Brolly hits out at win at any cost approach

The win at all costs mentality is damaging the next generation of Gaelic footballers, according to Joe Brolly.

The controversial pundit and former All-Ireland medal winner said the mentality to win by whatever means possible has rendered the game pointless, adding it is no longer worthwhile to teach juvenile players the basic skills of Gaelic football as they are permitted from expressing themselves by the emergence of cynical fouling.

Brolly, addressing the GAA Games Development Conference at Croke Park on Saturday, believes the position of U10 manager is the most important in GAA circles, calling on coaches to educate young players on the purity of the game and to advocate the skills displayed by both Kerry and Dublin in last year’s classic All-Ireland SFC semi-final.

“The win at all costs mentality, and I have been involved at underage in our club for the past eight years, renders the game pointless,” he fumed.

“One of your good lads is going through, he is dragged down. We tell a young lad to work on his bad foot so when he gets close to goal he has increased options, what’s the point?

“The win at all costs mentality is pointless and the classic example is the 2011 All-Ireland semi-final between Dublin and Donegal. That day when 15 jerseys laboured soullessly, pulling down, pulling down, feigning injury.

“The crowd in the field of dreams booing, slow clapping and groaning at this travesty that the game was turning into. Jim McGuinness did us a favour. He proved that winning at all costs is to be avoided at all costs.

“Ciarán McKeever, the best corner-back I ever saw play football, said to me recently ‘The problem is no one is actually learning the art of football any more’. They are not learning because they don’t have to. The corner-forward is back with the wing-back helping him in every game’.”

Pointing to Tyrone’s approach in last summer’s championship, Brolly said midfielder Seán Cavanagh was talking “through his arse” when commenting that such a style was necessary in a results driven business.

“We fall into the trap of sometimes believing that myth. The reason we fall into it is understandable. We think that winning is everything because we confuse it with the entirely healthy idea that the purpose of games is to try to win. If you win dishonourably, your own group will celebrate but no one else cares. The point of the game is boys and girls fulfilling themselves, throwing themselves into games, seeing where that takes them, taking risks, enjoying the skills of the game, expressing themselves. Is Joe Canning a loser because he hasn’t won an All-Ireland? It is totally ridiculous nonsense. This philosophy is the main attraction in the GAA. Losing is worthless and undeserving of our respect. It is of course a totally dishonourable creed.

“Enda Gormley, my good friend and an absolutely obsessed coach, was on a fact-finding mission a couple of years ago. He went to Kerry to see how they do business down there. He went with Ger Lynch who was taking the U12’s in Valentia Island. Enda said it was amazing. He said the first five minutes they were working on the flick pick-up, with both feet I might add. Ger Lynch said to him: ‘While ye are doing the blanket defence up north we are doing the flick pick-up’. Who do you think is enjoying it more?”

Brolly claimed attendances at adult games in Derry have fallen because of blanket defences, cynical fouling and a general unwillingness amongst teams to adopt an open, free-flowing approach.

Fed-up with such negativity, spectators, he said, had turned to underage matches to receive value for money.

Moreover, he backed the new rules introduced by the FRC and is optimistic the game can be restored to its former glory.

“The FRC is serving to rid the game of cynical fouling and its Siamese twin — winning at all costs. We know it is a damaging ethos. It is not good. Nobody likes it. Gaelic football tactics seem to have been set in stone. Build up a lead, then hold it over the last 15 minutes. Pull the man down, all the things we have seen. Donegal were good at it. Tyrone were great at it. Mayo, the first two years under James Horan, did it.

“Jim Gavin said publicly last year and this is so important to all coaches that such a style he wouldn’t allow. It would be man-on-man, sink or swim.

“It empowers players to look after themselves. They are not looking for others to help them. They are not looking for blanket defenders.

“The aim of these new rules is to free the game up so that the competitive spirit will work and games will be beautiful again, the way we need them to be.”