From Mickey Harte's departure to missing out on Malachy O'Rourke: What's going on in Derry?

A return for Rory Gallagher was ruled out last week as Derry look for Mickey Harte's successor after Malachy O'Rourke went to Tyrone.

Anyone considering taking the Derry job will have looked very closely at the entirety of events of the past 15 months.

It’s hardly surprising then that there isn’t a long queue of proven coaches lining up to take what should be a highly sought after post.

The wider question is how did a side that won back-to-back Ulster titles, came agonisingly close to making last year’s All-Ireland final and then turned over Dublin in a National League final, collapse so alarmingly in the Championship?

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And how have Derry arrived at a point where they’re one of only three inter-county football sides without a manager?

Malachy O’Rourke, a shrewd man, spoke to Derry, weighed it all up and went for Tyrone.

The speed of Mickey Harte’s exit - another shrewd man - after just one year, will also have set alarm bells ringing among potential candidates.

Derry’s failure to land O’Rourke twice will have any top manager asking serious questions about what went on there and how they conducted their business.

Perhaps, as has been suggested, some elements among the players and officials were keen on Rory Gallagher returning last year and this year, but this has since been ruled out by the County Board.

Gallagher was the best coach in the country when he resigned last June in the wake of domestic abuse allegations, which he stated had been fully investigated, and which he refuted in a statement last week.

He had taken Derry from obscurity to serious All-Ireland contenders at a time when the door was opening, with Dublin not the all-conquering machine they were in the second half of the last decade.

Once the players were exposed to the level of coaching and tactical detailwhich Gallagher brought to the table, and with the success the group enjoyed, it was always going to be a tough gig for the next man in.

This was the situation Harte and Gavin Devlin, another very highly regarded coach, walked into.

Some will say Derry hit the wall this year by going too hard, too early. Or that a sorry injury list was their undoing - it certainly exposed the fallacy that they had suddenly developed a deep squad in the space of five months.

If it was just the injuries or not timing their run, shrewd football coaches would have weighed all that up and formed an orderly queue to take the job.

That they haven’t says a lot. The top managers and coaches do their homework before they take a job. Nothing is left to chance.

If they sense there are any underlying issues, they’ll run a mile, and you don’t need to be a bloodhound to sniff them out here.

If the players were divided on the subject of Gallagher returning - and the same with the County Board - a top coach will find out about it and it will be a very quick, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’

Inter-county management is a tough enough gig without having one arm tied behind your back.

There are other factors too. For all Derry have got right at underage level, winning three of the last five All-Ireland minor titles, there is no well of high end coaches ready to step into the senior job in the county.

With all that is involved in it, it’s hardly a major surprise. Most counties are the same, bar two or three.

The modern player demands more from their coaches, and if you’re not taking a chance on a rising name, then there are literally a handful of proven elite candidates out there.

These are figures who can drill a game plan into a side on the training field to the point where it is muscle memory when they hit the field of play.

They also have the shrewdness to come up with individual tactics to defeat a specific opponent on a particular day, and ultimately to outwit the finest minds in the game.

There are not many of them about. That’s what the Derry players were used to. By proven, at the highest end, we generally mean having won an All-Ireland title.

It will take a serious man manager and football coach to smooth all this over and some of the big leaders in the Derry group to put it back on the players.

Current Slaughtneil manager, Mark Doran has been linked with the job, having coached with Wicklow this year and Clare last year.

The Down man also led Ballybay to a Monaghan Championship in 2022, ending Scotstown's dominance for one year, and is known for having a serious football brain.

Coming out of Croke Park on March 31, Derry looked every inch an All-Ireland contender, going toe to toe with Dublin right to the end of extra-time and having the nerve to beat them in a penalty shootout.

By the end of the Armagh All-Ireland qualifier on June 2 - just 63 days later - they looked a shambles, having conceded eight goals in their previous three championship games.

Injuries or not, some of what went on out on the field was inexplicable in the context of the previous year and a half.

They’re clearly not a shambles. Not too many counties have elite top end players like Brendan Rogers, Conor Glass, Conor McCluskey and Shane McGuigan - in their prime.

This guarantees nothing though if everyone in the county isn’t pulling in the same direction.

Landing the right management team is always paramount, but so too is repairing any divisions that are there.

Derry will hope that time is a healer by the time they begin collective training again in December.

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