Stephen Bradley knew he couldn’t keep a lid on Damien Duff for much longer - and that’s why he told him to leave.
Duff cut his managerial teeth at Shamrock Rovers when in 2015 he was put in charge of the Hoops Under-15s in his final year as a senior player with the club.
The Ireland legend eventually became part of Stephen Bradley’s first-team staff, as well as coaching the Under-17s.
But Bradley knew that Duff wouldn’t be at the club for too long because he had ambitions to spread his wings as a manager in his own right.
Sure enough, in 2019 he moved to Celtic to take up a reserve team coaching role before progressing to the first team.
“There’s only so long that you can hold that back,” said title winning boss Bradley when quizzed on Duff’s quick climb up the coaching ladder.
“When he was with us, I told him that he had to leave because he wanted to take his own team so bad, you could see it.
“He had all of these ideas in his head that he wanted to get out and the only way to do that was do that with his own team.
“We weren't in the situation where he could do that with us. We were building and I think at the time it was 14s or 15s and I said ‘Damien, you should take that team’.
“He went and took it and that's where it went. But I could always see that he was going to be a manager or coach, definitely.”
Duff leads Shels into Sunday’s FAI Cup final against Derry City and Bradley continued: “If you know Damien or ever worked with him or been around him, you know he's just so passionate about the game.
“He wants things to be better, his standards are so high and he wants to improve every player and every team that he's in contact with.
“He lives and breathes football, he watches it 24/7 and is always talking and thinking about it. You can't not love that. If you're around the game, that's something you love.
“You can see the effect it's had on Shels and I can only see them getting better. They will be a real force next year or the year after, they could be right up there.”
Bradley sees similarities between this Shels team and the Rovers side he took over in 2016 when the club was laying foundations for the success of recent years.
And like Rovers in 2019, when they beat Dundalk on penalties in the final to kick-start a run of trophies, Bradley reckons this Cup final could be the making of Duff and Shels.
“It's going to be a tight one,” he said of the Aviva Stadium clash. “Momentum is with Shels and momentum in football is hard to stop. But Derry have so many match winners.
“It's going to depend on who handles the occasion best. Shels have shown against ourselves and Derry and Dundalk that they are a very hard team to play against.”
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