INTERVIEW SEAMUS McENANEY:A LITTLE peace can be hard to come across if you're Seamus McEnaney. For such a cheery, knockabout sort away from the arena, he does have an uncanny ability to find himself trench-deep and tooled-up once the games begin.

This time last year, he didn’t so much hit the ground running as ducking and rolling, scrambling to find his way through unfamiliar terrain and dealing with plenty of friendly fire along the way as he settled into the Meath job. If he could cash in one genie’s wish for 2012, it would be for a just a touch less drama.

“There’s no doubt that it was a tough year to be a manager coming into a new county,” he says. “But sometimes you have to weather these storms. You have to go through them to get to the level ground. I’m looking for a more settled scenario this year, no doubt about that.

“It doesn’t make any difference who you’re managing in intercounty football, there’s pressure in every one of those jobs. Doesn’t matter if it’s Meath or Monaghan or whoever, that pressure is there. It’s whether you can deal with that pressure or whether you can’t.

“Last year was one of my tougher years, certainly. I’ve been doing this at intercounty level between senior and under-21 for about 10 years on the trot now and I can definitely say I found it harder going last year than most. But that’s done now and we face into a new year ready for anything.”

The world turns and gradually a manager pares down his surroundings to his liking. Since this day last year, the Meath football team has seen the departure for one reason or another of Liam Harnan, Barry Callaghan, Nigel Crawford, Anthony Moyles and Paddy O’Rourke.

Long-time goalkeeper Brendan Murphy retired and moved into McEnaney’s backroom team as goalkeeping coach and Graham Geraghty became a selector, albeit one who still has designs on playing from time to time.

Clonee’s Tom Keague was made a selector last summer, with McEnaney’s previous sideline compadre Paul Grimley finally gone home to link up with Armagh. Possibly his most interesting recruit is Seán Cahill, long-time coach to Derval O’Rourke as well as Ailis McSweeney, Ireland’s fastest woman.

“You want to always have the best you can,” he explains. “I had a think about what changes we needed and I felt that while Meath players are quite big, they’re maybe not as athletic as you’d like. I’ve always thought that Derval O’Rourke was the best athletics person in the country so I asked around to find out who her coach was.

“Lo and behold, I found it was Seán Cahill, who just happens to be from Skryne. So I got into the car the next morning and landed at Seán’s front door and told him I wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

All this moving and shaking has Meath in a situation now where their manager’s mind is far more at ease than it was at any point last year. It also leaves him stripped of excuses.

McEnaney has his own backroom team, his own panel, plus all the help he’s ever needed from a county board. The obvious stirrings on the pitch towards the end of last year’s championship hinted at better days ahead but all that does is put the onus on him now to deliver. Whatever grace there was last year is gone now and he knows it.

“I think it’s fair to say that as the year went on,” he says, “especially in the championship, the Meath players really rallied behind the scenario we had going. They dug deep and played decent football by the end. I’d like to think that we could really build on where we were in July.

“I’ve seen a lot of club football during the summer, I looked at over 100 players last year to get the panel to where it is now.

“My way of going about it is to try and get them playing for the jersey. It might sound old-fashioned but if you don’t have it, you’ll go nowhere. The manager’s task is to evaluate all the players in the county and to the best of his ability and knowledge get the best players in the county to play for the jersey.

“In my opinion we have achieved that going into 2012. We’ve pulled a panel together that we believe consists of the best, most committed 30 players who want to wear the Meath jersey. We’re in that position now.”

Wexford come visiting in Navan tomorrow, with McEnaney one of the few managers in the country making positive noises about being ready for the season. Hardly surprising, given the struggles he had to keep the plates spinning this time last year.

“Our first priority will be to consolidate our position in Division Two of the league. That’s the minimum. But I’m not even looking that far ahead. We’re going out and trying to win every game and we’re making no secret of that. Doesn’t matter if it’s O’Byrne Cup, league, challenge or championship, we’re trying to win every single game.

“It won’t be a case of, ‘well, we’re trying out this lad or that lad’. None of that. The best players who are available to us will be playing every Sunday, injuries allowing. And we’ll be trying to win every game. It’s the only way to go.”

If you can’t dream big in the first week of January, you’ll never dream big at all.