New Derry Ladies Minor manager Paul Simpson eager to build structures for future success

The Doire Trasna club man, who was ratified last week, will combine his new management position with the Ladies Board Development Officer post he was appointed to in 2019. Simpson will be joined in the minor post by a backroom team of Ballymaguigan duo, Declan McNally and Damian Nugent, Craigbane’s Joanne O’Kane and Cathal O’Connor from Ballinascreen.

And while the current Covid-19 restrictions have ensured a stranger than usual first week in the job, Simpson says there is huge potential for ladies football in the county.

“The big thing for me is that we are able to get the best minor talent out from the whole county, not most of the county, we want all of it out,” explained the former Pearses men’s senior manager.

“We have a good spread in terms of the coaching team we have with Declan and Damian from Ballymaguigan and Cathal from Ballinascreen, that’s three south Derry men who know their way around and know who we should be looking for and who to talk to. But if there happens to be one player in Moneymore, one in Craigbane, or one player wherever, we will meet them there. The big emphasis for us is getting every player who we think has the ability to play at that level out to play. That’s massive.”

Simpson admits the coronavirus pandemic meant last year was something of a write off in term of his first year as Development Officer and he is fully aware 2021 is shaping up to be anything but a ‘normal’ sporting calendar

“Everything is up in the air a bit at the moment. To be honest, there is no real shape to the season yet until we see what happens with Covid,” he admits, “We don’t know if the season will be regionalised, which it probably will be, and I can’t see there being a league competition, so it’s more likely to be a championship in one form or another.

“We will have to wait and see but I’m very excited about the opportunity. Over the last few years we have had good teams coming through from Under 14 and Under 16 so in terms of talent, Derry is as talented as anyone at underage grade.

“We’ve very excited to get the things going again but the big question, like it is for everyone, is when that will happen? As a management team, we have been communicating and looking at things the same way as everyone is trying to but like most management teams we are twiddling our thumbs a bit and anxious to get back to it when it is safe to do so.

“By the looks of things, nobody will be back before mid-February so we have time to plan. With the pressure hospitals are under, we are happy enough to let things sit until the situation looks more positive but from a players’ perspective, I can understand the frustration. It’s very difficult training on your own with someone sending you a programme.

“I feel for the players at the minute, it is tough on them. Anyone who has ever had to come through a proper rehab programme will tell you that trying to train on your own is very difficult. Similarly, preparing a team individually is a nightmare. Where does your assessment be? Where do you get your baselines and your progression? That stuff is so hard when you are not face to face and you can’t see what is going on.”

Despite the difficulties, Simpson, who twice took the Trasna men’s senior team to the Junior Championship title, believes there is also an opportunity to put in place a structure that will produce a steady stream of talent to help the senior side climb out of Division Four and up the leagues.

“We have been doing quite a bit of work in terms of putting personnel in place for the underage teams to give them some sort of structure. The senior ladies are currently in Division Four and if you haven’t got your structures in place further down, when is that going to improve?

“I was brought in as Development Officer in 2019 to try and look at ‘Go Games’ type stuff focused on the younger ages to try and build up towards our competitive ages. We are trying to build from the bottom up and see where that takes us but the massive spanner in the works is the same for everybody in every sport so we never had the chance to get going last year even though we believed we had quite a good set-up ready to go.

“Hopefully we can move that forward this year once the picture becomes clearer as regards what shape things will take.”