Keegan plans to box clever
Producing a bowl of cornflakes, Keegan asked if anyone would eat them by tipping the bowl into their mouths, or one spoonful at a time.
âKenny Egan mightnât use the spoon,â one wit tried, but Keeganâs point was made.
The high performance director of the Irish Institute of Sport made his name with the Irish boxers, who had the most successful conversion rate of boxer-per-medals at the Beijing Olympics. He warns about expectations ahead of the London Games in 2012.
âWeâre still a developing nation in high performance sport, weâre about eight years old. Russia is about sixty, Australia twenty-odd.
âIâm talking about investment in high-performance systems, institutes of sport and so on. Weâre pretty new to that and the work the Irish Sports Council has been doing has been to professionalise the structures around athletes. Itâs finding the fit between a good professional and someone who can build a system as well as training athletes.â
Itâs no accident that Keegan name-checks Russia. He points out that they taught the Cubans everything they know about boxing, and they have the systems and processes in place. When Keegan was involved with the Irish boxers, they often travelled to Russia to observe their approach.
âBuilding systems is a long-term process and you donât see the yield immediately. If you chase results we ignore the system. We might have the odd result but thatâs not good enough for our athletes. They deserve to have high performance people around them and I believe we can do that.
Keegan turns around the supposed advantage of having the 2012 Olympic Games in London: âItâs next door and people are saying itâs a home games. I donât see it that way.
âThere are advantages â Irish people can go and support the athletes, which is critical, but outside that the challenge is to see these as games like any other â going out to perform.
âNext year will be critical in terms of looking at the performance standards rather than qualification numbers. The quality of our athletes performances in 2011 will be a good indicator of where we stand, potentially, regarding podiums.â
Boxing is always regarded as a live medal option, and much of that is down to the proactive approach of the coaches. For instance, rather than bemoan judging inconsistencies, they acted.
âWhat we felt was that if something isnât controllable, is it influenceable? Though we didnât switch our focus, we put a bit of effort into it. We made a submission to the European Coaching Commission on some changes that needed to be made to allow for fairer, more objective process in the judging system.
âAnd in fairness, the world body made those changes. The judging system is a more level playing field. Weâre confident itâs much improved, but focusing on it takes your mind off what it should be focused on.â
For instance, focusing on how your preparation should be pitched. Keegan points out that the Russians donât always get it right. Their boxers continued training for two days more after the Irish boxers stopped in the run-up to Beijing, and their fighters were jaded in the games as a result.
âOur aim was to simulate the performance environment within the training environment; the two Ps, performance and preparation were absolutely equal and connected.
âYou need to understand the competition stimulus and try to replicate it in your training process. That doesnât happen overnight. itâs a long process. There are tiny steps. Incremental gains.
âBut if youâre evaluating your journey you can see youâre closer to your goal. You may not have achieved it this time but you can see youâre closer to it. That builds confidence in the boxer, the coach, the manager, and they see itâs a journey, not a destination. Thatâs where the riches lie â in the journey.
âWhen we got it right we were mindful of being focused on the moment â the here and now â and learning from that. Again, that wasnât done overnight, but once we learned to break it down and analyse one step at a time and digest it, then you could take another step.â
Keegan has had offers from overseas but heâs remained in Ireland: âI believe in Irish people, in Irish potential. We can achieve a lot more but we have to make the hard yards, the hard decisions.
âWeâve got a lot of people who are isolated â in Irish society generally, not just in sport â people who need support, and if they knew and could be supported by the people who are in a similar situation, weâd be far better off.
âThe synergies that would be generated in business, in society, by working with each other would be massively beneficial.â
He has his own coaching and management heroes â people like Aer Arannâs PĂĄdraig O Ceidigh, Kilkennyâs Brian Cody and Irish boxing coach Billy Walsh. Heâs always looking for mentors.
And outlets. Lately the Russians banned him from their boxing camps. Why? They realised he was learning too much altogether.



