SHARON Madigan was just starting out a prolific career that has led her to the head of Irish sport when Eamonn Coleman invited her to work with Derry.
In his second stint, they would leave a second All-Ireland behind them that year.
Madigan had a very simple three-word message for the players.
Hydration, hydration, hydration.
The hatchlings of sports science were covered in lashings of scorn.
New-fangled theories like drinking water were not always particularly welcome.
Derry were doing circuit training at St Mary’s school in Clady.
In an attempt to emphasise the importance of the hydration plan, the school’s caretaker was contacted ahead of one particular session.
The thermostat was turned up on the gym, to 22 degrees.
The idea was to replicate a summer’s day in Clones.
When the players walked in, they were entering a sauna.
They trained as usual, with one caveat.
The players who had brought their own water, as they were supposed to, got to drink it.
Those that didn’t got nothing to drink.
Legend has it that Dermot Heaney lost 11lb in fluid that night.
Nobody would employ such methods now, of course.
The science has evolved and so has the attitude towards it.
Players have embraced the methods that drive the madness.
Everything about preparing even a semi-serious football team is down the nth degree.
When Malachy O’Rourke took over in Monaghan, he brought Ryan Porter with him.
Aside from winning two Ulster titles and narrowly losing an All-Ireland semi-final to Tyrone, is it any coincidence that so many of the team they left behind have been physically able to keep going for so long?
Porter had been responsible for putting the building blocks in place for Dromore’s championship success in 2012, building their coaching programme club-wide.
When they joined Glen, Porter told the players they’d be the fittest team in Derry by the end of their first year.
He takes what he calls a ‘slow roast’ approach to fitness.
“Turn up the heat, ruin the roast” is one of his phrases.
Basically, if you try to go from 0 to 100 too fast, you’ll burn the whole project to a crisp.
Glen won Derry and lost an Ulster semi-final after extra-time to Kilcoo.
They took almost three months off after that game. Porter asked O’Rourke to bring the players back six weeks before the league so he could build a good base. They ended up in the All-Ireland club final.
When Swatragh scored 3-9 against them seven weeks ago, people were starting to wonder if the tiredness was finally starting to hit.
The group games weren’t important to Glen.
They’d qualify one way or another.
They actually did so with six wins from six.
In the early part of the group stage, Porter had them working for October and November.
“I have to give to Ryan Porter – he is brilliant at having a team primed during the year. You have to get better as the year goes on but he had them just right,” said O’Rourke after last year’s county final win over Slaughtneil.
On Sunday’s 2023 decider, they looked in bother at half-time. It was 0-5 apiece but they were going to be facing into a wind against a Magherafelt team that was doing a superb job of keeping possession.
Glen ran out over the top of them in the second half.
To a man, their big leaders stood up.
Conor Glass was barely a week back in Ireland in October 2020 when he was thrown in for the resumption of Derry’s league campaign against Longford.
In the three years since, it has been non-stop. An Ulster Club semi-final in 2021, an All-Ireland campaign that ran all the way from ’22 into ’23 and then straight back in with Derry within a mater of days.
So when the county season finished, O’Rourke granted him a few weeks off.
He was away on holiday when Glen played their opening match in this year’s championship.
Jack Doherty and Ryan Dougan have both spent four or five months travelling at the start of both of the last two years.
They come home with six, eight weeks to go until championship and they get themselves up to speed.
There’s not a thought of Glen discarding them because they’re gone from March until July.
October is what counts.
The timing is a science that the best are fully on-board with.
The differences between the top teams are fractional.
Kilcoo have become expert at timing their best football for this stage of the year.
When they first won Ulster in 2019, they had scraped out of Down. It took a replay to get past Burren, they edged out Clonduff and then beat Warrenpoint by a single point in the final.
They went on to win the provincial title, blow Ballyboden away and then take the great Corofin to extra-time.
In 2021, they needed extra-time against Carryduff and beat Burren by two in the final.
Four weeks later, they scorched the grass in Breffni, blowing Ramor United off the face of the earth.
The year would end with an All-Ireland title, won by a goal after 81 minutes of football that was manufactured by cool heads.
Last year, it was extra-time and one point to spare against Warrenpoint again before falling in the Ulster final to Glen.
It took them months to even get a manager sorted for this season.
Karl Lacey, who holds a Masters in Sports Performance, needs no guidance on the science.
Controversy has followed them in recent weeks.
Look past it and you’ll see them playing some of their best football in years.
Kilcoo and Glen look to be timing it to perfection for another showdown in early December.
