Eric Molloy keen to give back to soccer in Carlow

“I want to give back to Carlow people. I want to help local Carlow people,” were the words of Rathvilly and Carlow GAA Footballer, and alos former League of Ireland soccer Eric Molloy after he was named the new Assistant Manager in Killeshin for the upcoming season. He will work alongside manager Greg Sykula. 

He said he’s relishing the challenge and sees it as a project given they finished last place last season. 

“Anybody who watched Killeshin this season expected them to be bottom of the table so you’re right, it is going to have it’s challenges. There is a lot of work to do and a lot of coaching to be done. But I suppose you have to relish that as a coach. You can always wait for the right time, the perfect opportunity but I was just like, I’ll throw myself into something and not wait. It lets me be closer to home, I can still do football and my other things around it that I love doing. I could have gone and coached or played in the League of Ireland but I wouldn’t have been coaching Carlow people. Carlow people don’t often get the same opportunities as people in Dublin have in terms of the coaching so I feel like I’m giving back a little and it’s nice to give back to my local area so people don’t have to travel to get good coaching. People think miracles are easy, but they take time and a lot of work. We’re hopefully going to try and build something, depending on the players we get in and how available they are. All we can do is our best and see if we can get Killeshin up that table, that would be a start.” 

The former Club World Cup finalist with Club Wellington in New Zealand explained that he does have previous coaching experience but management is a new venture for him. 

“I have my B Licence, which I got last year. I’ve done a lot of coaching too at different points, in New Zealand and doing the GAA Coaching Co-Ordinator role last year, I coached kids of all different age groups across the county and was coaching coaches, I had a lot of practical learning. I had a taste of it in the Carlow League last season, with Vale. I’d have known Greg from our time at FC Carlow. He ended up getting the role there and he needed a help out because he was doing it all on his own so he said to me if you can even give me one night a week to come down and help for an hour. I was obviously busy with county football but any chance I got, I went down and got a feel for it. It was great, it was good to see the quality of the people of Carlow. It’s a lot more challenging when people have jobs or are mixing with other sports and have families, or are away for college so there’s issues with people being available and numbers and so it has its challenges but it was nice to see what it was like. I gave it a run up until Christmas and then January I was fully focused on the football.”

 “Greg ended up giving me a call out of the blue and said you’re finished with the footballers for now, will you come in and give me a hand with some coaching in a more stable long term capacity and have more of a say. When I was at Vale, I was just helping Greg out and doing what he says, whereas now I can help shape things more. I’m not doing anything for the moment until the county football starts up so I was like I might actually be able to make it work so I said I’ll come in and do some coaching. We’re at the stage now where we’re past 1 July and getting players signed now before pre-season training starts. Totally different for me, different dynamics in place. It’s challenging because people just want to go where their friends are and want to play with their friends. It’s new but me and Greg are trying our best. One of the best things we have in our favour is that Killeshin have very good facilities out there. They have better facilities than a lot of League of Ireland sides. A lot of League of Ireland sides don’t actually own their grounds and just rent them. So Killeshin is one of the best facilities around, which is a big plus for players.” 

He admits it’s going to be tough balancing the job with his other commitments but says that there is leeway and that it’ll take organisation. “There’s going to be a lot of organising and scheduling to make sure there aren’t as many clashes. I’ve come to realise there’s a lot more leeway with club football than county and club soccer compared to League of Ireland. They don’t mind if you miss a session here or there. In League of Ireland that means you’re out of the squad and you mightn’t get back in for a month. Even with county if somebody comes in and plays well, you’re struggling to get back in.” 

 He’s also hoping to play a little too, but says that’ll depend on his GAA commitments. 

“I haven’t played soccer in nearly two years but it’s one of those things that if you put time and effort into it, like riding a bike, you’ll get there. I spent a lot of time learning how to play soccer and being coached by a lot of good coaches. The only issue with people is that as they get older, the body starts to slow down. I’m quite lucky in that I’ve been playing GAA so it should only take a short period for me to get playing ready. I’ll be coaching first and see how things go. I honestly love playing soccer though, so if there was even a small chance of me playing with Killeshin, I would love to do that too. If Rathvilly are going well in the Championship you’ll end up playing more games in Leinster which will eat into me playing with Killeshin but I’m not ruling anything out, it is tempting.”