The man behind when it comes down to the wire
CORK HURLING manager John Allen has repeatedly praised the vital role played by his team trainers in their All-Ireland victories over the past two years. Likewise with Kerry coach Jack O'Connor, who always mentions Pat Flanagan, the team's Waterford-born trainer.
A former champion sprinter and graduate of Thomond College, he first came to prominence with IT Tralee's Sigerson Cup-winning teams which were coached by Val Andrews. And the pair worked together with Cavan for a spell before Flanagan got involved with his local team in Kerry, Milltown-Castlemaine.
As he explains, a request to help out for a few weeks extended to a three-year involvement, with a fair degree of success in 2001.
The same year Cavan got to the Ulster final, but he had parted company before then. He remembers travelling up to Clones to cheer them on against a Tyrone team "on the way up", feeling at the time they were unlucky to lose by two points.
He first worked with Jack O'Connor with the Kerry U21's, ironically when Waterford defeated them in a Munster final in Walsh Park. Around this time last year, one particular newspaper columnist referred to that defeat as "the latest entry" on O'Connor's cv. It irked him and annoyed County Board Chairman Sean Walsh who referred to it publicly - without naming the individual - at the media night preceding last year's All-Ireland final. Afterwards, O'Connor made it known how much the comment had hurt him at the time.
For Flanagan, it's been "a great adventure." From the outset, he realised how lucky he was to be working with "a very good squad of talented players." It was, he says, a great start even before he started working with them.
Emotionally, the Kerry players would have been suffering after the failure to Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final, which came after the loss to Armagh in the 2002 final and the humiliating defeat at the hands of Meath at the semi-final stage the year before (2-14 to 0-5). Whatever mood he detected in the camp when he first got involved, Flanagan wasn't willing to talk about it - saying that he "tended not to look back."
"From the time we started, we never felt we were catching up. The commitment level of the players was very high. We went with that and the players really guided us through,'' he commented.
The players themselves will tell you that training is varied and enjoyable. Practically, it's not possible to do all the training all the time - for the simple reason that he only has the players twice a week, sometimes for three nights. Because of that, he is unable to "do all the type of work he would want to do", in one week. And, there is never any question of taking things easy before games. "You can't under-train for a game believing you are going to win it,'' he added.
Pointing out that training is carried out in phases, over the last few days the squad completed a "four-week block", planned after the Cork game. It's all about trying to get the team ready for "one last big effort."
"It was a matter of deciding what little things extra you needed to work on. Maybe you haven't done some core stability work or flexibility work for a couple of weeks - and you go back to catch up.'' Physically, it's all about working on the skills and "the physical self", taking time to recover and "eat well." Psychologically, it's similar to sitting an important examination.
"If you feel you have prepared well, mentally you feel good about it and you're looking forward to it. You're not frightened of it. It's a challenge you want to get out and have a go at. Coming into a big game is something to look forward to as opposed to dreading that you mightn't do well.''
Looking at the Tyrone set-up, he says they have a lot of the attributes "you'd love to have in any team" - a fantastic work-rate, speed around the field, a lot of "explosive" players. Like most observers, he was intrigued by how strongly they finished in their semi-final win over Armagh, saying: "I was hugely impressed by their work-rate in the last 15 minutes. That was a tough game and they were able to up their pace. They found reserves of energy that were fantastic to watch.
"If you look at the Premiership teams, they use games to get fit and Tyrone have had a fabulous run in that sense.
"It seems to be coming together very well for them,'' he added.
From Kerry's perspective, he agrees that their run through to the final has been similar to last year, being particularly pleased with the performance in the All-Ireland semi-final. "They really rolled up their sleeves and got around the pitch and made it very difficult for Cork. If we could do that again, I'd say we'll be all right. You'd like to improve on it, but you can't ask players to keep upping and upping it."
Flanagan thinks just as highly of the manager as O'Connor regards him. Jack's work with the team may never be known, he says. "We're talking about every day of the week. What he brings to it is a clear vision of how he wants the team to play and he has spent two years trying to get them working with him on that. And that helps good players. They like to know the structure and within that they can express themselves.
"His strength is the amount of time and effort he puts in. To get the players to play as well he thinks they can,'' he added.
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