Derry star backs Rory Gallagher to return to inter-county management

Derry star Brendan Rogers expects Rory Gallagher to manage at inter-county level again.

Gallagher stood down as Derry boss 18 months ago after his estranged wife made serious allegations against him on social media and though he has been linked with a return to the job on several occasions - as recently as last week - he has ultimately been passed over. In September, Gallagher’s solicitor issued a statement saying that he “fully intends to return to inter-county management in the near future” - and Rogers can see a pathway for him.

“Oh absolutely,” said the Derry midfielder. “A man’s ambition and desire in life is sport. That’s what it is. He only has a passion for sport, be it Gaelic or whatever. He has a massive love for American football and basketball and Liverpool, unfortunately, but yeah, I can’t see why he wouldn’t. There’s been a lot of things went on in the background and that’s his personal life but he’s very capable of being an inter-county manager, one of the best IQs in the game so look, I’d be very surprised if somewhere down the line if he didn’t get an inter-county post because life has to move on as well too.”

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It has been widely reported that the Derry players yearned for Gallagher’s return and Rogers admitted: “It’s not wrong to say that a lot of players would have an affection to how Rory Gallagher coached us and ultimately he did get us all our senior success and there’s a love for how he treated the players and they got on very well with him so I would imagine that’s where the speculation came from.

“I don’t think any player that played under him thought that he wasn’t a good coach or good at what he did and very impressionable with the players but in terms of the speculation, I think yeah, there was a lot of ‘apparentlys’ and ‘supposedlys’ and ‘heard from a good source’ type conversations but, again, what went on in the background, we’re not overly privy to whether the consideration was there or not but would he have been a good coach for us again? Absolutely.

“The man’s IQ for football is phenomenal but it just wasn’t to be and I guess that’s part of the committee and executives to make that decision but yeah, of course there’s a love for him.

“Some one who brings you success and developed a lot of our players into the players that we are.

“Even myself, he transitioned me from full-back to midfield and it’s done ok so far. Yeah, there’s things to be liked but it wasn’t to be this year and I think the players can just understand that and move on. You can’t sit on it forever.”

Rogers added that he hasn’t had contact with Gallagher since he left the Derry job in May of last year.

“No, not even… even when Rory was over Derry we never had many conversations. It was one of those kind of relationships where I learned on the pitch and he gave his message on the pitch. That was it.

“I never had any phone calls with him when he was manager of Derry and I never had any phone calls since, or nothing like that. It's not to say that we didn't like each other or anything, that was just the dynamic. Yeah, there was none of that.”

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