Mayo change how they do business

From the office to pitch, Mayo have rebuilt impressively

The GAA has changed in so many ways over the past 20 years. Tactics, styles, emphasis on skill sets, strength and conditioning and fitness have all evolved so the extent of change in management teams has been overlooked.

When Mayo emerged from the inter-county wilderness in 1989 for their final against Cork the structures were simple: manager and selectors/trainer.

Tomorrow, 19 backroom staff will step off the bus at Croke Park ensuring the players’ medical, logistical, psychological and kit issues are catered for. James Horan can rely on statisticians, sports scientists and coaches to provide him with up-to-the-minute analysis of the team’s performance.

But it’s more than that. It’s the approach. Horan’s closest aids, James Nallen and Tom Prendergast, work in the corporate world. Horan is a process quality assurance manager, Nallen works in NUI Galway’s physics department and Tom is a civil engineer.

Those backgrounds combined have helped Mayo incorporate business structures into the management structures.

“We come from similar backgrounds. We’re similar in terms of approach to the management and solving the problems,” admitted Tom.

Processes. Analytics. Reviews. Statistics. These are the buzzwords within the camp. The missing percentage that left them short in last year’s final has consumed the set-up since last September.

“The what ifs are no good,” said Tom. “They’re fine for everybody else but for us there’s nothing to be gained from that.

“We had to take that defeat squarely on the chin. I think we battled really hard and did a lot of good stuff but we weren’t as good as Donegal on the day. They beat us and that was a bitter pill to swallow. We had to look at it, go back and face up to the facts and say these are areas where we fell down and these are areas we need to improve on and then you go away and come up with a plan to improve on it.”

The first action point was to hold two separate reviews: “A facilitator review with the players with feedback from them to us and we had our own review where management got together and there were a whole pile of actions. They have fed into everything they did this year.”

Those shortcomings identified have been something they’ve worked all season. And they’re hoping it will pay off tomorrow.

“There were a number of things. From the final itself we had a lot of possession and attacks and probably didn’t get enough shots off. That was one.

“Defensively we worked hard but probably allowed them too much time to pick out passes that they shouldn’t have been able to have. We didn’t start as we would have wanted and didn’t impose our game on Donegal from the start which is what we wanted to do.

“You can go through all of those and drill down into those to see what’s the cause of them. We’ve worked hard on skill execution to become a more fluid team so we could get scores more easily and the fruits of that are coming through. We worked very hard again on our strength and conditioning and that’s another part of it. We worked very hard on defence, both as a team and individually in terms of our tackling.

“It’s not rocket science, those are the obvious things. The boys have been relentless in their approach. They just look for guidance from the coach and management and they’ve all sought areas to improve and have worked assiduously to bring their improvement. When you mesh all that together with 15-20 guys you get the improved performance you’re looking for.”

And has it worked?

“I think we’re about the same, a slight improvement. We’re working hard on it.

“You’re analysed more when you’re in the position we’re in. You’re almost running to standstill. Other teams are more aware of what we’re doing. We did very well against Galway but your cover is blown after that and you’re not going to get away with the same things every day. We’re working very hard to maximise after that.”

Tomorrow will tell.