Neil McManus is hoping that Davy Fitzgerald can have a long-term impact on the fortunes of Antrim hurling, regardless of results.
The Clare man last month made the surprise switch to the Saffrons, for what will be his fourth inter-county hurling management role, after concluding a second spell with Waterford.
Antrim have firmly established themselves in the Leinster championship, finishing with four points this year after beating Wexford, but leaving a team who narrowly missed out on qualification from Munster and subsequently joining the 2022 Joe McDonagh Cup winners raised a few eyebrows.
Expectations will now be high that Fitzgerald, who managed Wexford to a first Leinster title in 15 years in 2019, can build on the work of Darren Gleeson and ignite the spark for hurling in the only Ulster county to have reached an All-Ireland final.
"I think we need to learn as much from Davy as we can," said former Antrim star McManus, who retired after a 16-year career in 2023.
"Davy has won Munster with Waterford, won the All-Ireland with Clare, won Leinster with Wexford, so there's a lot of experience for us to tap into there.
"I don't like to think of success in winning and losing games. I think success should always be long-term. Developing the next generation of coaches and management for Antrim would definitely be one of the successes. Also putting in place a structure underage, that Clare are reaping the benefit from at the minute."
McManus has joined the management team as performance coach, alongside fellow Antrim natives and coaches/selectors Arron Griffin and Paudie Shivers. Waterford's Pat Bennett, father of inter-county players Kieran, Shane and Stephen, is also on board with Fitzgerald, who has a two-year term with an option of a third.
"I'm really happy that so many of the backroom team are Antrim people," said McManus.
"Because we need to get the information, the know-how from Davy and keep it within Antrim, build up our own capabilities so we can look after our own affairs in the future.
"We will [need him for a few years], and the term is for that. Hopefully that turns out to be the case.
"[I am] performance coach because I'm still playing for my club [Cushendall] and I intend to do that to the best of my ability over the next few years. So a performance coach wouldn't be as intensive as a time commitment. It's something I've been doing with different teams and individuals over the last year, it's where my real interest is."
The 36-year-old is also a member of the GAA's Hurling Development Committee. He would like to see a return of an Ulster Hurling Championship, to help raise the level of inter-county teams in the province. Though without Antrim, who had won 16 titles in a row by the time it was mothballed in 2017.
"It could be done in 2025," he said. "All you need is the will of the Ulster council.
"While Antrim are competing in Leinster, they should compete in Leinster and the rest of the counties within Ulster. The games that you would have between Derry, Down, think about where Donegal are at now, how competitive they would be.
"If we seeded that competition properly, it would be a brilliant hurling competition and it could be done in a festival of hurling where we do it over two or three weeks.
"The hurling calendar is tight and it's even tighter whenever you're not competing at the top level. [But] as you go down the competitions, they finish earlier and earlier and earlier. There is room in the calendar.
"There would be three rounds probably, and because of the way we would have to seed the teams to make sure the games are competitive, not all teams would be playing at the same time."
McManus sees his value to the HDC as being "cognisant of what the players are facing. I'm very lucky to have been recently retired from inter-county and to be on the board of the GPA, so I get the opportunity to chat to a lot of players across a lot of different counties who are actually living the problems that there are with hurling at the minute".
But bigger picture, he wants to see more counties being competitive in hurling, especially in Ulster and Connacht.
"We need to have more teams from Connacht and more teams from Ulster competing at Christy Ring and at Joe McDonagh level, at a minimum"
"We need to develop more top-tier teams. We have six to nine teams who have a real chance of winning, and I'm just talking at a provincial level here, to be totally honest. So we need to grow that.
"I know that strategically we always have to grow the game, participation-wise, especially in Ulster and Connacht. But we need to develop more teams and hopefully I can bring insight from those current inter-county players to the committee.
"Growing hurling in Ulster has been actually successful in some regards. There are about 30 new Hurling clubs in Ulster over the last decade.
"It's just the competitiveness of our teams in Ulster. We only have Antrim in the top tier in terms of playing Liam MacCarthy in Division 1 or Division 1B. Jarly Óg [Burns], is, if not the best, one of the best hurlers in Armagh. But where's the incentive for him to play hurling for Armagh? That's the truth… when he can play in the All-Ireland [football] final.
"We need to have more teams from Connacht and more teams from Ulster competing at Christy Ring and at Joe McDonagh level, at a minimum. I think that's really achievable if we work on the teams we have already shown that they can do it.
"If you look at what Ronan Sheehan has done with a very small group of Down hurlers. Three seasons ago, Westmeath beat them in the Division 2 final, so they were nearly in Division 1.
"Let's help them get to at least the top end of the Joe McDonagh competition and try and get them into Division 1, or to the top end of Division 1B. Those are all really achievable goals.
"More senior teams competing so those kids can see that level of competition, see that that's achievable and therefore want to play for those teams."
.@MartyMofficial heard from Brian Cody, @Neilmcmanus88 and GAA president Jarlath Burns at the announcement that the association is seeking a National Head of Hurling | Full story https://t.co/3myD4H6ntJ #GAA pic.twitter.com/1tj30DQGsb
— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) September 18, 2024
McManus thinks the HDC's focus should be on encouraging more children to take up hurling in what are traditionally football heartlands.
"We need to have much more participation at youth level because Ulster is football-dominated," he said.
"Nearly a million people live in greater Belfast now. Participation is growing in some areas, but it's actually dwindling in what would be the traditionally strong areas of West Belfast. We only have two minor teams playing from West Belfast in the minor championship.
"It has to be long-term, this is going to take 20, 30 years. The kids who are the first people to experience the benefit of this group, of this Hurling Development Committee, tied in with the [new job of] head of Hurling, are not going to see senior hurling for at least 15 years.
"So I think you have to start at the very bottom in terms of the underage and the schools. We need to get our games development officers into the schools in a really structured way, and then figure out what we do when the schools aren't operating over the summer as well.
"Because at the minute, so few of the kids are getting an opportunity to play hurling in Ulster. They're not going to take up Hurling at 15. Not in Ulster anyway, or Connacht for that matter, outside of Galway."
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