Hourihane: How grafting while playing led to a head coach role at 34

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A matter of weeks after captaining Derby to promotion from Sky Bet League One in May 2024, Conor Hourihane was released upon the expiry of his contract.

At 33, and having played 85 of a possible 92 league matches during his stay at Pride Park, signing the former Republic of Ireland international was an attractive proposition.

But, on a personal level, he found himself at a crossroads – did he continue playing? Or was it time to start exploring the next chapter?

In the end, he was able to combine the two options with a player-coach role at Barnsley, for whom he had made over 130 appearances between 2014 and 2017.

Hourihane only played two games, then retired on December 20 last year to become assistant head coach to Darrell Clarke.

His mind had already been made up long before.

“I didn’t want to let go of playing, but the coaching was my drive and my fire,” he tells Sky Sports.

“I came into pre-season and there wasn’t really too much hunger to get fit and get firing, and there was more focus and determination around the coaching, so I probably knew from that moment that I wasn’t really looking forward to coming in and training and doing the hard runs of pre-season.

“I kind of checked out a little bit and my full focus was around the coaching side of it. I knew where I was at pretty early in pre-season.

“To be able to call an end to my career on my own terms, in my own way, I was very satisfied by it, let’s just say. I wasn’t pushed in one direction, it wasn’t an injury, it wasn’t taken out of my hands. I just thought it was the right time because of what was on the horizon.

“I did wonder if I was letting go too early. Was I going to have enough focus with the coaching? Ever since my role started to broaden, there was no time to miss playing – and that’s been the case ever since.”

Clarke was sacked in March, with Hourihane taking charge on an interim basis, before he was handed a two-year contract just over a month later.

Now, you are probably wondering how he was able to make the transition from active player to permanent head coach – the fourth youngest in the EFL at present – in such a short period of time. And it is a valid point.

Planning for life after football has become more prevalent in recent years and Hourihane, who is now studying for his Pro Licence with the FAI, started his journey towards that during a spell at Swansea in 2020/21.

“Steve Cooper was my manager there and I thought he was fantastic. How he looked after players, how he was on the training ground and his overall demeanour around coaching intrigued me a lot,” he says.

“He’s someone I’m very fond of. I really like his work, really like him as a man and we’ve met up on quite a few occasions over the last couple of years to pick each other’s brains. He’s a good friend and I’m very fortunate to have someone like him, someone I can lean on whenever I need to.

“There was an opportunity to do coaching badges over Zoom, so I jumped at the opportunity for that and it snowballed into more.

“I went to Stourbridge on Thursday nights when life opened back up because they were part-time and I knew the assistant manager there at the time. I live in Birmingham, so it was only about 40 minutes away. Then I coached Aston Villa U16s, then Barnsley U16s.

“Non-league really, really interesting. The night before I might text the assistant manager and ask what I had in terms of numbers? What part of the session did he want me to take? Did he want me to take any individuals after training?

“Then I’d turn up and, because they’re part-time, two or three can’t get out of work and one’s running late because of traffic because it’s peak traffic time. You’re learning straightaway how to adapt your session, how to evolve your numbers.

“I might have four balls in my session when I probably need 10, but I have to make it work through a certain way of thinking outside the box.

“When you go to the academy, you know you’re going to have set numbers, set coaches, and everything’s going to run relatively smoothly. You get a different satisfaction from that.”

This was all happening while Hourihane was still playing at Derby, who were supportive of their captain’s endeavours. In truth, he never gave them any cause for concern.

“I pride myself on being a very, very good professional and I knew, every single day when I came in, I had to train properly and do everything right,” he says.

“I just made time. Sometimes I’d come in at seven in the morning, rather than half eight, and sat down with one of the analysts because I need to look at some training sessions or I needed to do an assignment for my A Licence.

“When training was over, then it was my time maybe to switch my focus away from my playing onto coaching, like someone might do if they’ve got a pastime of playing golf or music or whatever it might be.

“It was a relentless cycle of how quickly can I improve? How much can I do on the grass to get better? It just became a big road and determination to be as good as I can, as early as I can.

“I was very, very fortunate to have a very supportive home as well that let me go off and do whatever I needed to do to end up right here in this position.”

The 34-year-old has only been in the job, on a permanent basis, for four months, but he has found his biggest learning curve to date to be one he gave little thought to as a player.

“There haven’t been too many curveballs yet, but if I had to pinpoint one thing, it would probably be the fact I do so much work to be as prepared as possible to get the lads in a really good place and then, ultimately, it doesn’t guarantee you a win and it doesn’t guarantee you a result,” Hourihane explains.

“Early on, I found it quite difficult to accept that. I got better at that a little bit as the role moved forward into the end of the season, understanding you can give yourself a real good chance, but does it coincide with your guarantee to win? Obviously not or else everyone would do it the same way.”

You can be sure he has not had that feeling yet this season.

Barnsley sit third in League One after four league games, having won three and drawn one, with their most recent result a 1-0 victory away at Peterborough.

They are also through to the second round of the Carabao Cup after a penalty shootout win over Fleetwood.

At present, Sky Bet have them priced as 20/1 outsiders for the title, but 11/2 to win promotion, either by winning the title, finishing as runners-up or winning the play-offs.

That type of talk is premature, of course. Hourihane’s focus for now is to justify his appointment.

“I’m very fond of the football club. I’m very fond of the opportunity they’ve given me and I want to repay them with doing this in my way and in the way that brings winning games of football,” he adds.

“Right now, the philosophy is to be aggressive and high-pressing and then, when we win the ball back as quickly as possible, we control the game with the ball and in a certain structure around that that everyone has clarity on as well.

“Hopefully now we get that little bit of luck on match days and we start getting results to back up the work that we’re doing.”

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