticed a difference with the new rules too but a lot of our training is playing the game so that prepares the boys as best you can in both codes. You do so much playing of games, whether it be 11v11 or 15v15 and playing the game is the best way to prepare.
"In the GAA, there has been an increase in high speed running and the sprint distances but we're a few years into the new rules and the lads have adapted well."
With two league fixtures still to finish for Derry City before their trip to the Aviva Stadium, Doherty says the Candy Stripes' focus has not yet shifted to Waterford but the first step of his own personal 'double' arrives on Sunday at what is expected to be a sold out Celtic Park.
"The Newbridge lads haven't been hitting me for any FAI Cup tickets just yet but that might change after the county final!" laughed Doherty. "Magherafelt is going to be a huge test. Last year was a super tough game against them but any time we met it is tough; it's a massive derby. Magherafelt are a very good team. They're an athletic team, a hard team to break down and they've plenty of pace so we're expecting a really, really tough game. "It's a final and it's a derby.... all the boys know each other and it's a repeat of last year's final so they're going to be well up for it but so are we. It should be a huge occasion."
A Newbridge win and Danny will be halfway to writing a few headlines of his own.