When Andrew McGivern turned up at a recent Sunday morning training session for the An Ríocht camogs, he realised that he had made the right decision to return to coaching so soon after his cancer treatment.
At the training session, there were 22 players ready and waiting for their session at 7.30am. Andrew said, “So when I pulled up seeing the girls there ready to rock’n’roll, you know, it made me feel brilliant.”
He explained that when he was first approached about coaching the team, he wasn’t sure if he should take on the challenge. “I had lung cancer a year and a half ago. I didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and I go to the gym two or three days a week, and ended up with lung cancer. So originally I said no (to An Ríocht) because I’m actually getting immunotherapy.”
Andrew has coached at underage level in Down and with his own club Ballela, so clubs in the county knew that he was a good coach. That’s why An Riocht contacted him. “I said to them, ‘Jeez, I would love to, but I just don’t know if the time is right.’ And then they came back and asked me again. And then I said, you know what, maybe I would.”
He soon realised that the An Ríocht team have great potential. “It’s a fantastic club really. They have really good numbers. At Ballela, if you get 10 or 15 on a night, that was a good night. With An Ríocht, we have 22 and the numbers haven’t changed.”
Read the full story in the current issue of the Mourne Observer.
