Even the greatest coaches know they don’t know it all

When Billy Morgan and Michael Ryan questioned the GAA’s insistence that in a few years’ time all senior club and inter-county coaches or managers will have to have undergone a recognised coaching course, they had a point.

Morgan talked about how the best coaching apprenticeship he served was as a player learning from the likes of Donie O’Donovan. There was now a danger that textbook coaches and coaching would become all-pervasive. “The GAA wouldn’t want to get too hung-up on theory,” Ryan, the former Waterford hurling manager, noted. “Certainly it is a good idea for young people coming into the game [to do these courses]. But for those who have been managing for 10 and 20 years at club and inter-county level I couldn’t see how it would benefit them in any way.”

On the last point is where we’d differ. And we’d guess so too would Eamon Ryan.