AFTER almost three months of going around the houses, Derry look to finally have their man.

As first reported by our own Neil Loughran last week and solidified in today’s paper, Slaughtneil manager Mark Doran is being lined up for his first inter-county management job.

It’s a bit of a step into the unknown for everyone.

He’s coached Down, Clare and Wicklow in the recent past.

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He was in Clare one night a week in 2023 and what he brought there impressed them.

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Everything they did on the training field under him was at a higher level than anything else they’d been exposed to during Colm Collins’ time.

They found that his training sessions were able to replicate the intensity and workload of a game, something they felt really stood to them.

He did have the luxury of only having to do it once a week there, and that was as a coach rather than a manager.

But he also had very definite designs on how Clare should play and one of the strengths was in communicating the message.

With Jerome Johnston Snr alongside him, they had won a Monaghan title with Ballybay and then beat Crossmaglen in........

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