Mick Bohan: Kicking ability has kept Kerry competitive

Dublin’s 2013 All-Ireland winning skills coach Mick Bohan has described Kerry as the “best kickers” in the game and believes their proficiency in this department has enabled them to keep in touch with Dublin and Mayo.

Bohan, who coached the Clare footballers in 2016 and is taking charge of the Dublin ladies for the 2017 season, says the ease at which Kerry put boot to ball has allowed Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s charges compete with Dublin even though the Kingdom haven’t produced the same level of footballers as the reigning All-Ireland champions during the past decade.

“Kerry, for me, are still, technically, the best kickers of the ball in the game,” Bohan said at the GAA’s Games Development Conference last weekend.

“As a result of that, they have stayed in touch at senior level when they haven’t produced the same numbers of footballers over the past decade as Dublin or Mayo. But because of their technical skills to kick the ball, they’ve stayed in the game.

“I know Kerry’s revolution at minor is on the way, but at this point in time, that is why they are where they are.

“The reason they are staying in touch with the likes of Dublin is because technically they are still so good.”

Bohan is concerned that less and less focus is being placed on the basic skills of the game and pointed to Eoghan O’Gara as the perfect example of Dublin’s prioritising of a games-based approach to their training.

“Eoghan O’Gara came into DCU and he had one foot. His mother told me at the function after winning the 2013 All-Ireland that it was the first year where she had gone to watch her son and he hadn’t been abused by Dublin supporters because of his weak skill-sets. If you remember his impact on the 2013 All-Ireland final, not that one player ever wins a game, but I don’t think Dublin would have been successful without his introduction that day.”

He continued: “We had a former strength and conditioning coach involved with Dublin who subsequently got involved with another county. When he introduced more or less the same program [with that county], he was told by the manager that there is no way Dublin are winning All-Irelands doing that little amount of running. What he didn’t see was the amount of games-based drills involved with the training.

“That attitude still exists, to a degree, that we must flog players and if we don’t then we are not succeeding.”

Former Cavan footballer Nicholas Walsh, who’s currently working as backline coach for AFL outfit Greater Western Sydney Giants, says the workload forced upon inter-county teams is “ludicrous”.

He’s heard rumour of Jiu Jitsu being incorporated into training schedules and cannot see the logic in working amateur players six days a week. “I’m lucky to be working in a professional organisation where I’ve players from 7.30am to 4.30pm every day. Basically, we can fit in education sessions and we can fit in reviews, weights sessions, pilates and all that.

“Stripping back to what we have here in the GAA world, we have to be efficient with our time. The game is the most important thing. Without the game, you won’t have anything. Games-based activities should be the number one priority and then everything else should fit around that.

“I’ve heard of teams doing Jiu Jitsu, all of this stuff outside the game. It is ludicrous. Players need time off. Looking back on people I knew during my career, a lot of us did the wrong things at the wrong time.”