Combining the demands of full-time employment with managing an inter-county team on a voluntary basis is reaching unsustainable levels, according to Derek McGrath.

McGrath has taken extended parental leave from his day job as a teacher in Waterford city's De La Salle school to allow him channel all his energies into the Deise's push for Liam MacCarthy honours.

"The sustainability of working and managing, I find it hard," he revealed to The Irish Independent. "Now, people say you're in the ideal job for it.

"It depends on your own personality. I have found it difficult not to be all or nothing in teaching, and not all or nothing in management. I would find it difficult to do the two. Margaret Betts, the principal, has been brilliant to me."

He continued: "I just found I wasn't committed to the teaching as I should have been, whilst I was in class. I know I could be vilified for that, or I could be in trouble for saying that. So I felt the best scenario for me at the moment is just to be concentrating on the hurling.

"One thing I would say is I'm kind of an obsessive character, I'd be thinking about hurling whether I'm involved in it or not.

"First thing in the morning I tend to think about it. I suppose it's transmitting that obsessive nature to your players, without it becoming all about you. That's the key thing.

"I've just become so consumed by it that maybe it's just the way I'm going to do it for now. Maybe I'll learn into the future a different way of doing it."

Tweet

Most Read Stories