The way to get the best out of Paddy — treat him mean

WHEN Bob Dylan first met Johnny Cash at the Newport (not Co. Tipperary) Folk Festival in 1964, they say that Dylan just looked up at him, like a big tree, and walked all the way around him and said ‘yeah.’

When I first met Giovanni Trapattoni, I walked around the far side, and told him to pull it tight against the wall, there might be more calling: he had to get out on the passenger’s side, over the interpreter, who never takes the lead in that relationship.

“You can leave her in the yard,” I ordered, and I wasn’t talking about the car.

“We can do this in French, German, Dutch, or Italian — your call, Giovanni, but I never needed another man to speak up for me and I don’t intend to start today.”

I repeated it in Irish, and, finally, the penny dropped. Trap dropped too — to his knees to pat our family cat, Nola.

“Careful, Giovanni,” I roared, “or she’ll scrape. Don’t reach for the honey without smoking the hive.”

It was too late. Nola took a chunk out of his hand.

“I have learned a great deal from that engagement,” he said, in that thoughtful way of his that suggests just the right kind of thoughtlessness a successful manager needs.

Inside, Nancy made scones, and herself scarce. Back to back we faced each other in the dying light, and he peppered me with questions about my past.

“You’ve a great future behind you,” I told him, “but what about the future that has yet to unfold, the future that, when it unfolds in the future, will actually happen in the here and now.”

He looked perplexed. Primarily because he was. “Noel,” he said, “in the past I have considered many philosophical matters — permutations, strategies, man management — but that is by some distance the most intriguing question I have ever been asked. Can I take some time to mull on it?”

I countered: “You can take all the time you want in the future, but the future, never forget, is always the here and now when it arrives. Do you want a hot drop — or will I leave it a few minutes?”

His head was spinning, literally and metaphorically.

“Noel,” he pressed on, “this Irish psyche, this Irish temperament, how can I tame the shrew? How can I get the cat back in the bag? Are the Irish fatally attracted to counting their chickens before they are hatched?”

I swung around in my chair, causing him to jump in surprise. “Giovanni,” I said, my anger — and sap — rising, “you don’t know what you’re dealing with here. Paddy is a funny detail. Paddy needs careful handling. If you get Paddy on your side, he will do a lot for you. But if you alienate him, if you insult him, if you ignore him, if you treat him mean — then you’ll really get the best out of Paddy.”

He looked me in the eye, courtesy of the mirrors on the wall.

“Go on, Noel,” he said, warming to the topic. “I first learned about how to handle Paddy when I managed the club camogie team to their first six-in-a-row. I left after the sixth title to concentrate on my Junior Cert. But it was then I realised that the best way to do more for Paddy is to do less, a lot less, as little as you can, if not less. I always made a point of being an hour early for training. In that hour came the magic. I took down goal-posts, let sheep onto the field, spread rumours, blocked gates. Anger became the team’s calling card. In the end, they trusted no-one, not even themselves. They grew warped, some even physically. They were impossible to reason with — when I consider the greatest teams I ever crafted, they would nearly always be in my top 100.”

I narrowed my eyes, and the distance between them, and, indeed, us: “You must come at Paddy from the blindside, that’s the secret to this.”

And so began what some have been unkind enough to call The Noel Dance.

He said: “To make them go left, tell them to go right, is that it?”

I replied: “It is — if it is.”

He said: “If I want them to defend, tell them to attack, no, yes?”

I replied: “No. Yes. Now you’re getting the hang of it.”

Trap: “You say po-taytos, I say po-tattos.”

Noel: “I say Roosters.”

We spent two hours in this vein. I could see Trap had made some breakthroughs. Andy Reid has never forgiven me. But this is a results game. I am intensely proud of what Trap has achieved, though I would never tell him that. There’s a touch of the Paddy in this Patrician figure. But I fear an Estonian backlash: Ireland by the narrowest of margins, if not tighter.