The Kieran Shannon Interview: Irish Women's Hockey coach Graham Shaw

When Graham Shaw retired from playing international hockey, he felt more at a dead end than a crossroads. The day job was selling school uniforms and he hated it. Then an old coach suggested coaching as a career. Now he’s considered one of the country’s most progressive and finest coaches across all sports, leading the Irish senior women’s team to the World Cup which starts today. An old football teammate of Damien Duff’s, here he opens up about how he struggled with retirement, narrowly missing out on the Rio Olympics and how he learned to be himself in the job instead of aping former coaches.

By Kieran Shannon