Reaping reward for our worldly sporting wisdom
But then, it isn’t unique. In far flung places all over the globe, there are sporting missionaries spreading the same word to people with no connection to our soil. GAA projects in Brittany and Philadelphia, where locals again outnumber the Irish, come to mind, but wherever you go, there are outposts where we are sharing our passion and expertise with a new flock.
The thought occurs too that maybe we shouldn’t be all that taken aback. The GAA may provide the most obvious vehicle for our best and brightest minds away from home, but we really don’t give ourselves enough credit for the wisdom and knowledge which we have exported down the years.
The majority of that brains trust has, quite naturally, been put to use across the Irish Sea, as is the case at St Paul’s Academy where headmaster Pat Winston and his coaches succeeded in spawning the explosion of interest in so many boys who went on to reach an All-Ireland Féile semi-final in Enniskillen.
Soccer has been another such fruitful field.
Scottish managers may hold the most evocative place in the annals of the English game, but Irish bosses have been as perennial as a flower. There are eight Irishmen currently holding senior posts in the four divisions — compared to nine Scots — even though the Premier League has long expanded its horizons beyond these Isles.
From Brendan Rodgers towards the top of the Premier League with Liverpool to Joe Dunne at League One Colchester right through to Nigel Worthington, who is struggling to keep York City away from the oblivion of relegation from League Two, there are Irishmen from both sides of the border calling the shots. But then Britain has always been a successful breeding ground for Irish sporting figures.
Willie Mullins has been chief among them, but the champion trainer told the room at the Philips Manager of the Year awards last month about how that success has made waves far beyond the shores of Blighty when he spoke about the attention he receives when he takes any of his champion stable to the Far East or Australia.
“Every time we go to Hong Kong, Japan or Melbourne, they go through everything we do,” he explained. “They want to learn what Irish racing people do. They keep us in quarantine and if we want more, they want to know why. They want to know what we do, why we do it. They film what we do when we prepare.”
We rarely have much difficulty in celebrating our athletes — witness the delight which greets world champions, qualification for major tournaments or breakthrough All-Irelands — but we have been a tad slower in grasping just how stocked we are for those people stationed one or two steps removed from the heart of the action itself but who make those successes possible.
For decades in Irish sport, we appeared accustomed to looking abroad for expertise and direction when it came to the elite. An Aussie or American accent was worth an extra grade in job interviews but the situation has changed with the professionalisation of the sector here in the new millennium and a culture that now leans so heavily on science and systems.
A cursory examination of our major national sporting bodies here throws up only a handful of foreigners in the key roles — among them are Kevin Ankrom, performance director with Athletics Ireland, the FAI’s performance director Rudd Dokter and Morten Espersen, high performance director for Rowing Ireland — though it should be stressed that such input is still to be embraced.
Rugby has shown the benefits of such foreign expertise more than most, with all four current provincial coaches and the head honcho with the national team hailing from Down Under. But then we have seen the likes of Mark McCall and Conor O’Shea excel in England, while Bernard Jackman’s reputation continues to burgeon in France.
Widen that scope and we have Billy Walsh, the man behind our most successful Olympic programme, being headhunted by major boxing nations post-London 2012 before the AIBA finally got its act together and nailed his future to home.
And if there was one example last year of how Irish know-how has been noticed, it was in the loss of Finbarr Kirwan to the USA.
Kirwan was unknown to most sports fans here, but, as high performance director for the Irish Sports Council, he was the man whose job it was to see that all boats were raised on a tide of sports science, sports medicine, systematic funding, key appointments and all manner of other portfolios.
Early last year he began work with the US Olympic Committee, assuming responsibility for some of their key programmes, most notable of which are the Big Two of track and field and swimming. His appointment serves as a barometer of how, after a decade-and-a-half of investment and application, this country is finally beginning to come within an asses‘ roar of reaching its potential.
Here and abroad.
