Noel King insists Sunday's Sports Direct FAI Women's Cup final will be his final game in charge of Shelbourne, with the change in ownership at the club not affecting his decision to call it a day.
Last week Hull City owner Acun IIicali handed back control of Shels to its Irish directors, despite only agreeing a deal to purchase a 60% stake back in June.
The restructure led to Damien Duff being handed a fresh deal to lead the men's team into 2024, but King will not be following suit, having announced his intention to leave at the end of October.
The veteran manager has won three trophies in as many years since taking the reins in the winter of 2020, and is now hoping to sign off with another piece of silverware when the Reds square up to Athlone Town in a repeat of last year's decider.
When asked if the ownership situation had altered his plans, King took out a black cap with the word 'retired' emblazoned on the front.
"He [Joey] gave me that," he laughed, pointing to his assistant Joey Malone.
"It is my final game with Shelbourne, yeah, but I'm not dead. Not yet! I will be doing something in football, tormenting some kids or something, I would imagine.
"The Shelbourne thing was great, but it is very intensive. It is a full-time job, which is crazy.
"The teams have got better, better organised. Games have become more difficult, which is what you want.
"Three days a week training, match day and then you have the things that go on behind the scenes, making phone calls, dealing with the unhappiness of certain people. That's all normal.
"I think I need a rest. I am going to go to the sun, for a while anyway."
"Athlone are very good, it will be a tough game."
King has been around Irish football long enough to know cup finals are an unpredictable beast.
Athlone looked like a side in decline after many of their star players from 2022 were picked off by rival clubs, with the June departure of boss Tommy Hewitt a further blow to morale.
However the arrival of former Shels, Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers striker Ciaran Kilduff has galvanised the Midlanders. Their league form improved dramatically after Kilduff's appointment, while a stirring run to the cup final provides them with a chance to gain revenge for last year's loss in the final.
"Athlone are very good," King stressed.
"It will be a tough game. They've improved immensely. They've gone out and got some players in, similar to ourselves, and then they have the local squads."
Malone chipped in: "I think losing their manager halfway through the season as well, obviously results weren't going great, they went from such a high last year to starting off thinking they’d be challenging for the league and all of a sudden they are not challenging for the league.
"They let their manager go and to get themselves to a cup final, they have done really well. They're going to be tough. They are a difficult side. But we are good as well."
Remarkably, 16 players who were involved in last year's final between the two teams are no longer with their respective clubs. Athlone Town lost seven in the off-season with Shelbourne shorn of nine, mostly to Shamrock Rovers.
But they've managed to return to the season's blue riband occasion, with Shels also finishing second behind Peamount United after a very respectable league campaign.
"The six players we lost last year to Shamrock Rovers were six out of our starting XI," Malone pointed out.
"It is very hard to replace that type of quality but to be fair we did, we brought some players in from the outside, Canada and America. We found them and they have all done well. We patched it up, really."
King added: "And we stayed competitive. That was very important. Not to be outside the top two, that was the aim. Peamount were very good, James [O'Callaghan] has done a very good job out there and he had similar problems, and we have to be respectful of that. But there was great competition between the two teams, Shels and Peamount.
"I'd congratulate Peamount all the time, they’ve been very good, arch-enemy, but we had some great games between us. That was a good rivalry. So good luck to them this year. Now they are in Europe and that’s it."
Watch the Women's FAI Cup final, Athlone Town v Shelbourne, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live radio commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1.
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