Magician Ciarán McDonald still casting spells in Mayo
POINTING THE WAY: Ciarán McDonald’s addition to the Mayo backroom for this season was an early blockbuster story. But it was no gimmick. Manager James Horan knows that the Crossmolina man embodies the qualities he prizes.
Even on the toughest days, James Horan never succumbed to the Mayo God Help Us stuff.
Take the aftermath of the 2012 final and the early concession of two early goals to Donegal.
Instantly, Horan turned the questions back on themselves.
“As regards our play,” he explained, “there were a lot of fundamentals that weren’t as strong as usual. Our first touch inside let us down and the ball was hopping off us quite a bit… Some of our decision-making today and some of our basic skills let us down.”
A year later after another final defeat to Dublin, he was already dissecting the video before the playback.
“It was closer at half-time than it should have been. In the second half, when we were attacking, we just made some poor decisions at times and it eventually cost us.”
The message never changes; victory is in their hands if they can make the right decisions, executed under pressure.
Like when Ciarán McDonald took on that improbable shot in the dying stages of the 2006 semi-final, producing yet another way for Dublin to lose a big game.
McDonald’s addition to the Mayo backroom for this season was an early blockbuster story. But it was no gimmick. Horan knows that the Crossmolina man embodies the qualities he prizes.
In Managing My Life, the 1999 autobiography of Alex Ferguson with Hugh McIlvanney, Ferguson opened a chapter with his belief system of coaching.
“Forget all the nonsense about altering training programmes to keep players happy. The argument that they must be stimulated by constant variety may come across as progressive and enlightened but it is a dangerous evasion of priorities. In any physical activity, effective practise requires repeated execution of the skill involved…
“The link is the need to concentrate on refining technique to the point where difficult skills become a matter of habit. When footballers complain about the dullness of repetitive passing exercises it is usually not monotony they resent but hard work. David Beckham is Britain’s finest striker of a football not because of God-given talent but because he practises with a relentless application that the vast majority of less gifted players wouldn’t contemplate.”
Horan was on the pitch to watch Stephen Cluxton’s speech as winning captain in 2013. When he came to thanking Jim Gavin, he said, ‘he has allowed us to dictate what we want to do on the pitch to an extent…’ before breaking into a smirk and saying, ‘repetition, repetition, repetition.’ Cue a shy smile and salute from Gavin.
For all the flamboyance of the Mayo team of McDonald, his football was polished and rehearsed over countless hours.
In coaching terms, it was always something he was going to carry with him. Two years ago when ‘The Mayo Way’ coaching plan was rolled out, McDonald was handed the role of head coach of the county U14 development side.
He commented then: “When you come here, it takes time. It takes some weeks of repetition. It’s probably boring for them at the beginning; ‘What am I doing here? This is too easy.’ But it’s all about repetition, it’s all about getting the little things that make the difference, it’s all about new ideas.”
McDonald is not weighed down with years of coaching experience. Before that development squad role, the extent of his exposure has been through the club and school underage teams his son Kobe has played on.
That could be to his advantage, according to Aidan O’Shea.
“He’s a very personable fella. He’s the first man on the training pitch every night, out getting the drills and cones set up, and kicking with the lads and talking to them,” he says.
"I think that’s been reflected in the way we’ve played. He’s all about making your team-mates better and trying to pick out the pass at the right time. We’ve tried to do that as best we can, I think it suits our gameplan and the profile of player we have.” Horan offered his reasoning for the move at the start of the year.
“The way he talks and explains it and questions and challenges players is a very constructive approach. And, of course, his knowledge of the game. It is really beneficial. Ciaran Mac, it is far to say, just loves football,” he beamed.
“I’d get early morning calls with different ideas and suggestions. And the players have huge, huge respect. He’s a quiet guy who loves football. And wants to share as much knowledge as he can. It’s great to have him around the place.”
And Stephen Coen: “A great player and all that, but you’d always think maybe he mightn’t be as good at coaching. But he’s brilliant. Very, very clever.”
McDonald belongs to a long line of those that never got sick of the feeling of a ball thumping off a wall.
Christy Ring carried two hurleys and two balls in the cab of his oil lorry for impromptu puck arounds. Mick O’Connell practised kicking against a gable wall of his house on Valentia Island, catching it at different heights and angles.
Paddy Doherty of Down would aim his kicks through the windows of the houses he was building.
The physical side of McDonald’s preparation was taken care of by his work laying pipe. What precious free time he had went on his skills.
It’s worth noting one of the rare interviews he granted during his playing days. The then writer Kieran Shannon went up to Ballina in 2001 to watch the dying embers of their basketball team defeat Demons at home with the place rocking in 2001.
Afterwards he went to a bar when in walked Ballina’s finest, Liam McHale and Deora Marsh. McDonald was in their company and when they fell into conversation, Shannon asked for an interview.
McDonald agreed. They would speak in his work van before he took a bag of balls to practise his kicking. The condition was that Shannon would have to keep the balls kicked out to him.
The takeaway quote was; “I just want to play a game of ball the way it is meant to be played.”
On an All-Stars trip in January 2005 in Hong Kong, most players were opening the pores and running off the excesses of a couple of nights on a plastic pitch.
Down the other end in splendid isolation was McDonald kicking a succession of frees. A quartet of Colm Cooper, Peter Canavan, Declan Browne, and Steven McDonnell were ambling towards him but decided to stop and enjoy the spectacle.
The complexity in the relationship between McDonald and his county has given way in recent times to one of utter devotion.
The day in early April 2003 when he walked into the dressing room in Charlestown and told everyone he was finished with county football after being booed throughout a league defeat to Fermanagh is rarely brought up now.
Instead, his every move throughout the team warm up is recorded on mobile phones by fans and journalists hungering for him to approach a football and produce one of those spinners or dippers. Remind them of a better time when the game had a bit more artistry, and McDonald a Jackson Pollock splat against the monochrome of today.
One passage of House Of Pain, the magnificent folkstory on Mayo football by Keith Duggan attempted to wrestle with the enigma of McDonald.
A former team-mate said he played with him for many years, but couldn’t say to have known him whatsoever.
He added; ‘I would say whenever he does finish up, we won’t hear from him again.’
Another contradiction.
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