McConville: Wicklow must aim high to succeed

New Wicklow manager Oisín McConville has said that the Garden County must learn to aim high and admitted that the introduction of the Tailteann Cup was one of the key reasons why he took the job.

The Armagh native was speaking to RTÉ's Sunday Sport and pointed to the progression of Derry, who were alongside Wicklow in Division 4 in 2019 and have since secured a first Ulster title since 1998 and will be pushing hard for Division 1 football next season.

"If my aims going into Wicklow are not promotion and winning the Tailteann Cup then I might as well stay in Cross because both of those are tangible for teams like Wicklow now.

"It’s a completely different job, I’d question if I would even be there if there wasn't a Tailteann Cup, if there wasn’t something tangible for these guys to fight for."

"I do think that there is a hunger for success," he added.

"I do think they're unhappy that they've languishing around Division 4 for some time, with little patches of improvement getting into Division 3. The consistency and sustainability has not been there. That's the thing to work on.

"I'm not going to say this is a long-term project because inter-county managers don't get to fulfil long-term projects. There’s only a couple of managers in the country now past the five-year mark.

"The improvement will have to be fairly quick but also looking to the future to make sure that if you do get to Division 3 that you’re able to sustain that the following year.

"There’s plenty of challenges, plenty of bumps in the road, and it's up to us how we react to them and how we react to them will determine our season."

McConville confirmed that Joe Cawley, who he has worked closely with at a number of clubs, will be coming along as his chief coach with the