Tribe must learn to focus on positives
But we couldn’t help but be amused by this notion that they shouldn’t have been short of “motivation” by pinning a newspaper article up on the wall last Saturday.
Galway had many problems coming into Tullamore and not only would pinning up that piece of paper have failed to cover those cracks but it would only have added to them.
We’re not privy to the goings-on of their dressing room, so we don’t know if the offending article was referred to, but if it was it might explain why they bolted out of the blocks in the opening 10 minutes before hitting a wall and collapsing. In psychology they’d put it down as a classic case of drive theory, this ridiculous and outdated belief that the more fired up you are, the better you’ll perform.
In his autobiography Brian Corcoran recalled a time when his club side could hear hurleys being smashed in the opposing room in the enthusiasm for the battle ahead.
Within minutes that opposing side had gifted Corcoran’s brother John a string of frees to arrow over the bar.
Last Saturday, John McIntyre had every reason to approach Michael Wadding before the start of the second half for not giving Galway their fair share of first-half calls, yet a good number of the 11 frees which Galway presented Paul Ryan with over the course of the game could be attributed to the infamous headline ‘Have Galway become a soft touch?’
Any dressing-room reference to the article would only have increased the likelihood of the players fulfilling the damning view the old ‘88 brigade of Brendan Lynskey, Conor Hayes and Noel Lane had of the team.
When the pressure is on, your performance is only as good as your self-image, and that self-image is formed by what you hear most of. “You’re only a soft touch.”
Interestingly, only a couple of months ago the author of the piece also interviewed Damien Hayes in which the current All Star spoke about the old guard’s relentless criticism. “The negative stuff is frustrating,” Hayes told Vincent Hogan. “The winning teams of ‘87 and ‘88 are legends… but the media always goes back to them and…. it’s almost like they’re rubbing it in… We’re trying our best, like. I mean, the amount of lads going to yoga classes and the like last year to heal different problems…”
What Hayes said was very revealing. Come the championship, sure enough, the same writer went back to the same old warhorses for the same old chestnuts, without citing the dedication Hayes and a good number of his colleagues and how Hayes felt about the “negative stuff”.
All that “negative stuff” filters through and the only way you dilute and defeat its potential impact is to cultivate a positive, cutting-edge environment.
Clearly Galway don’t and no “Do you see what they’re saying about us, lads?” address was going to atone for it.
In all four facets of sports performance — the physical, the tactical, the technical and the mental — Dublin were vastlysuperior to Galway.
For that John McIntyre has to accept some culpability but this is a wider systems failure.
The old ‘88 guard made some valid points in Hogan’s piece last Saturday. There is an overly-individualistic streak in Galway hurling and underage players are feted too early. For all the All Ireland minor titles won under Mattie Murphy, his programme and his team’s non-participation in the Leinster championship has to be seriously reviewed. Whereas the Clare minors had to beat four serious teams to reach last year’s All Ireland final, Galway often only have to beat one. Players have won too much too easily too soon, not realising how much more their game needs working on.
Even — especially — Joe Canning still has much to learn. Leave aside his freetaking; it was his lack of poise last Saturday that was so disconcerting. With 10 minutes to go Galway were still in the game when Canning got engaged in a shoving match with a couple of Dublin players. He needed to just smile at them or ignore them like a Corcoran would adopting the Silent Pig mentality John Allen used advocate. Instead Canning screamed and he scowled, letting them know he and Galway were rattled, beaten.
It’s not a crime to mess up. Ask Rory McIlroy. Or Henry Shefflin. Ten years ago in the All Ireland semi-final against Galway he got sucked into a shoving match with Gregory Kennedy and lost his equanimity.
“That was a huge turning point for me,” Shefflin would tell Vincent Hogan years later. “I didn’t try to play the game. I wasn’t concentrating fully on the game.”
Shefflin learned. So must Canning, while Galway as a county needs to finally realise so much more.
* Contact: kieranshannon@eircom.net
