Cork ladies football coach James McCarthy is enjoying his latest challenge
JAMES McCarthy wasn’t actively looking to get back involved in football, and had declined a few club offers, but a phone call from Joe Carroll turned his head.
Before putting his name in for the vacant Cork ladies senior football manager’s role, Carroll wanted to assemble a top-class management team. McCarthy was on top of his wish-list. Straightaway, the Castlehaven man was interested because he was being offered a coaching position.
‘Being a coach is the complete opposite of being a manager,’ says McCarthy, who stepped down as Castlehaven manager in January 2024 after four seasons in charge; he wanted a break from management.
‘Even at club level now, the manager is working 24-seven. With Cork, Joe is the manager and I can look after the pitch side of things, which is just what I want.
‘You are more relaxed because you don’t have to organise a pitch for training or worry if the footballs will be there. This is what I was looking for, because I didn’t want to go back in as a full-time manager, not for the foreseeable future anyway, I am enjoying coaching.’
Cork manager Joe Carroll.
McCarthy enjoyed life outside the management bubble last year, and he earned that downtime. In his latest stint as Castlehaven manager (2020-2023) he built a squad that ended the club’s decade-long wait for a county senior football title, as they won the 2023 Cork and Munster senior football finals. McCarthy bowed out on a high, and enjoyed life as a supporter last season, following Castlehaven as they made it back-to-back titles. Late last year, his phone rang – it was Joe Carroll.
‘There was no planning in this one,’ McCarthy says.
‘Joe gave me a call, and I was after 12 months out, doing very, very little, apart from a small bit with the Castlehaven U21 ladies. I took a good breather and enjoyed life outside the line, like going to Castlehaven games and following their success.
‘I wasn’t looking for a gig, but I had options. I was asked to go with clubs but, no disrespect to any team, I have no interest in training a team against my own club. All of a sudden, Joe gave me a call, told me about the management team he was putting together for the Cork ladies job and he asked me about the coaching side of things. I’m interested in coaching, and these are elite players at inter-county level.
‘In a few years, the women’s and the men’s games will all be under the same umbrella so this is a chance for me to work with top-class players and also learn more as well.’
James McCarthy is excited to work with Cork footballers like Dohenys' All-Star Melissa Duggan.
McCarthy loves a challenge – and this is his latest, as Cork ladies’ footballers target an instant return to Division 1 of the national league after last season’s relegation, plus they want to be back in the mix for Munster and All-Ireland honours. McCarthy will admit he has very little coaching experience in ladies’ football, but drawing on his extensive work in the men’s game, he insists the principals remain the same.
‘The approach is the same as it would be with a men’s team, though maybe the physicality is not there,’ he explains.
‘The tackle is one difference, and from talking to people who have been involved in ladies’ football for a lot longer, it is an issue. There is no contact allowed, but it needs to change because the players are getting faster, fitter, stronger and more skillful.
‘I can take my experience of working with the Haven and with Cork squads into this, and the other people involved have been working with ladies football before so I am learning from them too, but the principles of play and coaching are the same across the board.’
When Joe Carroll asked McCarthy to come on board as the lead coach, the Rockchapel man knew that he was bringing on board a strong personality who demands the highest standards. But that’s what he wanted, to tap into the knowledge that makes McCarthy one of the most successful managers in Cork club football, and also hugely respected as well.
‘I said to Joe at the start that if we are going to do this, we are going to do it to the best of our ability and get the best people around us. In any successful set-up, it’s the people around you that are key, and the players buy into that then. If we have a good set-up, it gives us a chance. I feel we have,’ McCarthy says.
Anne O’Grady (Bantry Blues), Tadgh Buckley (Kilshannig), Brian McCarthy (Clann na nGael) and Valerie Mulcahy (Rockbán) are selectors in the Cork set-up and all four have extensive knowledge of ladies football. The addition of Fionn O’Shea, who McCarthy worked with at Castlehaven, is seen as a coup, with Paul Cronin looking after strength and conditioning. So far, McCarthy is enjoying the experience, and the chance to work with the best footballers in the county, including a host from his home region like Dohenys’ Melissa Duggan and St Colum’s Libby Coppinger. With Cork’s Lidl LGFA National Football League Division 2 campaign kicking into life this Saturday at home to Westmeath in Páirc Uí Rinn (2pm), fans will get the first view of Cork under Joe Carroll’s reign.
‘The women put in as much effort as the lads do; they don’t get the recognition for that, but they train as hard,’ McCarthy says.
‘They are very committed, a great bunch of players. If you say jump, they say how high, and that’s a great attitude to have. I am finding it very enjoyable at the moment, and looking forward to the league and seeing what we can do,’ he says.
‘We are looking to grow the team, and while the players learn off coaches, I always try to learn off players too. For me, it’s a challenge, but when you enjoy coaching you need to challenge yourself and step out of your comfort zone. I like doing that.’
His work as a Cork Development Co-Ordinator (GDC) means McCarthy has his finger on the pulse of coaching and Cork football, so his observations about the growth of ladies’ football are interesting. His own club Castlehaven has risen to the Cork LGFA senior ranks, and are joined by more West Cork clubs, Clonakilty, Kinsale and O'Donovan Rossa.
‘Ladies football is getting stronger. If you look at West Cork alone, I see it from my job that it’s outgrowing the men’s side, the number of girls playing ladies football compared to boys. That’s a testament to the sport itself and the profile it has now. The question now has to be: have we the right set-up to develop all these players, so the clubs and eventually county will benefit?’ McCarthy says, his mind already thinking about structures and forward-planning. But that’s how he works, always thinking ahead.
When he began his last stint as Castlehaven manager in 2020, he had one eye on bringing through the next generation of Haven footballers, and those young guns matured and developed under him. A plan was put in place.
They were put on gym programmes. Now the likes of Jack Cahalane, Tomás O’Mahony, Jack O’Neill, Sean Browne, Robbie Minihane, Jamie O’Driscoll and Micheál Maguire have all helped Haven win back-to-back titles.
Joe Carroll will hope serial winner McCarthy can bring his Midas touch to Cork ladies football now.
