WHEN Conor Hourihane was presented with the chance to take over as Barnsley’s caretaker manager until the end of the season, it was a role he couldn’t say no to.
It’s certainly come earlier than he had expected, but the Bandon man will take it in his stride – he knows this is an incredible opportunity.
‘I am not fazed by the situation,’ Hourihane stated after he was handed the reins at Oakwell following the sacking of manager Darrell Clarke.
He will be in charge of the League One club until the end of this campaign – this is his chance to shine and show what he can do. He feels ready.
Even though he’s only 34 years old, Hourihane has been preparing for a moment like this. When he rejoined Barnsley last summer as a player/coach, it was clear the clock was ticking on his playing days. The end came earlier than he had anticipated, but when he hung up his playing boots before Christmas, he was comfortable with that chapter closing because he was ready for the next challenge.
His passion for coaching meant he wasn’t scared to retire.
On December 20th Hourihane was named the club’s assistant head coach. Less than three months later, he is now the Tykes’ interim manager with the team lying mid-table in League One, nine points outside the play-off places with games running out.
‘This is obviously new territory in terms of coaching, but in terms of the pressure environment, it's nothing new to me. I will take it in my stride, let’s see how we go,’ he said, confident that his work in the background can help him grab this incredible opportunity to make an impact. If he does, Hourihane could put himself in contention for the full-time job. Even if he is not on Barnsley’s short-list, this experience has the potential to strengthen his own credentials.
‘I have been very fortunate that the club has given me that early experience and they have obviously seen something in me since I have come in the door to say “over to you for the next ten games”,’ he added.
Conor Hourihane captained Barnsley to League One play-off glory in 2016.
His tenure kicked off last weekend with a disappointing 2-1 loss away to Mansfield, and he has nine more auditions from here until the end of the season. He’ll embrace every game as a chance to show what he can do because this is exactly where West Cork’s greatest-ever soccer player wants to be. He won’t shirk the challenge; his assuredness and confidence is of a man prepared to seize the moment, even if it came earlier than planned.
His obsession with football has led to this point. Towards the end of his playing days, his mind was on the next stage of his football journey – Hourihane created his own coaching bible, crammed full of sessions and notes and presentations, from how he sees his team with or without the ball to how they will press in a particular formation. Coaching is what he wants to do – and now he will manage a League One club for ten games.
When Hourihane was named Barnsley’s assistant head coach in December, he told The Southern Star: ‘This hasn’t come by chance, it has come from hard work, preparation and focus. I am happy and content with my playing career, a lot of people keep playing for the sake of it because they don't know what to do after playing, but I am lucky that I have found something I love and I have that focus to keep moving forward. It’s in a different direction, but I am passionate about coaching and this is what I want to do.’
Now the West Cork man, though ahead of schedule, has the opportunity that any young aspiring manager craves. As a player that climbed from the Town Park in Bandon to the oxygen-sapping heights of the Premier League, preparation was the foundation rock that he built his career on. That won’t change. When he was still playing, Hourihane met with coaches and sporting directors, to pick their brains.
‘I ask them, “Why do you appoint certain managers? What characteristics do you want to see?” I want to know how that process works. I’m picking people’s brains, being a sponge and moulding myself as a coach,’ he told The Athletic.
So, last week, when Hourihane was on a course at St George’s Park and Barnsley Sporting Director Mladen Sormaz rang to inform him that Darrell Clarke was sacked and the Bandon man was being put in temporary charge, he didn’t flinch. Hourihane hopped into his car straightway, drove the 90 kilometres to Barnsley and got to work. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail, and the former Republic of Ireland midfielder is a disciple of detail.
‘The organisation around the coaching sessions is critical – the weekly sessions, the monthly sessions, planning ahead to make everything runs as smoothly as possible. You have to have top-level organisational skills, that’s for sure,’ Hourihane told this paper in December, and his level of precision on the pitch as a player when his magical left foot pinged the perfect pass is mirrored off the pitch as a coach-turned-manager.
It’s why, as a player from Plymouth Argyle in League Two to Aston Villa in the Premier League, Hourihane was always early to training, whether he was club captain or not. His routine was shaped around giving himself the best chance to train well, and in turn play well. It’s why he’s in bed at 10pm every night, latest. Lights out. Every morning, he’ll have a coffee, like a flat white, and a piece of fruit at home, and then arrive at the training ground early.
‘I always like to get in early, get ready for my day, and be organised,’ he told this paper, offering an insight into his mentality to scale heights no other West Cork footballer has ever done before, or come close to since.
‘It would eat me alive if I came in a little bit late and I didn’t have time to do something before training or the day before a game.’
Now he is the man in the hot-seat at a club where he is a cult hero following his successful first stint with Barnsley. He knows football well enough, too, to know it’s a results business, but they’ll appreciate too that Hourihane will pour his heart and soul into this ten-game spell.
‘I'll treat the opportunity with the utmost hard work, respect standards demand, and hopefully I'll give them some good results on the pitch,’ he added, and if Barnsley finish the season strong, who knows what Hourihane’s future in coaching will look like.
‘The job is the full package. It’s constant. It’s relentless,’ he said when he was assistant head coach. That relentlessness will ratchet up even more now, but he won’t take a step back.
This door has opened. Time to put the head down and work hard , and Hourihane doesn’t know any other way.
