St Sylvester's and Dublin ladies footballer Nicole Owens pictured at the launch of the 2024 Beko Club Champion at Croke Park in Dublin. A competition to reward and celebrate local Leinster GAA club heroes who go above and beyond to help their local community and club. For more information visit leinstergaa.ie/beko-club champion/. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Dublin LGFA star Nicole Owens is still in the dark as to whether Mick Bohan will stay on for a ninth consecutive year as team manager.
Bohan has led Dublin to five All-Ireland titles during his time in charge with the most recent coming in 2023, but his team were surprisingly defeated in this year’s quarter-final by Galway.
“I've been playing under Mick for seven or eight years now and one thing I've learned not to do is to try and second-guess Mick,” says Owens.
“I don't know. He's been unbelievable for us. He came in when we had lost three All-Irelands in a row and he picked up a team off the ground that was in a bad way mentally and built our processes and the way we play and our structure.
“We've had a lot of people retire over the last few years and last year he rebuilt a team with a lot of girls who hadn't stepped up to senior level before.
“I think he's done a lot regardless of what happens now. He's earned the right to make that decision himself as to whether he wants to come back or not. As far as I'm aware he has the support of the county board so we'll see.
“So, I think it's more a case of whether he feels like he can go again and has the energy for it.”
Dublin looked like the team to beat in this year’s championship when they enjoyed very convincing wins over Mayo and Kildare in the group phase.
They were hotly fancied to beat Galway in the All-Ireland quarter-final but struggled to play with their usual fluency which remains a source of regret for Owens who hasn’t yet been able to bring herself to watch it back.
“From the perspective of our team, we got a bit unlucky with injuries towards the end of the year but that’s not enough of a rationale for that performance we put in,” she says.
“We didn’t turn up on the day, things didn’t click. There were collective errors that I wouldn’t have previously seen.
“Not to take away from Galway, but I think we beat ourselves to a large extent. The levels of negative turn-overs, I don’t know the final stats but I know we probably missed all of our KPIs, particularly in the negative turnovers perspective.
“We gave them back oxygen constantly and we still should have won it. It probably shouldn't have gone to extra-time at all.
“We didn't turn up on the day. They turned up slightly more than we did.”
Kate Geraghty of Galway in action against Nicole Owens of Dublin during the TG4 All-Ireland Ladies Football Senior Championship quarter-final match between Dublin and Galway at Parnell Park in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
Owens returned to the Dublin fold this year having missed out on the 2023 All-Ireland winning campaign due to a ruptured cruciate ligament, the second time in her career that she has sustained such an injury.
Now 31, Owens knows she doesn’t have too many years left as a senior inter-county footballer and is clear-eyed about what she wants to achieve in the time she has left.
“It’s something I've been thinking a good about a good amount recently,” she says.
“For me it's not really about the accolades in terms of All-Irelands and things like that. I've a lot of experience because I've been around for a lot longer than some of our younger girls who are just out of school.
“So I think it's about finishing my career at inter-county level and really feeling like I was operating at the best of my ability and showcasing what I can do.
“There have been so many disruptions over the last few years for me with injuries so getting a really good year and limiting the injuries and getting to that level where I can operate at my best and really step up on the pitch in terms of being a leader is more where I'm at now.
“It's more about the journey and the process moreso than the outcome. The outcome would hopefully be that we win and All-Ireland next year but actually it's about how we do that and the role that I can play in it."
