MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: O’Shea success no fairytale
O’Shea has been a driving force in the Killarney GAA club for years, but he’s also the coaching & games manager with the Munster Council who has an eye-catching entry on the CV — managing Kerry to the 2007 All-Ireland football title.
That was an obvious cue to discuss the influence of Donegal and their manager Jim McGuinness on modern football tactics.
“What Donegal based a lot of their success on is the defensive shell or structure, but that took two years to build.
“Now Jimmy has branched out, and the very good individual players like Michael Murphy, Colm McFadden, Paddy McBrearty, they’ve all had the chance to showcase their skills. But they’re also basing a lot of their approach on good decision-making.
“I think what that does in a wider context is that it forces other people to open their minds and to recognise that there are other ways, other options, available to you.”
Decision-making and challenges are recurring phrases in the conversation, particularly when you invite him to compare clubs known for their approach to football — clubs like his own Crokes and Nemo Rangers of Cork.
“Both clubs’ mantra would probably be to make good decisions with the ball — at times that would involve keeping possession, at other times it’s about to hit you at pace, and at others it would be to score from long range.
“Both clubs would probably stress that decision-making, and a lot of the success would be down to making the right decisions.
“Is that approach coming under pressure in the modern game? I don’t think so. The success of the clubs would suggest their pattern of play is continuing to succeed.”
O’Shea adds, however, that making good decisions isn’t just something that happens with the ball in your hands. Defensive discipline is also a matter of decision-making which “isn’t easy”, he says.
“It’s not easy because players lose their shape, they make the wrong decisions — even at intercounty level.
“You’ll find that some fantastic players who excel for their own clubs don’t have the same understanding with their intercounty team-mates.
“As a result they can look very average because they make poor decisions, with and without the ball.
“Integrating those players is the most basic philosophy of a team — that it’s a unit. You’ll have a pecking order within the group, you’ll have lads with the superstar tag, but the priorities must remain the same for the group.
“And great clubs, great counties, great managers foster that attitude, that everyone is contributing hugely to the overall success of the group.”
Clubs and counties alike depend on young players coming through. O’Shea points out the opportunity that presents for sports organisations.
“I think there has been a change in the culture that we’ve all experienced in the last few years, with young people not being as active.
“Now we’re getting into a whole different argument here in terms of what the government might be doing to get kids active in primary school and so on. We also know, for instance, that kids can’t play ball in the schoolyard at lunchtime for insurance or health and safety reasons.
“On the other hand, I think that we’re not teaching kids how to be active. One thing about young people is that they want to be part of a group, and the greatest thing a coach or manager can do is to give kids his or her time.
“I think if clubs and coaches give kids their time then they’ll continue to play with those clubs. And that brings us back to the creation of a culture within a club.”
Creating that culture isn’t a given, and it presents challenges for the coach “because he [the coach] is challenging players to be better than they have been in the past when they’re at training and games,.” says O’Shea. He adds that it’s easier if those kids have respect for the people who are in the club — but gaining that respect in the first place is yet another challenge.
“As the cliché goes, that respect must be earned by the coach, but the other side of that is that that’s the beauty of our game. If you can stimulate your players, if the coaches get the most out of them, that’s the reward of involvement.”
So is the fairytale, as O’Shea puts it: the underdog victory. Romantic but achievable is his view.
“In the GAA, if a team isn’t ready on any given Sunday then it’ll be beaten — and that’s why I love the National League and the club championships, because fancied teams can get turned over by the unfancied team.
“How does the fairytale happen? It can happen if the team has respect for each other, if they challenge each other and themselves in preparation, if they keep their shape, if they make the right decisions.
“If they have the work done and they believe in themselves then it’s not a fairytale when it happens.”
Challenges and decision-making. Not a fairytale at all.
