Coaching session with a twist

These things can actually be the making of you as a manager. It is an educational thing and it’s your ability to learn from these things that is so important. I would say that early in my career, we were ill-prepared for a Galway hurling team who beat us in Croke Park in 2001 and I certainly felt culpable for it. I would say it definitely made me a better manager.

Think about it. The likelihood is that every time you have heard Alex Ferguson or Ian McGeechan open their mouth, it is invariably whilst speaking to a reporter before or after some match of undoubted importance. They are speaking not because they want to but because they have to. What they “reveal” is at best of limited importance, sometimes next to useless, their minds locked up and the key thrown away while the cameras roll.

Now and again they emerge from their bunkers and, when they do, it can be an illuminating experience. Last week, three of Ireland’s finest coaches did just that and they didn’t disappoint. In total, 1,600 coaches and wannabe coaches filed into the conference room at CityWest Hotel to pick up on the pearls of wisdom dropped by Brian Cody, Mickey Harte and Declan Kidney.

It’s true what they say. Fertile minds search for seeds in many different fields. By the afternoon’s end, the trio had touched on a self-help book based on ancient Tao principles and name-checked Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York. All three men have been the driving forces behind Irish sport’s three leading teams but they didn’t emerge from the mould as we see them now, as well-rounded leadership figures ready to take on, and conquer, their worlds.

Ask any successful person and they will say that their mistakes were far more important, far more enlightening, than all their victories put together so it was interesting to hear the talk turn to their worst decisions. Harte protested that there were too many and begged to be excused but Cody’s response was fascinating and went a long way to explaining why Kilkenny continue to dominate the hurling landscape.

“We all make mistakes. These things can actually be the making of you as a manager. It is an educational thing and your ability to learn from these things that is so important. I would say that early in my career, we were ill-prepared for a Galway hurling team who beat us in Croke Park in 2001 and I certainly felt culpable for it. I would say it definitely made me a better manager. As long as you learn from mistakes they can be huge positives.”

Kidney’s came many years before Cody’s but was no less painful.

“In school I took over the U15s, a cup team. We had 36 kids at the start of the year and I told them in September that come Christmas we were cutting the cup panel down to 30 because that’s what you needed, two 15s. I picked my 30 and told the six kids before I announced it that they were off the panel. I had no right to do that, telling 15-year olds that they couldn’t train, that I couldn’t adjust my training sessions to let them play.

“The power of the coach is unbelievable. You have a huge effect on peoples’ lives and I told those young fellas that I wasn’t coaching them anymore. I had no right to do that. I think I have learned from it. Sport is for everybody. This country, whatever else it is going to go through, we are going to need sport for what it was invented for and that is participation, going out and getting a bit of release and feeling better about themselves.”

The adult game, whatever the sport, is a more cutthroat environment. It is a fact of life that the further up the pyramid a player progresses the greater his or hers chances of being given their P45. If there is one thing that every coach agrees on, it is the hatred they have for that element of their game.

Even Cody, a man whose demeanour suggests ice in his veins, admits to a dislike for it. God knows he has had to do it enough times. After all, how many times have we seen hugely talented Kilkenny players, guys that would have adorned most other county teams, slip off the panel and back into the recesses of the club game?

“There are so many players who come in, terrific players who come in and are genuine and committed, who want to be part of that panel. It is soul destroying to tell these players that they are losing out to somebody else. I hate doing it. It is a terrible job. I don’t have a problem if a player doesn’t make the first 15 because it is about the panel. To tell a player he is no longer part of the panel is awful and I hate having to do it.”

Harte concurs. The Tyrone manager has developed a reputation as something of a deep thinker and if you want to understand his thought processes you could do worse than read a book called ‘The Power of Intention’ by Dr Wayne Dyer. Every word Harte utters takes the player into account. What the player is thinking and why.

When a player is dropped he needs to be told why. “It doesn’t make it easy but it helps,” says the Tyrone manager. If there is a word that defines the man it is ‘positivity’. Here he is discussing how to keep players fresh:

“One of the first places I will start is your language. If you tell people things are tough and hard and that they are down in the mouth then they will be that. You have to be optimistic in your language and your approach and outlook.

“You have to be able to see what your players are doing as well and give them the right kind of work for the time of the season they are at.

“Be considerate of what they are doing and tailor your sessions to suit them. Keep it interesting and, as far as I am concerned, (use) the ball 90% of the time if not more. It should be as game-orientated as possible where people are doing things that they know are going to apply to the games they have to play. Don’t let anybody bring negative vibes to your party.”

The opposite is, of course, just as true. The benefits of someone bringing something positive to the party were evident last Christmas when Pádraig Harrington took the time to address Kidney’s squad. The then British Open champion arrived with one page of notes but spoke for a full hour and left the Irish side with plenty to ponder.

Kidney is a firm believer in the cross-pollination of ideas between sports and, like most coaches, his quest for that extra 1% goes beyond sporting boundaries time and again. One such occasion was for a management speech given by Giuliani who said that good coaches make the right choices 60% of the time, very good coaches make them 70% of the time and the best 85%.

“Being from Cork I took that as meaning the best managers make the wrong decision 15% of the time. So, we are the same as players and in rugby we are the same as the ball: you never know what way it is going to hop. You give it your best shot and that is not a bad way to be in life. You are going to make mistakes, show your warts, but what are you going to do, sit on the fence? You get one go at life so why not make a go of it? It’s okay to make a mistake because everyone makes them.”

We will give the final word to Cody.

“I have no recollection of it ever being said to me but it is something I firmly believe in dealing with players one-to-one: just to believe in yourself, because in sport you have to have the ambition to be the best you possibly can be and the same in coaching. If you have absolute belief in yourself you would be amazed how far it would bring you.”