Clare footballers hoping capital gains pay off

Muster SFC semi-final

It seems that there is no escaping the influence of Dublin football for Kerry these days.

On Sunday the Kingdom open their Munster Championship campaign with a semi-final against a Clare outfit with capital connections both on and off the field.

Forwards Pat Burke and Shane McGrath were both born and raised in Dublin (but playing for Clare under the parentage rule) while Mick Bohan and Keith Hennessy have extensive coaching experience in the city.

Bohan was head coach to the 2013 All-Ireland-winning Dublin footballers and is a nephew of former Clare hurling manager Fr Harry.

He is a huge advocate of skills development, whatever a player’s age. In the early stages of the season he introduced the Clare panel to the concept of using two footballs at the same time to help make them more at ease with the ball.

“No other way will you create a balanced player than working with two footballs.

“It’s so simple. If you start trying to work with one ball on one foot and then the other foot, you’ll never spend the same amount of time on both feet. This way it’s automatic and it becomes habit,” the former Clontarf club footballer explained

He cited Dublin’s Eoghan O’Gara as an example of how a player can develop his skills and make that count. “We had a 36-shot shooting challenge that we worked on with Dublin. On the Friday night before the All-Ireland final in 2013, O’Gara scored 33 out of 36, the highest of any forward that year. That was a guy who literally could only stand on one foot a year-and-a-half prior to that.

“When we met him in DCU he had no left foot and his right foot wasn’t good. I would safely say that O’Gara won the All-Ireland for Dublin in 2013.”

Hennessy is from St Mary’s GAA club in Saggart and lectures in strength and conditioning at LIT, while he is also a tutor with Setanta College in Thurles. Last Christmas the Dublin man moved to Killaloe with his family and this has helped in several respects.

“I was commuting from Dublin to Thurles for five years every day. We made the decision as a family at Christmas to move down. It’s great to be close by to players for extra sessions and to supervise players who are coming back from long-term injuries,” he told The Clare Champion this week.

Hennessy said that how players prepare away from the training field influences how they perform come match day. “We’re with them for eight hours a week. It’s the other 160 that make a difference on how well those eight hours go. We’re trying to assess them in lots of different ways. You’re looking at them away from training as much as at training.

“You’re looking at their hydration and what they are eating. It’s constantly keeping an eye on them and educating them so that they are looking after themselves. We only see them for a short space of time every week.

“When lads start to see that the work is paying off on the field and how many players are available for selection on match day, that’s how a strength and conditioning coach is judged,” he acknowledged.

Hennessy admits the trip to Killarney will be a special occasion. “For me growing up in Dublin, I would have heard all the stories of Dublin playing against Kerry. These are the days you get involved for. If you’re not looking forward to a big game against Kerry down in Killarney, you should be looking at why are you getting involved.”