New Donegal coach Aidan O’Rourke: We’ll try to build something positive here

New Donegal senior team head coach Aidan O’Rourke admits he and new manager Paddy Carr will be aiming to hit the ground running.

The 2002 All-Ireland winner, who has seven Ulster SFC medals, is currently employed as Performance Sport Manager at Queen’s University in Belfast. On Monday night he and Carr were unveiled by the Donegal County Board as the search to appoint a successor to Declan Bonner finally ended.

Bonner’s departure was 97 days before Carr and O’Rourke’s appointment, with county committee learning that discussions about the job had also been taken with Jim McGuinness, Martin McHugh, Rory Kavanagh and Shaun Paul Barrett. Kavanagh appeared to be the front-runner for the job, until he stepped aside last week. No backroom team as yet has been named, with county chairman Mick McGrath saying on Monday that when that team is completed, only then will it be announced publicly.

“My job will be to coach the team,” O’Rouke said at the now officially opened Donegal GAA Centre in Convoy on Monday. "These lads have shown the level of performance they are capable of. Our brief will be to try to squeeze that wee bit more out of them.

“Myself and Paddy's coaching careers have overlapped quite a bit. I've known him for quite a few years. Our paths have crossed at county level, university level and club football also. We've had some great conversations over the years and it's great now to come together and try to build something positive here.”

Donegal players are currently working on Strength & Conditioning programmes, with collective training allowed to commence on November 25.

“At this level, the players will be working away on their own conditioning anyway,” O’Rourke added. “We'll be catching up on all of that now from this week on. We'll get the current squad up and running as quickly as possible.

“We'll have an open ear to what’s possible and what's out there in terms of raw materials. We're under no illusions. We're eager to get to work as quickly as we can. But it's a group of players that have serious potential.

“Expectations? I don't take any of that lightly. Myself and Paddy have a very similar outlook on the year ahead and maximising that. That is the total focus. There are other county jobs that if you went into them, you'd be looking at the time frame, reshaping and possibly rebuilding.

“There is always pressure when it comes to coaching at this level. No one is under any illusions. But no one feels that hurt more than the players- when things don't go your way. I'm excited about what's ahead, we feel they have a lot in their tank. And with the new structure in place, I'm also excited about the new season on the whole. It's a huge challenge, like I say, but it's also a huge honour. That is not what this is about. It's about getting the absolute best out of the group as well as those small percentage points as best we can.”

“The nature of county football is becoming more difficult to get people to commit to it. You have to change your life and that isn’t something that everyone is able to do. There are other pressures with it too, the social media aspect and the expectations.”

O’Rourke sees ‘huge potential’ in Donegal ‘to play in a variety of ways’. He said: “It is becoming more impactful to kick the ball at the right time. If you kick it all of the time, you’re an idiot. If there are moments where it’s right to kick it, you have to have the understanding that it’s right, the vision to see it and the skill to execute it. That is a whole cake that has to be baked.”

Donegal won two Ulster SFC titles under Declan Bonner, in 2018 and 2019. With the at or close to the top table for the last decade, there remains big expectations in Donegal.

O’Rourke said: “Ulster is very healthy from a development point of view because you’re tested at every turn. How it finds a space in the calendar remains to be seen because there are different consequences for different teams. An Ulster title is still very important in the grand scheme.”