No room for chancers on GAA’S magic roundabout
OVER the next week or so the merry go round will start as several managers make their exit and counties begin identifying their replacements.
The trickle will increase to a flow right through to autumn. You can pick out a lot of them easily enough – their team has stuttered through the League, performed poorly in the first round of the Championship and the qualifiers will be little more than a stay of execution.
Ultimately, the GAA is a tight knit community. People talk and word invariably gets out about who’s going well and, more often, who isn’t. Intercounty management should come with a health warning now.
Some managers endure bitter experiences and never really get over them.
I believe team management is reverting to a more basic style, with a higher premium being placed on traditional values.
When you look at the ‘hightech’ managers who have brought all the trimmings of GPS systems, stats, flowery coaching, strength and conditioning, nutrition, psychology, etc, how many of them have actually been a roaring success?
Not many. Because, for me, there are core values that a manager simply must have and all the gadgets in the world is simply no substitute.
Basically, you must develop a team spirit and ensure players buy into it from an early stage.
Leave any room for doubt to fester and and you’re a beaten docket straight away.
There are players all over the country who’ll line out in the qualifiers next week and they’re already planning trips overseas on the presumption, or possibly even the hope, they’ll be beaten. Their flights are booked and they’ll be off to make a few bob for the rest of the summer. They just don’t believe in the manager or the set-up. Another factor that can earn a manager an early P45 is the style of football. The tolerance for defensive templates has dropped significantly.
Negative football is becoming such a taboo that even Ulster teams are moving away from it. Players and supporters turn their nose up at it now.
When you strip down great managers past and present – Jim Gavin, Brian Cody, Malachy O’rourke, Mick O’dwyer , Sean Boylan – they’re all traditionalists, believers in the fundamentals of man management before supplementing it with modern elements. And it’s all built around one word – fun. You need to gain players’ trust and respect and creating an environment of enjoyment around the game is fundamental to that.
A dozen or so managers will learn pretty soon they’ve failed miserably in that respect.
There are core values a manager must have and all the modern gadgets are simply not a substitute