[SIZE=“4”]Ryan a Model of composure [/SIZE]
Brendan OBrien -Irish Examiner
LEAVE aside the obvious distraction that is Sundays All-Ireland football semi-final, and this is still a busy week for Wexford manager Jason Ryan.
A PE teacher in Dungarvan, the former Waterford footballer will be just one link in the chain of thousands making their way back to the classrooms of Ireland after the long, but far from sultry, summer vacation.
Hardly the best of weeks to be returning to the nine to five and yet, in another sense, where better to dodge the hype ahead of the Tyrone game than in his own county, where they are equally engulfed in thoughts of their own All-Ireland glory?
Thats not a bad way of looking at it, Ryan admits but the reality is that duties he dealt with at his leisure last week have been shoe-horned into finite time slots in recent days.
The wonder for most of us is not that he is able to perform such a juggling act but that he is having to do so at all at so late a juncture in the season.
Ryan himself accepts the point.
Getting to an All-Ireland semi-final is tough to do, whichever route you take to get there but most people would accept that it is harder for provincial runners-up. Losing a final like that is such a hard blow to take.
For a county like Wexford, who people would say have no chance of winning an All-Ireland final, the feeling is that it is even harder to bounce back, because there wont be a belief there that they can win the All-Ireland.
There are so many traditional counties out of the competition and we are still there. All we have done is to stick to our jobs and see what comes of it.
Win or lose on Sunday, Wexford have already proven themselves to be worthy heirs of Houdini. Ten points down against Meath, with 18 minutes left, they produced a sensational recovery to reach the Leinster semi-final.
Little did we know at the time that they would produce a turnaround far more epic in scope, by following a 23-point defeat to Dublin in the provincial decider, with a renaissance that has taken them to within 70 minutes of the All-Ireland final itself.
The quarter-final defeat of Armagh was the result which made everyone take notice but it was the qualifier against Down that was the cog on which their fortunes spun so dramatically.
It was a big plus that we had played them already in the league. That stood to us, we knew what we were coming up against. Another big plus was the fact that we had played twice in Croke Park already this summer. Down didnt have that same experience of playing there.
THE main key in unlocking the door to the foothills of September was their ability to move on psychologically from the Dublin trauma and Ryan puts that down to the fact that the panel were playing club matches three days after the Leinster decider.
Vital as the mental side to the game is, Ryan stresses that it wasnt the losing of the Leinster final or the winning of the two games since. No, the key difference has been Wexfords increasing ability to perform the basics.
Their downfall against the Dubs was primarily down to an inability to maintain possession and a deterioration in work ethic, both of which have been remedied.
We havent given away as much possession, which was something we had focused on after the Leinster final. We could still do better in that area. Tyrone gave away virtually no possession against Dublin and we will have to match them there in the semi-final.
No small ask, that. Dublin provide a convenient central point from which to view these two protagonists and the bottom line isnt a comforting one for Wexford who are 35 points worse off in their mutual dealings with the Leinster champions.
Such comparisons will be useless at the weekend even if the expectation is that a rejuvenated Tyrone will prove a hurdle too high for this overachieving Wexford team to negotiate.
Tyrone were certainly very good against Dublin, says Ryan. They were very efficient but the team in 2005 was a very young team so it doesnt surprise me to see a lot of those players still performing so well.
Apart from Brian Dooher, they are all still relatively young. They just have a hell of a lot of talent.