County GAA managers must adapt to suit player training needs
The Sunday Tribune provided the damning evidence. The front cover of its feature magazine carried the photograph of a designer handbag worth about €2,500.
It’s a fair slap of money to pay for a bag. But the jaw-dropping feature about this particular satchel was that demand had actually outstripped supply. There was a waiting list. Yes, I’ll repeat that. There was a waiting list.
Less than 100 years after Irish people were standing in lines for the soup kitchen, the good ladies of this country were forming an orderly queue for a handbag costing the price of a kitchen.
There are certain moments which capture a zeitgeist. I had another similar experience a few months ago. On Wednesday, Sep 24 at about 6.30am, I set off on my bike for Coolnasillagh, the two-mile climb which lies outside the town.
In the summer, I love training early in the morning. The primary benefit is the overwhelming sense of smugness which flows through your body for the remainder of the day. You feel like Rocky with the raw eggs. While others sleep, you train. It’s great.
But on this particular morning as I rolled along the Fivemilestraight, my Balboa buzz was abruptly shattered.
As I came towards Brackaghreilly Hall, I noticed there were about 20 cars parked outside. It’s worth pointing out at this juncture that the Fivemilestraight is a road that leads into total wilderness — and Brackaghreilly Hall sits about halfway along this road.
And yet, there in the depths of rural south Derry, I could hear the sound of a fitness instructor shouting commands over the thumping beat of a dance tune.
It was a circuits class. It was 6.45am. And it was Brackaghreilly Hall. It was then I realised that Ireland was in the grip of a fitness obsession.
Admittedly, the evidence had been mounting. The volume of people who now attend exercise classes is incredible.
It is astonishing because I am old enough to remember the time when exercise was considered a mild form of mental illness.
When the jogging boom exploded during the 80s, it was largely an urban phenomenon. In the country, road running was regarded as untreated lunacy.
A middle-aged man in shorts was more pitied than admired.
Colm O’Rourke’s autobiography is a useful reference point. To illustrate Gerry McEntee’s extraordinary commitment, O’Rourke revealed that when the midfielder was studying in England, he would go running at 6am in the morning. O’Rourke thought McEntee’s dedication was utterly exceptional.
Nowadays, it’s utterly unremarkable. Our Leisure Centre’s Christmas Boot Camp started this week. The 6:30am classes will run for a fortnight. Those who attended the first class on Monday morning woke to the sound of howling winds. Car windscreens had to be de-iced. Yet, 51 people took part.
It needs to be stressed that Maghera isn’t an isolated hub of fitness fanatics. Lavey’s GAA club is three miles away. The club has a sport centre. Its classes are packed.
Eleven miles away in Toomebridge, the McCann brothers who play for Antrim, opened a private gym last year. Their cross-fit classes are hugely popular. The business is flying.
Ordinary people, who have children and full-time jobs are exercising regularly. Three to six times a week is fairly common. Those who have the time and the energy will attend a circuits session then stay for the spin class which follows.
For amateur cyclists, runners and triathletes, it’s standard practice to train six times a week.
Yet, amid this nationwide endorphin rush, there has been a lot of groaning and belly-aching about the inter-county footballers who are being asked to train five times a week.
Sympathy for their plight is not as widespread as might be imagined. There are plenty of fitness enthusiasts who would love to train every night but can’t because they have to work or look after children.
Still, that’s not to say that the demands being placed on inter-county players isn’t a cause for concern.
However, the issue that needs to be examined has got nothing to do with physical burnout.
Training five nights a week really isn’t that big a deal. The real problem facing county players is travel burnout. It’s the time spent on the road which presents the real ordeal.
Nipping down to the local gym for a spin class isn’t a very time-consuming business.
But county footballers inhabit a very different world. Tyrone’s footballers used to be allowed to lift weights in their own time. No more. For the last two years, they were expected to travel to a gym where their sessions were supervised. The same thing happened in Armagh.
Armagh players based in Belfast and Dublin used to do their weights sessions at a nearby gym. Last year, they had to travel back to Armagh. It was good for their travel expenses, but just imagine the amount of time that was spent driving on motorways for a 75-minute weights session.
Naturally, there are those who will point to Armagh’s stunning progress in last year’s Championship and argue that the ends justified the means. That is a solid argument.
But other questions need to be raised. Is it sustainable? For how long will players be prepared to make that type of sacrifice? If a player is married and has children, will he really want to spend the bulk of his evenings sitting in a car? Aaron Kernan and Benny Coulter have made their decisions.
Jim McGuinness operated a different policy. McGuinness sent the strength and conditioning coaches to his players. This policy allowed the players to train at a local gym. During the early part of the season, the Dublin, Sligo and Limerick-based players only came home at weekends.
Frankie Fitzsimons has started a similar system with Antrim. Tómas McCann revealed last week that the new policy persuaded him not to retire.
Every manager is faced with the challenge of securing the services of the best players in the county. At present, some of the current training regimes are pushing players into retirement. It’s up to every manager to decide what is a reasonable sacrifice to ask from an amateur player. But for those who don’t work it out for themselves, they will soon discover that the players will provide the answer for them.
