THE nights are drawing in and on Monday it was nearly dark when I went out to the back garden to see what the dog was at.
I could hear a bit of splashing from over the fence in my neighbours’ garden.
I knew what was happening.
“Good man,” I said, referring to my neighbour’s 17-year-old son.
“Are you having a dip?”
“Yeah,” came the reply through clenched teeth as he slipped into his ice bath.
“Did you have a match this evenin’?” I asked.
He had played a minor championship game and went on to tell me how it had been a tight finish but his team had hung in there and got over the line to win a thriller.
“How did you play?” I asked.
“Alright,” he says, not using three words when one will suffice, as teenagers tend to do.
“Did you score?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“What did you get?”
“3-9,” he says.
“3-9?!” I replied in amazement.
I didn’t score 3-9 in my life. Like, in my entire life.
I congratulated him and went back inside.
With all the football chat, I completely forgot about the dog and so a few minutes later I had to go out again.
“You still in there?” I called.
“Yup,” came the reply through the darkness.
“Do you want the paper?” I asked.
He didn’t.
After scoring 3-9 in a single game, there he was recovering in his ice-bath in the dark in his back garden - not lying on the sofa with a chicken burger and two litres of coke thinking about how good he was. Brilliant, isn’t it? What amazing commitment from the lad next door who’s a real role model in his club and community.
If you wanna be the best and you wanna beat the rest, dedication’s what you need.
We’ve come a long way in the GAA. The standards of excellence go from county level to the smallest club. Even 10-15 years ago, training was much more off-the-cuff. You might have had an odd player here and there doing a gym programme but that would have been his or her choice. It certainly wouldn’t have been a widespread thing. Nowadays everybody is at it, right down to the U14s.
The teams that don’t put the gym work in are falling light years behind. Gaelic Football used to be 75 per cent physical and maybe 25 per cent technical. I’d say that has reversed now but there is a balance to be struck and the best teams, the successful ones, are able to get it right.
I went to three games last weekend. In one of them I saw a bit of the old school blood-and-thunder. A big fella was putting himself about, trying to empty anybody near him. His opponents were fitter than him and better organised and knew what they were about with the ball.
So all he did was give away fouls, waste his reserves of energy (which weren’t that high to begin with) and risk getting himself sent off.
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But another game I went to was overly-tactical. It was all about tucking-in, getting an extra-runner, multiple sweepers and overloads… A bit of old school blood and guts would have been handy but it wasn’t there.
Jim McGuinness’s appointment as Donegal manager back in 2010 played a huge part in the game we have nowadays.
Football is constantly evolving. Long before the McGuinness era you had Joe Lennon and his catch-and-kick philosophy in the 1960s, the innovative Armagh teams of the early 2000s, Mickey Harte’s Tyrone in the same decade…
Jim-ball was different though because McGuinness ripped up the script – the old positions (with the exception of goalkeeper which has evolved since then) were done away with and it was all about how entire teams moved up and down the field.
At an Irish News Allstars dinner some years ago my job was to ‘host’ the table and make sure everyone had enough to drink (a role I fulfilled with typical diligence). As luck would have it, I found myself seated between McGuinness (then in his first spell as Donegal manager) and Harte (then Tyrone manager). What an education. I asked one of them (can’t remember which) about the game the previous weekend and the debate took off…
One broke the game down and then the other, I wouldn’t say argued, but certainly gave an alternative opinion and it went back and forth until the first course (vegetable soup) arrived and spoiled it all. You have to know when to keep your mouth shut so I just sat there and listened to a fascinating discussion wishing I could have recorded it.
During his first spell with Donegal, McGuinness had the gameplan but also the charisma to flog his players in training until they were able to make his revolutionary new system work.
It was a game-changer. Other counties had to follow suit and so training standards and the levels of commitment required to play the game went up and up.
Talent – the ability to kick the ball over the bar - was soon no longer enough above junior level. That was brought home to me a few of seasons ago when I watched a Mayo player take a thunderous shoulder that would have put most of us into the stand.
It shook him down to his ankles and he swayed to the left like a ship in a storm but somehow stayed on his feet. How? Because of the core work he had done in the gym. He rode the tackle, kept the ball and Mayo went on to win that game.
Back to today and McGuinness is picking up the pieces after some relatively hard times in Donegal. He doesn’t have the players he had first time around. No Michael Murphy, no Lacey, no McGees, no McFadden… I’ll be amazed if he has the same impact with the current crop of players, although there is certainly plenty of talent still there.
Then again, only a brave man or a fool would have put his money on Donegal doing anything fast when he took over the first time and they won Ulster in year one and the All-Ireland in year two. Having been passed over the year before, McGuinness had so much to prove back then.
Now he is the man, will that hunger still be there?
I’d be very confident that it will be. One thing is for sure, the GAA in general, and Ulster in particular, is better with McGuinness in it, so interesting times lie ahead.
Ok, enough for now, there’s nobody next door so I’m gonna hop the fence and take a dip in the ice-bath. I’m thinking of trying out for Armagh Masters next year.
No, not really…
