McMahon happy to take the pressure that comes with the Naas job

Philly McMahon needs no introduction to GAA fans around the country but at the same for a new manager coming into a club halfway through a season, there had to be a getting-to-know-you period between him and his new group of players.

The Naas manager is delighted with how that has gone and said that likes of Kevin Martin, Martin Sweeney and Padraig Cribben have been key to helping him and coach James Burke settle in.

“It’s been really enjoyable. Of course, when you are looking after a group there are always complexities and always challenges but this group is very grounded. They have done a huge amount of work with the management team that are there, myself and James only came in halfway through the year. They have a really grounded group of players there and that’s down to the development from the coaches in the club, the parents and everything in the community of Naas. It’s been really easy to come in and try to add bits on to the group and everything, so far, has gone to plan.

“The three boys – Kev, Martin and Cribby – have been unreal for me and James in that. They are a key, important part integrating not just into the club but into the community of Naas. Kev and Cribby are ingrained in the Naas Community through the school, both teachers, Kevin is the principal in Clane. Having that kind of information around the group was key but having that connection to the players was massive, and is massive right now,” said McMahon.

With everything in place to push for honours within the county and beyond, Naas was obviously an appealing job but at the same time, there is a huge amount of pressure to succeed attached to the role as well.

“I’ll take that pressure,” said McMahon.

“The lads are just there to enjoy their football. They are in a really good phase of Naas GAA. In sport, timing is crucial and if people want to put pressure on me that’s fine. That doesn’t really matter, I’m very lucky in that I can block a lot of that out, whether people are telling you that you are going to fail or whether they are patting you on the back when you do ok. That’s not what this is about, it’s about these lads enjoying the time that we have together, creating an experience for this year and wherever that takes us that’s what I’ll be happy to walk away with, whatever that may be. I just want to be able to walk down the street in years to come and see these lads and for them to say, ‘thanks for that, thanks for giving us your time and giving us an experience that we’ll never forget’,” he said.

The multiple All-Ireland winner has been impressed by the Kildare Championship on his first close up viewing.

“I think a lot of people outside Kildare think it’s a one horse race and it’s certainly not. When you look at the last couple of years it’s been really tight. When you look at this season, you could definitely put Clane in that pot with Athy, Naas, Sarsfields and Celbridge. They are really strong clubs at the minute. I didn’t get to experience playing these teams in the league, we played Maynooth and Sarsfields in the league final, and obviously got beaten by Sarsfields in the group stage,” he said.

Athy are definitely one of the teams who have caught his eye.

“I’ve been impressed by Athy, particularly the last day with Sarsfields being really strong this year and they certainly would have been disappointed not to get over the line, with the year they’ve had I’m sure they would have hoped to have been in a final. Athy had a really strong start and saw out the game which showed their character. They have some really good players, young Moran on the wing has been brilliant this year, they obviously that colossal leader in Feely, Kelly. They’ve got a really good strong there as well. We’ll do our homework as we do with every team. We’ll focus on the learnings from the last game first of all and then we’ll get after doing our work on Athy and then we’ll focus on us,” said McMahon.