HOW do we deal with criticism?
After all, it’s inevitable – a bit like death and taxes. And in sport, there can be an endless circle of personal and collective criticism directed toward you and your team at times.
When I was much younger, I really took personal criticism, well, very personally. I didn’t have the ability to stand back from it and take it for what it was.
Depending on who was giving it, of course, my reactions varied.
I remember playing in a league match one day and, after taking a fair beating on and off the ball, I collected the ball midway in my own half and skipped through a few late challenges, eventually being brought down on the 21 within free-taking distance.
A supporter from my own club started to shout at me for not passing the ball earlier. I lifted the ball and sought the gobby individual out in the crowd – I am finding them one way or another, I thought.
Needless to say, the culprit never emerged nor owned up to lambasting me. Now, I think the general feeling was that in that passage (and perhaps in others) I had brought the foul on myself by carrying the ball into tackles.
What they didn’t know was that I never possessed full confidence in my fellow players. I was always confident that I could finish moves better than many others. Rightly or wrongly, that’s how I played.
Now, I accept that perhaps I could have passed the ball more to players in better positions. Maybe that supporter had a point, perhaps I didn’t need to attract the punishment upon myself.
With the benefit of experience and many years of playing under my belt, I make a case of not beating myself up if I do happen to get criticised. I have learned to accept it in sport, especially Gaelic football.
I criticise others, so what’s good for the goose and all that. Don’t get me wrong, I have not lost that bit of spark you need, that edge, the ‘eye of the tiger’.
To an extent, criticism has made me the person I am. If I had a poor training session (which happens), I redoubled my efforts in the next one. If I had a poor game, I always made sure to take an ‘edge’ to the next training session.
I always carried this big black cloud of something subconsciously, this fear of failure, the fear of being a substitute or an insignificance in a team. I couldn’t, for example, remain as a substitute on a team on a consistent basis.
I wanted to play every minute of every game and, if I hadn’t, it would have caused me too much anguish. I admire the players who persevere. I know lads at intercounty level who were subs their entire inter-county playing life.
They perhaps secured runs in the team, but were in and out for one reason or another. For example, does anyone realise that Donnchadh Walsh of Kerry came into a county panel in 2003 and never started a Championship game until 2008?
Does anyone realise the discipline and mental fortitude required to stay the course in those five seasons prior to starting in 2008, without achieving team selection never mind honours. Walsh received an Allstar in 2015, many years later, and I doubt if anyone worked as hard for one a s he did in Kerry.
I am sure he was heavily criticised over the years; you can imagine his friends and club colleagues telling him that he was wasting his time over the years in committing to Kerry.
I know a few of my team-mates from 2010, indeed subs who, had we won, just couldn’t have enjoyed it to the same degree as those who had played. They were winners in the true sense of the word. If they couldn’t influence the outcome directly, how could they celebrate?
They are the same type of people as me, they took non-selection in a team or panel as a personal criticism.
I identify with these guys.
I moved into punditry and writing quite quickly after I quit playing with Down and, as poacher turned gamekeeper, needless to say I have been accused over the years of being unfair, biased and overly-critical at times.
I always took a consistent approach. I try to write as I play (or played). Honestly and directly. Some may say that some of the things I write are cheap shots, especially after heavy defeats involving various teams.
But I try to be as impartial as I can, having played the game at all levels. Unlike many in the area of punditry, I haven’t experienced winning the trophies and medals, the likes of the ex- Kerry, Dublin or Tyrone contingent.
I always viewed the commitment to inter-county football (and club football) as much easier when you come into a winning culture and indeed experience it on a consistent basis.
They say winning builds character. Believe it or not, so does losing.
You can’t imagine too much criticism around Mullinalaghta after Sunday. Nor indeed is their inspirational story in winning the Leinster Club Championship by defeating Kilmacud Croke’s last Sunday likely to receive too much attention beyond these shores.
But as an inspiration, I doubt there are many better.
I am sure many of those players, and indeed the parish, have had had to endure horrible experiences over the years.
Their manager Mickey Graham (inset) has played with Cavan very loyally over the years and now, as incoming manager, will be received by Breffni supporters with serious acclaim.
If there is anything to bring him down to earth from heavenly heights such as Mullinalaghta it is an inter-county managerial job.
It can break and indeed has broken many excellent managers down the years.
It can cause ex-players and fellow county men like Pat Spillane and Eamon Fitzmaurice to openly question each other’s achievements and character. It is difficult when you feel so passionately about something, care about something so much, are even willing to give everything for it and then receive very public and scathing criticism for it.
As a wise man once said: ‘Football is not a matter of life and death, it is much more important than that’.
My wife once said to me ‘Don’t take football so personal – it’s not a reflection on you’.
Not for the first time, nor probably the last, my answer was the same.
Football is the most personal thing in the world. Criticise at your peril...
