McEntee hoping to profit from February's NFL loss to Kildare

The connection between Gaelic football and the money markets may not at first be obvious - but to Meath manager Andy McEntee there are strong similarities.

McEntee spent 27 years working in the finance sector most recently with Davy Stockbrokers. He has stepped away from that line of work for the moment at least, a kind of sabbatical.

Instead he is focused on restoring Meath’s fortunes on the inter-county front.
In a interview with the Meath Chronicle he talks of the world of finance, particularly the buying and selling or currencies, and how snap, informed decisions have to be made.

Those decisions, he knows all too well, can have far-reaching consequences. They can result in rich dividends - or they can lead to very unpleasant consequences.

“The money markets, the foreign exchange and interest rates, that’s what I had been involved in for the previous 27 years and, like football management, that can be a pretty time-consuming occupation as well,” he told the Meath Chronicle.

It’s easy to imagine two Andy McEntees.

The first is him standing in his suit and tie in an office watching a screen as a maze of numbers are flashing before him indicating the ever fluctuating world of currencies.

Then there’s the other Andy McEntee, standing in his tracksuit looking out on a pitch as the ebb and flow of a game unfolds.

In both scenarios he has to quickly process the information and take appropriate measures.

Time is of the essence, so is experience, and knowing when to make THAT move can make all the difference.

Do you play that player or this player?

Do you employ new tactics or stick with the tried and trusted?

Do you buy up more of this or that currency and hope that your hunches - however well informed - work out for the better.

“The risk was there, yes, a quick decision often had to be made and there are heavy penalties if you don’t get the decisions right,” he explained.

“It’s very much like managing a football team, you have to be able to think on your feet and you have to be able to deal with people and manage relationships. That’s very much part of managing a football team.”

McEntee is clearly fascinated with the science of football management; the challenge involved in talking a group of people and getting the best out of them.

He did just that most notably with Ballyboden St Enda’s leading them to an All-Ireland Club crown last year. Now the question is can he work the oracle with his native county?

No matter what he takes on McEntee seeks to learn from the best.

It’s certainly his way when it comes to football management. Always learning.
While he was in charge of Ballyboden St Enda’s he brought in Irish rugby coach Joe Schmidt to talk to the players.

McEntee also makes no effort to hide his admiration for what Brian Cody has done with Kilkenny, regularly moulding teams into All-Ireland champions.

“You’re always learning, always trying to pick up something from somebody who has done a little bit more than yourself. Joe came and spoke to the players at Ballyboden and he was very welcome, the lads found him intriguing.”
What was Joe’s message?

“There’s nothing radically new in what he said. Joe’s message would be the same as Brian Cody’s, it’s the same. It’s about properly preparing a team, performing on the day, it’s just a reinforcement of what you are trying to do yourself.”

Cody has made it known in the past that one of the first things he looks to build in a team is “spirit.”

McEntee agrees this quality referred to as “spirit” is something as fundamental as putting in proper foundations for a house; without it the whole structure will eventually crumble.

“There’s loads of ways of defining that quality we call spirit. You have to have the ability to react to bad situations, to work hard, there’s nothing revolutionary about it really. Building spirit is something you can develop if you work hard enough.

“I think you need to look for a combination of everything, not everybody has the same qualities, you’re trying to get the best possible combination of everything together and I think with this group of players there are a lot of guys there with very good qualities,” he added.

“In management you’re constantly trying to figure out things and arrange things and there are very few minutes of the day when you are not thinking about it.”

That would suggest that for the past week or so McEntee has spent a sizeable chunk of his day thinking about Kildare - and how to deal with their physicality and talented forwards such as Daniel Flynn and Niall Kelly.

He reflects back to a bleak Sunday afternoon last February when, in his first NFL outing as Meath manager, the Lilywhites demolished the Royals, 3-17 to 0-16.

It was a classic wake up call.

“Kildare are probably the biggest, strongest team we’ve played all year so far, they are a big physical team and when they came to Navan that day we just weren’t able for them. That’s the big challenge we face on Saturday.”

In Parnell Park the other week, the 0-27 to 3-9 winning scoreline would suggest McEntee and his management got it right against Louth.

Some vibrant attacking play was finished off with excellent scores.

Nobody can diminish the fact that 27 points is a big tally, but there were signs too of a defensive frailty in the way the Wee County chalked up three goals.

One of those goals was down to a bizarre error by goalkeeper Paddy O’Rourke who otherwise had a good game.

However, leaking a relatively high quota of goals is not something McEntee is happy about and going into Saturday’s game with Kildare he knows his team is going to have to be as secure as Fort Knox.

“We’re always trying to improve every aspect of our game, but I think it’s fair to say if we concede 3-9 the next day we won’t win the game. So that side of our game is going to have to improve all right.”

As the manager, he sees his job as pinpointing where the team went wrong and how to put it right.

“Mostly you look at the opportunities that were presented (to Louth), you look at what led to them, poor decision making, marking, there is always a combination of things that lead to opportunities.”

He goes on to talk about “bad decisions” that were made in sectors of the pitch well away from the goals; how mistakes made “in and around the middle of the field” were exposed.

“You have to look at a combination of things, it’s not just individuals,” he concluded.

When he said that, the Meath manager was clearly talking football, but he could just as easily have been referring to the world of the money markets, and making split-seconds calls that can make all the difference; between victory and defeat, profit and loss.