Laverty living the dream

Wednesday 23rd November 2016

Conor Laverty may be just 31 but he’s spent almost half of his life coaching.

After training the young blood in the county with Down GAA, he’s since spent the last six years as a GAA development officer in Trinity College but the Kilcoo star had long served his apprenticeship before that.

“I think we won an under-12 All-County championship and I was 16 managing them. It was me and another lad on the panel, Gary McEvoy, he was a couple of years older and the two of us managed the team, a lot of them boys are playing at the minute.

“It was just we were trying to get young coaches in place and trying to get the right people in charge of the teams with the right attitude and the desire and vision of where we wanted our club to go to and thankfully it's paid off.”

Certainly the Down champions are in a golden period just now, with the Magpies recently completing a five-in-a-row of county title wins.

Next up is Slaughtneil of Derry in the Ulster final on Sunday (Athletic Grounds, 2:30pm) and the former Down star hopes to go one better than 2012 when they were beaten by Crossmaglen Rangers.

“I have to say at county level the lads were extremely committed and always any time I was with a county panel it was always of a high standard,” says the former Mourne County captain.

“I would go as far as saying that this current Kilcoo panel is... equally and if not above what a lot of county teams are. It come down to the players, the management, and the mindset and commitment of the group as a whole. They are a very driven bunch of players.

“This is probably the first year in five or six years I haven't been playing with the county” he adds. “It was great. I have a young family and I could spent a bit more time. I also took the under-8s and 16s, I had been taking them but it just made it very difficult to do both when I was playing with Down.

“When your club is at the top level you have to be training equally as much and preparing equally as well. The only difference I found was travel, you still have to go yo your gym three times weekly and do your recovery. The only difference was down the road and you are there.”

Laverty has a hectic schedule even without the commitment of inter-county football, including a three-hour round trip to work in Trinity every day. Having to go only two minutes down the road for training with Kilcoo makes it easier, and he’s enjoying his football hugely.

“I've three wee boys, one at 5, one at two and a half and a wee man who was just one last week - and the two older lads, the oldest lad in particular, is football mad so he understands but he's going to have to come to a fair reality check some day because he's five and every year we win a championship. So he's going to have to understand that you just don't win senior championships every year that you live,” he smiles.

“But it's great and being successful does help with the underage and that because they become accustomed to seeing you winning trophies and hopefully they grow up and that's the expectation and that's where you're at and what you want to do so that's the dream they want to live.”

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