Fail to prepare...

At the University of Texas, Cork fitness coach Jerry Wallace found that pain-staking match preparation and detailed analysis were the norm. Nowadays inter-county attention to detail is equally meticulous. Michael Moynihan reports.

JERRY Wallace wasn't a stranger to hurling three years ago. Though he'd won an athletics scholarship to the University ofTexas in the early eighties on the back of his victories in the All-Ireland Schools cross-country championships, growing up in Midleton meant togging out with the likes of Cork star Ger Fitzgerald as a young lad. When Wallace returned to the family business in the east Cork town, he fell in with John Fenton to train the Midleton senior hurlers.

When the call came from Donal O'Grady he knew it was an offer he couldn't refuse. "I spoke to Mary, my wife, about it, considered the commitment involved in joining the Cork seniors, and then I told Donal I was on board."

Wallace is part of the backroom team that provides continuity for the players and selectors, but he's not just an athletics coach.

With qualifications in sports nutrition and psychology, he also brings valuable experience as a coach with the University of Texas football team, where pain-staking preparation and detailed analysis have always been the norm. Once on board with the Cork hurlers, he and the rest of the backroom staff were determined that nothing should be left to chance, right down to the logistics.

"From my days with the college football team in Texas, I remembered them loading up two big articulated lorries to send the gear on ahead of the team. I said we should have the same, and we organised the sponsored van that goes ahead to Thurles and Croke Park with all the gear the day of a match. A small thing, but it's all about doing those small things right."

There were other advantages. Wallace felt there were telling similarities between American football and hurling, with both of them featuring high-intensity clashes with linear and lateral movement; he and fellow trainer Sean McGrath worked on structuring sessions, with the emphasis on structure.

"There was probably some suspicion on the part of the players to begin with, they probably didn't know where we were coming from, but to be fair there's never been a challenge to the programme from any of the players.

"Part of any good training programme is feedback, and the warm-up we do, for example, before games evolved directly as a result of consulting the players and making sure they got what they wanted out of the warm-up by involving the ball in it."

Part of the challenge is the combination of players - those who have been three years in the system and are building on that fitness base, and the newcomers who have to acclimatise. Wallace finds that in the relatively small world of elite hurling, however, fresh arrivals on the panel are usually well prepared.

"A lot of the newer lads on the panel have a fair handle on the warm-up and routines when they come in, lads are obviously taking back what they learn with Cork to their clubs. But we have had to bring it on physically every year.

"We concentrate on each opposing team specifically, if they're going to be very physical, for instance, we'd use tackle-bags to prepare the lads, but speed is certainly a big part of our training. We give the players weights programmes to build them up, but speed is of the utmost importance."

That was obvious against Clare, when Cork had the reserves to streak past the Banner in a frantic closing quarter, but Wallace points out that the Leesiders have faced a different challenge all summer.

"After 2003 we vowed on the field to come back, that nothing would stand in our way, and we did that last year. This year it's changed, every team is looking to beat us because we're champions, we're there to be knocked. That's over now - we're down to the last game - but against Clare we were lucky to be in touch with quarter of an hour to go, when we were able to get out game going. They couldn't keep the intensity going, and even though they threw the kitchen sink at us we held out.

"For our lads it's all linked together. They held their discipline and composure because they maintained their concentration, and they were able to maintain that because of their fitness."

Motivation was also a factor in beating Clare to the tape. Wallace can isolate December 8, when Cork returned to training, as the day he saw motivation wouldn't be an issue - the players were raring to go and couldn't wait to have games to play. He points out that this Cork side have won and lost All-Irelands, and the players aren't keen on experiencing the latter again, no matter the opposition.

"We've played Galway a few times this year, and they've obviously observed us fairly closely in the last couple of years. They look very accomplished. It's a final, and if this group of Cork players want to be remembered as a great team they have the opportunity this weekend. There can be no regrets on Monday morning, everything's been done."

Wallace says the hair will start rising on the back of the neck at the first glimpse of the Croke Park stands tomorrow, and the players will have a minute or two as the bus waits outside the stadium gates to get their thoughts together. When the bus trundles under the stands to bring the team to the dressing-rooms the minor game will be visible, and the reality of the game hits home.

At that stage the work of the backroom staff is all but done. They all have their jobs - Wallace, McGrath, Eddie O'Donnell, Chris O'Donovan and Dave Pyne, Declan O'Sullivan and Jim McEvoy, Eddie O'Donnell - but the game is in the players' hands.

"We've left no stone unturned - we've turned some stones over a few times - but the mood is good in the camp. They're a championship team."