by Paddy Hickey

Dundalk FC goalkeeper Gary Rogers says he will have no problem combining his new role with the Meath football team alongside his soccer commitments to the newly-crowned League of Ireland champions.

In the aftermath of Cormac Sullivan stepping down as goalkeeping coach to the Royals, Meath boss Andy McEntee asked Rogers to come in as a replacement for the All-Ireland-winning and former International Rules netminder.

And, despite his busy involvement with the Border club, whose players operate on a full-time basis, Rogers had no hesitation in accepting McEntee’s request.

“I’m a very proud Meath man, and I didn’t have to think twice when Andy contacted me,” said Rogers, who formerly played with his county’s senior and junior football teams.

“In fact, I was delighted that Andy got on to me, as I’m only too willing to help out the Meath team in any way that I can.

“It’s a big help that we train in the morning at Dundalk and so I’m generally free in the evenings.

“Admittedly, I won’t be involved in as many training sessions as the Meath players, but I still hope to give Andy a dig-out on one to two evenings a week.”

In addition, Rogers’ eagerness and enthusiasm to step into the Meath breach is significantly intensified by his previous experience of serving as goalkeeping coach to Gaelic football teams.

“I was involved as goalkeeping coach to the Cavan football for four years and with the Westmeath football team for one year, and things worked exceptionally well in both cases,” pointed out Rogers who played his GAA club football with St Ultan’s.

“Colin Kelly was the manager when I was with Westmeath this year, and the goalkeepers that I worked out with there were Eoin Carberry and Kevin Fagan.

“Prior to that, I was with Cavan when Terry Hyland was the manager and the goalkeepers I worked with were Ray Galligan and Alan O’Mara,” added Rogers, who in his Gaelic football days never lined out in goal, instead featuring at midfield or at centre-forward.

On the subject of goalkeeping coaching, the Navan native feels that perhaps not as much importance is attached to the role as compared to the matter of coaching for outfield players in Gaelic football.

“In soccer, the objective is to score goals and so players are trying to put the ball past the goalkeeper all the time,” he said.

“But, of course, in Gaelic players can shoot for points and the goal chances don’t arrive that often in a game.

“As well, goalkeepers in soccer have to deal with the likes of crosses into the penalty area and with distribution of the ball to the outfield players,” he remarked on the matter.

“However, I think that the role of goalkeepers in Gaelic is gradually getting more important as time goes by, and, of course, Stephen Cluxton has elevated the work of a goalkeeper to a new level in that regard.

“So I think that a greater amount of time will be devoted to the coaching of goalkeepers during training sessions in future years,” added Rogers, whose Dundalk side won this year’s League of Ireland title with a number of games to spare.

Looking ahead to next year’s GAA campaign, the experienced netminder is quite optimistic about Meath’s prospects.

“After this year’s qualifiers game against Tyrone, Meath can take a lot of encouragement from the fact that they were very unlucky not to get a draw that day,” he remarked.

“And, of course, the merit and quality of that performance was seen by the fact that Tyrone went on to reach the All-Ireland final against Dublin,” added Rogers whose side face Cork City in the FAI Cup final on Sunday week.

Keep up to date with all of Sunday afternoon's provincial club championship and county final action on the hoganstand.com live match tracker. 

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